Smokies Elkmont #24 3/22 - 3/24 (pic heavy)

[mattblick]

How do you like the biolite? I have been thinking hard about getting one but just can't decide if I want to exchange the ease of screwing the stove onto the bottle.

I love it. There is actually a thread in the camp kitchen section for donating members (nudge nudge). However I'll repost here most of what I did there.

I have tried the whole gammut of stoves over the years and hated something about each of them until discovering the Biolite. I had been using a canister stove, hating carrying multiple steel partial canisters each trip as the best option until finding the biolite.

On my most recent trip, I didn't have use for the charging function, but as always was glad it was there. As others in this thread have mentioned, it isn't designed to fully charge a battery from dead while cooking dinner. I feel it is really unreasonable for its skeptics to believe (a) that charging that fast is feasible and (b) the charging function was the design purpose of this stove. Anything that could charge a lithium battery that fast would cook the battery; the stove is intended to cook your dinner. The BioLite will charge a battery as fast as a car charger - yet for some reason we don't have naysayers criticizing automobiles because they take 3 hours to charge an iphone.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park gets soo much rain that it is categorized a "Temperate Rainforest". Annual precipitation amounts range from 50 to 80 inches. I can always count on having only wet wood, yet brought my BioLite the last 4 trips. My current ignition method uses fluffed dryer lint on the bottom -> very loosely packed twigs -> dryer lint on top. I light the lint on top with a match then drop the match to the bottom to also ignite that lint. For the 3 hot meals last weekend I used 5 matches, so I need some more practice.

My boil times with 38 degree snow runoff water in the Little River was between 4 and 5 minutes for ~16 ounces of water each time. After the evening meals, I used the remaining hot coals from the stove to light my evening campfire in the fire ring. Hint - picking up the stove by the orange power unit eliminates the need for gloves in this use, it also facilitates faster cool down time for the stove portion to pack and go. Dig a small hole, lift the stove by the power unit and dump the coals into the hole and cover up with soil.

I also had someone PM me how I liked the stove, here is what I wrote back to him:

I love my BioLite. The only con is that it does take practice to work with wet wood, but all the tricks for lighting fires all over the internet in such places as survival forums also work on the biolite. Fatwood is really hard to find in the Smokies, but it is wonderful. Using your knife to make "feather sticks" is also very effective.

What I like best about the BioLite is its lack of other stove's shortcomings. Its critics will point to its "excessive weight", but if you think about it, it isn't heavier than other stove systems save for alcohol.

White gas stoves with fuel and bottle are heavier than the BioLite. Dealing with preheating the loop, fireball igniting, and field repair of the jet left my MSR WhisperLite retired about 15 years ago.

Trangia Westwind was my next stove, at 8 ounces it was dramatically lighter than the WhisperLite. The brass burner and its aluminum flat pack stand are bombproof. I hated the slow boil times, futzing with the windscreen, blow outs, and burning my arm in the invisible flame thinking it had blown out.

I tried the original JetBoil PCS next (~2005). The "heavy" 1 pound system boiled water even faster than the white gas stove had and blew away the alcohol burner. I rapidly built up a collection of partial canisters however, and was soon carrying 2 and 3 partially filled canisters each trip. Each 4 ounce fuel canister weighs 8 ounces when full - so carrying 3 partials had 12 ounces of steel alone, plus the weight of the fuel in addition to the weight of the JetBoil system.

Hating partial canisters and the cost of the fuel I tried several different alcohol burners - trying to find one that performed better than the Trangia. Out of all of them I liked MBD's BIOS stove the best - 1 ounce in weight and it was faster than the trangia if you insulated the bottom. I was at 7 ounces with my BIOS, Wind screen, and GSI Halulite Kettle (whose wide bottom improved my boil times). Still the boil took too long for my liking, and blow outs were all too frequent.

Back to canister stoves I went, but I kept using the GSI Kettle. First I used the Primus Micron Ti and then the Soto MicroRegulator. I found that with an adapter could use some of the partials to refill my butane lighters - but I'd still usually have 2 partial canisters packed for a long weekend trip. At $5 - $6 each, the cost of the canisters really add up as well.

So with the BioLite I don't need to deal with the anemic flame of an alcohol stove, nor the waste and weight of the canisters of a canister stove.

The only minus of the BioLite is there is some skill involved getting it to light, and it weighs more than alcohol systems. For me the benefits outweigh the shortcomings.

-Matt-

[FireInMyBones]

Looks like it was a fun trip. I like that BioLite stove, it's not for me, but it's certain cool.

What would you take if you didn't take wadders...or are you going cuben?

[mattblick]

What would you take if you didn't take wadders...or are you going cuben?

My thought is to just avoid wading in the shoulder season. In the Summer wet wading in Korkers Swift Sandals works wonderfully. If the cold river water has me shivering I just get out and warm up while enjoying the scenery and a cigar. That doesn't work when it is 40 degrees.

I had my Chota Hippies (22 ounces) and Orvis Pack and Travel II Wading Shoes (40 ounces) along for this trip. This "light" solution is still almost 4 pounds dry. (They weigh a lot more on the way out.) For this test it turned out that leaving them behind would have worked; they stayed in my pack. Some runs were out of reach, but I did quite well without wading.

If it turns out that I miss too much water by leaving that gear behind, I'll have to find a lighter boot. I don't think there is a feasible way to get lighter than the 22 ounce hippies. I was considering trying out Five Ten Water Tennies 20 @ ounces per pair - that would knock off a lot of weight compared to the Orvis wading shoes.