Hey I would like to move away from isobutane canisters as much as possible. I just don’t enjoy storing them, carrying partial canisters and find them awkward to ration fuel for trips. For group trips they are still going to be my first choice.
I was wondering if anyone has used sticks to boost their solid fuel/alcohol system into the shoulder seasons (temps in and around freezing). I don’t really like to ration fuel in these temps. Found that alcohol really wasn’t worth the weight savings in these temps. My local is the Canadian Rockies and I find that their is always kind of dead sticks on the bottom side of live Douglas fir, balsam, and other trees that tend to stay dry and burn okay.
my thoughts are that a half cube of Esbit or 1/4 oz of alcohol would get the fire going fast enough to eliminate waiting too long for a wood fire to get hot. You can always use the fire to dry things out while you have it going if you want or in my locale very easily put it out quickly with surrounding water and snow.
So tell me your experiences, methods and gear setups. I have never used fire to boil water in an ultralight backpacking scenario.
don’t plan on trying this during the high fire risk summer season.
