Emergency winter backcountry stove

“the weather as unpredictable as a schizophrenic PMSing French poodle”
That just made my day.

It sounds like the weather here.

My standard day bc ski tour carry is a couple of esbit tabs with the idea of using them to light up timber.

91-95% alcohol shouldn’t have any trouble lighting up with some fire applied I wouldn’t think.

An alcohol stove certainly isn’t the best thing to be using for melting snow. Alcohol doesn’t vaporize as easily in cold weather and melting snow is probably the worst thing you could try to do with it, the snow will sap any heat from the stove itself and will make it exremely difficult to get going. For an emergency stove, that is not the problem you want when you find yourself in a, well, emergency.

I was out on a trip about a year ago where I started to recognise the first signs of hypothermia in myself and needed to get myself warmed up. I had a real job getting my alcohol stove going in the cold and there wasn’t any snow around. So snow would certainly make it worse.

I have been considering the possibility of fitting a small attachemnt to my alcohol stoves that would enable a tea light candle to sit underneath the stove and for the candle flame to heat the stove and alcohol inside. That might work although I haven’t tried it yet.

You could also look at some of the chemically heated ready to eat meals. If your looking to protect yourself for an emergency overnight stay, they are effective.

Scott

The “Yu-can” stove that Monty Alford’s “Winter Wise” book shows is made just for this. With the right construction, it could be made reasonably light.

(It’s made of a couple of food cans, a little snipping and bending, and uses tea lights for heat).