The Outdoor Adventure Giving you tips, tricks & recommendations to help make adventuring in the Outdoors fun, safe & exciting for you and your kids.
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| My first cook setup |
Ok, I’m going to start with something that has bothered me. In the forums there are at least a handful of people that, on the subject of backpacking gear say things like, “well you’re prepared to spend XXX on YYY so why aren’t you prepared to spend XXXX on backpacking gear.” Quite frankly I don’t have XXX to spend on YYY and if I had it It’d probably get allotted to my kids’ education or their feet or some other expense that came up. I can sometimes spend X, on rare occasions XX and maybe for my birthday 1XX every couple years. Apart from people without financial responsibilities and Yuppies (young urban professionals) with cash to burn, the majority want to enjoy nature and do so within their budget.
That’s why I’m a DIYer and always keeping my eye out for a bargain. I just finished reading “The Outdoor Survival Handbook” by Ray Mears and on the topic of gear he says you should always buy the best you can within your budget. I definitely agree. Just because you can’t afford a sub 2 pound goose down sleeping bag for $350, that shouldn’t stop you from getting outdoors and enjoying yourself. The outdoors is not exclusively for the rich, neither should they be limited to those who choose to carry less than 10 pounds of gear. We can all share them and enjoy and do so within our own budgets.
What I want to consider today on this topic is cooking systems. Frankly, cooking isn’t essential on backpacking trips and there is many a post that looks at cold food for the trail, but for those times when you want something hot to drink or a nice cup of soup you might want to turn to a cook system. You can drop a lot of Xs on an expensive system like Jet boil, the MSR reactor, or other similar setups and frankly you’d probably be happy. But if you’re not ready to do that yet, let’s say you’re experimenting to see if backpacking is for you or maybe you’ve just got a budget of X or XX then never fear here are some ideas.
The stove. Your best option is going to be to make your own. With just a few used cans, tin snips and push pins you can set yourself up for success with an alcohol stove /use yellow HEET brand gas line antifreeze). Feel free to check the growing DIY section for idea or take a look at one of the videos below. There are a multitude of different ideas, zenstoves.net is a good site to check out. Once you understand the concept of how these stoves work you can start designing your own.
A Couple links:
Not a DIYer? Don’t worry there are a number of premade options that will work just fine, like esbit style solid fuel tablets, military surplus stoves and the good old trangia. None of these should break your budget.
The pot. How many of us have seen the titanium pot and spoon, like the snowpeak line? They’re pretty slick, but even on steep and cheap dot com you rarely see the pot by itself for less than $20. There are other options out there. Lots of people will dumpster dive for or simply buy a large 24 oz foster’s or Heineken beer can and use that for their cook pot. It’s simple and recyclable. With a simple can opener you can pop the top off and with sand paper smooth out the sharp edges.
Not up for DIYing? Check out the IMUSA aluminum grease pots. They’re light, aluminum and sturdy. If you go traveling in South America, look in the markets (watch your pockets). I’ve scored a couple sub $5 deals on aluminum pots and lids in sizes from my 2 cup coffee maker (with aluminum filter) to a 1 liter pot to a 2.5 liter pot.
The point is this: You get creative. For many a year people have used bean cans to boil water over a fire without spending a penny on costs. It wasn’t pretty but that wasn’t the point. If we go backpacking in the woods just to stare at our shiny new titanium spork then we’re missing the point. Gear is a means to an end. If we can do that on a budget and enjoy ourselves outdoors then I think we’ve accomplished what we’ve set out to do.
