I have a friend who does mountaineering and he recommended to me to use a canister stove setup............yes, we could bring a few stoves but he thinks these work well even to minus 20deg F as long as one stays below 8000ft (easily done in the Northeast)........just to keep the canister in your jacket before using.......
What do people thing of this.
They will work fine to 20F - that ain't very cold - with a little bit of canister warming you're
fine.
They don't work worth a crap below about 10F - unless you pre-warm them. I don't trust one in anything like winter - but winter here is -20 and -30 (Centigrade).
The problem is isopro has a little bit of propane and a lot of butane - if you burn off the propane in cold weather before getting it warm enough to vaporize the butane, well, you're boned.
He feels they are easier to use and don't clog up...........
They are easier to use. they don't need any priming. They don't clog up, but lindal valves (the little ball that holds the gas in when you disconnect the stove) fail. *PARTICULARLY* in cooler weather.
And if you are melting snow, you will need a *lot* of fuel - that's a lot of canisters.
So imo, depends what you're using it for. If you're not much colder than 20F, and you're just doing a bit of cooking and coffee making, canister is great. If you're melting snow for water for a party of people, forget it. White gas. If you want to keep it simple, get a good, simple white gas stove.
Of course, by the time you are *not* melting snow - you can consider alcohol.
I own a canister stove, I use it mostly for daytrips, and making coffee in hotel rooms <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
In a non-snow melting situation, I use alcohol, in a homemade alcohol stove. It is lighter than the canister stove, and more bombproof (no lindal valve to fail and lose my fuel)
If snow melting is going to happen, I take a white gas stove. using one is really not
rocket science.
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