I'm planning for a 6 day snow camping trip. In my previous snow camping experience I have used Canister with Primus Omnifuel Ti stove and seen It consumes almost 75-100gms of fuel for snow melting and boiling 4 cups of water a day.

Trip Length: 6 days
Number of person(s): 1
Snow to Melt: 16 cups or 4 liters a day.
Water to Boil: 4 cups 1 liter.
Elevation: 7000ft
Temp range: 40F-25F

I have a Primus 1.5 L fuel bottle with 1.3 L usable volume and .35L with 300ml usable volume. Any ball park idea how much fuel I have to carry. I've emailed Primus and haven't received any response from them yet.

I used to use an MSR XGK a lot, and I would estimate fuel more on the basis of time. For one stove, I used to get a minimum of two hours of full flame per liter of fuel. I would expect similar Primus models to use similar amounts. Obviously I could get more burn time from the fuel by turning down the flame, but that did not necessarily get better results from snow melting. The efficiency of snow melting will vary a lot depending on the water content of the snow. In other words, you will get faster results from slush than you will from powder. Also, the efficiency will vary depending on windscreens and stuff like that.

So, just stop and estimate how much time you expect to be burning the stove each day. I'm guessing at least an hour per day.

--B.G.--

I planned on 5 L a day plus meals and figured 5 oz a day that had a built-in factor for bad conditions. That worked for 3 flavors of XGK and my Coleman Xtreme.

For 6 days in deep cold with snow melting I'd take 32 oz---a 22 oz bottle and an 11 oz bottle. Or in whatever config you want.

Ray,

I would think 5 fl oz/day should be plenty. Based on my experience with my Whisperlite, which might be a bit more miserly than an XGK, I use about 3 fl oz/day when solo snow melting. It's perhaps a little warmer in So. Cal. (even in the mountains in Winter) than in Michigan, but 5 fl oz sounds like plenty. I imagine a Primus Omnilite Ti will be a little more econonomical in terms of fuel than an XGK.

HJ
Adventures In Stoving

Thanks folks.

When you say OZ is it Fluid OZ ? or weight

I will be using Primus ETA pot with built in head ex-changer. Hopefully it should add some to the stove's efficiency.

I will also ask another question on the fuel on the same thread> REI sells MSR Superfuel for $12 a quart and Crown Brand fuel for $8 a quart. Does it matter which fuel I use? or is it MSR marketing gimmick.

Uh, yeah. There is a big diff. One is white gas and the other is alcohol.

@ Ray LOL. It's not Crown Royal.

> When you say OZ is it Fluid OZ ? or weight

> REI sells MSR Superfuel for $12 a quart and Crown Brand fuel for $8 a quart. Does it matter which fuel I use?

Yeah Jim I don’t doubt that you have much better figures. Most of my snow melting is actually in CA, but in the high Sierra. (Lots in your area too as I lived in Idyllwild for 4 years.) And I am in northern MN now, not MI, but it is similar.

When it comes to winter hiking I plan for the worst-case scenarios. I once took a Coleman and an MSR stove and sat in a blizzard at Tom’s Place with two stoves, a notebook in my parka, my Highgear MFD, and a six pack (no cooler needed) and scooped fresh snow and melted it recording times (and later weights) just to prepare for an 11-day trip to White the next month. I boiled four batches of 5 L of water with each stove in the blowing snow. Then once home where I could weigh the used fuel I added an ounce to account for possible worse conditions.

Winter is not the time to “save weight” or plan on being “UL”. Go as light as you can while being safe.

Figure trips based on other’s best cast scenarios? Better bring a PLB…

> Winter is not the time to “save weight” or plan on being “UL”. Go as light as you can while being safe.

Figure trips based on other’s best cast scenarios? Better bring a PLB…

Jim, how much snow have you melt and how many cups of water have you boiled with 3 Oz of fuel/day for a solo trip.

I have a PLB and a SPOT II device ( yeah it works fairly well). I'll also be hiking with other experienced campers,so we have some sort of safety in numbers :-)

> Jim, how much snow have you melt and how many cups of water have you boiled with 3 Oz of fuel/day for a solo trip.

HJ- Yeah your dad was feeling buried above ground. Musta been two long days.

Yes,
For us the only place that looked like you had a good chance of losing your bearings was the SE side of Dutton ridge. The hill is not steep and trees are sparse so you cant just see the trail in the gap of the trees and the trail makes a big sweeping turn. A week before we went they rescued a dude on skis in this area.

I will say if you had AT setup or something other than straight-up xcountry skis it would probably be pretty effin sweet. Need an edge though.

Skiing down Watchman over and over while having my tent nestled in the trees towards the bottom of the hill is on the list.



Yeah the wind does weird things there VVVV

//



RE the Avy zones: They are two sections that total maybe a mile? If you take the detours it is longer and harder. It didn't look fun. Hopefully you can walk through the zones safely like we did, but confer with the ranger. He'll come check your stuff out to make sure if you die its your fault, not the equipment's. ;)

5 days will be a really sweet trip if the weather is good.

//

Edited by WoodenWizard on 03/01/2013 20:33:23 MST.

A nice trick is if temps will be warming up a little, fill you water bottle/Nalgene/Gatorade bottle half full with water and spike it with snow then place in the sun if you can or while hiking. I've gotten my days worth of water, melting snow that way, using bark or gaiters laid on the snow, facing the sun as much as possible. That should be fun staying out that many days, I've only been out three nights with a small group that many nights, most of my snow camping trips are solo for one night.
Duane

Looks odd to me that nobody mentioned pots or windscreens.
I am aware that you get wind protection digging a kitchen area in the snow, still a windscreen can help in reflecting some heat and some pots are better than others...
BTW, just as a very basic tip, it is easier to melt snow if you start with some water in the pot.

Well, a simple rule of thumb is to double what you would take in summer time.
And maybe add a little extra.

Cheers

Looks odd to me that nobody mentioned pots or windscreens.
I am aware that you get wind protection digging a kitchen area in the snow, still a windscreen can help in reflecting some heat and some pots are better than others...
BTW, just as a very basic tip, it is easier to melt snow if you start with some water in the pot.

Mama shoot me an email and I will send you a write up I did explaining how to make a folding stove base like this one for a remote canister stove (WindPro here).





It has places for the feet of the stove to sit to keep it from sliding off.

Here is one for an attached canister like the Reactor.