Improving the Heavy Cover USGI Canteen Cup Lid

Last year I bought a stainless steel lid for my USGI canteen cup from Heavy Cover, Inc. (It doesn't seem to be listed there currently.) I haven't gotten much use from it for two reasons:

1. It's too heavy for what it is.
2. It was a very snug fit in the cup.

Today I decided to improve it with the help of Mr. Dremel, but cutting away part of the lip that sits inside the cup.

First, here it is being held by its handle in my vise. I've already made one cut with my Dremel using a heavy duty cut-off wheel.

After making the cuts, I snapped the excess material off with pliers. Then I used a grinding stone in the Dremel to deburr where I made the cuts.

And finally, sitting on the cup. As you can see, it's the older L-handle style. IMNSHO, this is much better than butterfly handles. If you look closely you can see where I added graduation markings to the cup.

The lid is a bit lighter now but it would have been better had it been made from hard anodized aluminum, or at least a thinner gauge of stainless steel. It's noticeably easier to set on the cup or remove it to check how something is cooking.

DIY Adjustable Pot Bail

For cooking, or even just boiling water over an open fire, a pot with a bail is really handy. However, bails add weight and bulk and we often already have a good pot that just needs a bail sometimes. Over on Bushcraft USA, "Jerome" posted a great how-to thread here.

If video is more your style, Lonnie posted a video inspired by the above thread on his YouTube channel, Far North Bushcraft and Survival.

Most hardware stores should have the required materials. I bought 6 feet of 1/16" cable and the appropriate ferrules today at Home Depot for around $6. (That included an extra set of ferrules.)

I made up a couple bails this afternoon, each from a 3' piece of cable. After crimping the ferrules similarly to how Lonnie did in the above video for the first bail, I took a slightly different tack for the second bail. I hit each ferrule with a punch once to hold it in place on the end of the cable, I then used my bench vise to fully crimp it.

The advantage of using the vise is that you get a full-width crimp, not just where you hit it with the punch.

My plan is to keep one bail with my Keith Titanium canteen and cup set, and the other with my old USGI canteen cup.

Esbit CS985HA Cookset - Heaxmine vs. Alcohol Fuel

Last year I got an Esbit CS985HA cookset which includes two anodized aluminum pots, a pot stand, a Trangia-style spirit burner with snuffer lid, and a stand for burning solid fuel tablets. It also comes with a mesh storage sack. Overall, it's a lightweight and well-made little cooker which can be used with hexamine fuel tablets or alcohol.

In the picture below I've taken out the stove stand which nests inside the cookpot. In the stand I have the spirit burner and lid, the solid fuel stand, a bandana, matches in a Ziploc bag, and a bandana. I generally keep this all inside a plastic bag nested in the pot.

I've used it several times with the spirit burner, burning denatured alchohol and I've been happy with fuel consumption and boil times. However, I had not yet tried it with Esbit 14 gram hexamine fuel tablets, until yesterday.

I was especially curious to see how the hexamine compared with denatured alcohol, since hexamine can generate 13,300 BTUs per pound of fuel, compared with denatured alky's 11,570 BTUs/pound. (See: http://zenstoves.net/Fuels.htm) If the stove is equally efficient with both fuels, you'd expect the boil times to be reduced with hexamine.

However, everything is not equal. When using the spirit burner to boil water, it's more or less set-and-forget, until it's boiled. In the interest of science, I got out my Harbor Freight multimeter which can be used to measure temperatures with a thermocouple. (It also displays ambient temperature and relative humidity.) Hence the picture below, with a wire sticking out of the cookset:

I should note that I tried a couple methods to light the first hexamine tablet. I wanted to see how viable it would be to light it with sparks from a ferro rod, so I used my knife to scrape some of the fuel to create a little pile of powder on top of the tablet. No dice. I then added some dryer lint on top, which easily took a spark but failed to ignite the hexamine. Next I tried sitting the tablet on top of a wad of dryer lint, which again failed to ignite it.

At that point I abandoned the ferro rod and lit the tablet with a match.

The ambient temp was about 70*F and the 16 oz. of water started at 68*. When the first Esbit tablet burned out after about 11 minutes, the water temperature was 172*. That's hot enough for coffee or tea, but I wanted to make ramen for lunch, and in any event, you need to cook the noodles for three minutes after the water boils. So, I lit another tablet and put the pot back on.

It only took a couple more minutes to bring the water to a boil. I dumped in the seasoning packet and noodles, and replaced the lid. A couple minutes later I had to remove the lid as the soup began to boil over.

One reason I hadn't tried this cookset with the Esbit tablets is that based on past experience with hexamine, it leaves a sticky soot on your cookware. However, it appears that this stove burns the hexamine more efficiently than the older style folding Esbit cooker. Here's a pic of the stove on the left with the residue of two tablets and some dryer lint. On the right is the bottom of the pot. The residue on the pot wasn't sticky and later washed off with hot tap water.

A complaint many have about hexamine is the smell. The unburnt fuel smells like fish, and in an inefficient stove the stink is magnified. When I tried out this stove there wasn't much smell, indicates to me that it's burning efficiently. In contrast, the folding Esbit stoves stink.

To quantify any difference in performance between hexamine and alcohol fuel, today I repeated the experiment but used the spirit burner. Today both the ambient temp and water from the tap were a couple degrees warmer. Both ambient and water temp started at about 73*

The spirit burner lights easily with a ferro rod; today it lit with one spark. The stove then takes a couple minutes to heat the fuel to the point where it vaporizes and comes out the holes around the rim.

One big disadvantage in my opinion is that even after the stove reaches full bloom, the alcohol flame is nearly invisible in daylight, unlike the flame from burning hexamine. In this picture the stove is lit and giving off noticeable heat:

The alky burner took about 9 minutes to bring 16 oz. of water to a rolling boil. Even though the ambient and water temps started off a few degrees warmer today, that wouldn't account for the several minute shorter boil time. Even though hexamine packs more BTUs per pound than denatured alcohol, given this particular design, the spirit burner is more efficient.

I should note that boil times for both fuels would have been reduced had I used a windscreen to reduce convection loss and help reflect some heat back to the pot.

Based on this comparison I'm going to stick with denatured alcohol for most of my use. Esbit tablets are handy and will warm water enough for a cup of tea or coffee, and should work OK for heating a can of Vienna sausages in the small pan. However, the spirit burner is easier to light and snuff out, and appears to heat water more quickly.

December 2016 Camping Trip Report

(I wrote this up over a week ago and forgot to post it.)

December 9th and 10th I went deer hunting in Tioga County, PA, just south of the New York State line. Temperatures while we were there topped out at about 32*F/0*C, and dropped down to about 21*F/-6*C at night. There's usually a breeze blowing as well. We slept under a pavilion with two walls built but the ends open, temporarily covered with canvas tarps. At night we had a propane-fired patio heater to take the edge off the cold. In this post I want to offer some observations on how some of our gear worked.

STOVES

Don't trust old equipment, even if it's been tested recently, unless maintenance has been performed on it. My Coleman 425 camp stove made in 1979 was tested the previous weekend but failed on this trip. A seal blew so it wouldn't hold pressure, and leaked fuel.

One of my friends used an MSR Pocket Rocket canister stove with no problems. I keep a folding Esbit stove in my daypack for brewing tea or coffee when out in the field, but it didn't see any use on this trip. I've used it on past trips, however.

The Lixada wood gasifer stove I got in November worked OK for warming water. This is primarily a twig stove that is sold under various brand names on Amazon and eBay. Like all twig stoves it needs constant feeding to keep going. I wanted to try it this weekend with charcoal briquettes, since we always keep two or three bags up at our campsite.

Using briquettes, the Lixada stove was able to get water up to near-boiling but never to a full, rolling boil. This temp was good enough for filling the canteen I put in the bottom of my sleeping bag to keep warm, but not hot enough for oatmeal or coffee. Briquettes would work if you needed to simmer something in a pot or fry something in a pan. They burned for a long time.

I also tried the Lixada stove using fire starters made by filling a cardboard egg carton with oak shavings and paraffin wax. One of these would bring my MSR kettle to a rolling boil in only a few minutes. The main downside to these is that they'll leave your pot covered in so much soot it'll be darker than Spinal Tap's Black Album. These fire starters also burn out in about five minutes.

In one of his "longhouse" videos on YouTube, Evan Hill of Hill People Gear discusses your energy envelope. This pertinent because if you're backpacking, it may actually cost you less in energy to pack in a canister stove and fuel than a twig stove that you have to gather and prepare fuel for.

On future winter trips I'll make sure to have a functional Coleman stove and bring my Kovea Spider as a backup.


KEEPING WARM

SmartWool merino wool base layers are warm, help you manage moisture, and don't itch.

Windproof pants make a huge difference in staying warm. I continue to be pleased with my ORC Industries Level 5 PCU softshell trousers. I've had these for several years and they've been one of my best purchases, always keeping my legs warm and dry in snow, when worn over insulation.

When sleeping on a cot in drafty weather you cannot have too much insulation beneath you. I used a MidwayUSA shooting mat, a blue foam pad, a Thermarest Ridge Rest, and then two military surplus wool blankets folded in half lengthwise on top of my cot. This gave me a firm but warm and comfortable bed.

The old trick of putting a hot water bottle in the bottom of your sleeping bag works. I filled a Nalgene Oasis canteen with hot water, wrapped it in a shemagh, and put it in the footbox of my sleeping bag. It warmed the bag up nicely. It was still lukewarm in the morning. Being already warm, it boiled faster when it came time for breakfast, too.

Two or three disposable hand warmers activated and tossed into you bag before bed also help. I had a package of these coming up on their expiration date so I wanted to use them up, and this was a good way to do so.

The disposable hand warmers and toe warmers came in very handy while sitting out on my deer stand. If you're moving around in the temps we experienced keeping your hands and feet warm isn't a problem but once you're sitting still, you need either more insulation or an external heat source. The disposables worked well for me.

Some guys like to use an empty Gatorade or Nalgene bottle to pee in so that they don't have to get out of their bag in the middle of the night. Frankly, I don't think I could do that without pissing all over my sleeping bag, but YMMV.

The Hill People Gear Mountain Serape is an awesome piece of gear. I used it two ways last weekend. First, after being out for a few hours hunting, I used it in greatcoat mode over my Arc'Teryx LEAF Atom SV hoodie while hanging out back at camp before bed. It allowed me to shed the hooded sweatshirt I'd been wearing under the Atom SV, and also my ORC PCU Level 5 softshell trousers. As a greatcoat, the Mountain Serape provided a warm layer of insulation and blocked the wind when out around the campfire, and inside our drafty shelter.

If I hunted out west where you can do so without wearing blaze orange, I'd pack a Mountain Serape with me to my stand and put it on while glassing/waiting for game. Not only is it warm but it also helps to break up your outline, so you don't look like a human. If HPG made one in blaze orange or blaze camo, I'd order one for sure.

Later, I used the Mountain Serape in sleeping bag mode as an overbag around the footbox of my sleeping bag.

A Snugpak poncho liner may be a viable, less expensive alternative to the HPG Mountain Serape if you're on a budget, especially if you added snaps or bungies to hold it closed around yourself.

For use around a campfire something made from natural fibers would be better than the nylon shell of the Mountain Serape or Snugpak poncho liner. E.g., a wool blanket poncho or a South American alpaca poncho. OTH, they probably aren't as windproof as the modern insulated ponchos.

If you're car camping, having a vacuum flask of hot tea or coffee filled ahead of time is a great morale booster. It's really nice being able to immediately pour yourself a hot cup of tea when you come in from the cold, instead of having to wait for it to brew.

Canteen Cup Accessories

Many hikers and preppers like the old USGI canteen cup for use as a cooking vessel. I've had this old, L-handle style cup since the '80s, and it's seen a lot of use. It's so black on the outside I should call it "Ol' Crusty."

Sentiment aside, canteen cups have two drawbacks which can be remedied with products now on the market.

Nothing like hot chocolate from your canteen cup.

First is a lid. The US military never issued one. If you're heating something by putting your canteen cup in a campfire you don't really care too much about minimizing fuel consumption, but it's nice to reduce heating time and keep debris out of your meal. Previously I've used a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil but this needs to be periodically replaced, and it's prone to blowing away. Heavy Cover, Inc. sells a nice stainless steel boil lid, shown in the above pic. HC also sells one for the Crusader cup.

I've used the Heavy Cover lid a couple times now and it definitely reduces the time to boil water for a hot drink by a few minutes. If I have any criticism is that it's heavy. It could be made from a thinner gauge of stainless steel to reduce weight. Or better yet, make it from aluminum or titanium. E.g., Four Dog Stoves sells Ti lids for a variety of pot/cups, for $4 less than the HC stainless steel lid.

Second is something to prevent burning your lips on the hot rim of the cup. Snow Peak Hotlips happen to snap right onto the USGI cup like they were made for it.  The yellow thing on the rim of my cup above is one. This is a major usability improvement when making coffee, tea, or hot chocolate.

Lixada Wood Gas Stove

The other day I ordered a Lixada wood gas stove using an Amazon gift card. This stove is sold under a number of different brand names on Amazon and eBay, generally for a bit under $20. The stove is made from stainless steel and has the following components, which nest together:

• Base with air holes.
• Double-walled combustion chamber with holes on the inside near the top.
• A bottom part to hold the fuel off the ground. It also has air holes in it.
• A pot stand with folding arms.
• A bowl which can be placed in the combustion chamber to burn liquid or gelled alcohol fuel. If inverted it can be a platform for hexamine or trioxane tablets.

Along with the stove itself a nylon mesh bag was included for storage and transport.

Since I had some time this afternoon I decided to give it a try, using some sticks from my yard. The stove did not come with any instructions but I'd read up on them online. Supposedly, they work best with the combustion chamber filled with sticks oriented vertically, burning top-down.

I used a piece of dryer lint/paraffin wax fire starter to get it going.

After a few minutes the wood gas that's released by the burning wood gets flowing through the sidewall, comes out the interior holes and ignites.

Shortly after it got going I put my Olicamp Space Saver Cup with home made lid on top. I had 12 oz. of water in the cup to make some tea.

A couple things caused my boil time to be overly long (i.e., damn near a half hour):

• It was windy, which caused a lot of heat loss via convection. The next time I use the stove I'll use a wind screen.
• Some of my wood was damp. Also, I waited too long to refill the stove when the fuel burned down, which made it take longer to ignite. I should have fed it small pieces of wood before the flames died out.

As long as I kept it fed so that the wood gas was being burned it was pretty much smoke free. If I let it die down and then added fuel, it was smokey.

The idea of a stove for which you can forage fuel is very attractive for camping, hiking, and bugouts. I need to play around with it a bit more to get the knack of minimizing cook times. In particular, one fuel I want to try is charcoal briquettes, which we keep up at my friend's place where we camp a few times each year. Another fuel which other owners have reported works well are wood pellets, as used in pellet stoves.

I'm planning to follow this up with a video, once I get the raw footage edited.

Revised Olicamp Lid

I wasn't satisfied with using a screw and nut to secure the handle to the DIY lid I made for my hard anodized Olicamp cup, so I ordered a Tandy Leather rivet kit earlier this week. It was delivered today. The lid now looks like this:

The stud part of the rivet was longer than I needed, so I trimmed it with dykes before setting the head.

The rivet should be more secure in the long term than the screw and nut, and easier to clean if food gets on it.

I can see the rivet kit coming in handy for future projects.

Olicamp Hard Anodized Cup and DIY Lid

The other day I ordered an Olicamp hard anodized aluminum Space Saver cup from Amazon using some points. It arrived today and I think it'll be a good piece of gear. It's lightweight and has graduations so that you can use it for measuring water.

One thing it lacks, however, is a lid, which means that if you use it as a pot to cook or boil water in, it'll take longer and use more fuel. I've used expedient lids made from aluminum foil in the past with my GSI stainless cups and USGI canteen cup. I wanted something better for this cup.

My first try was made from aluminum flashing. I traced the lip of the cup on a piece of scrap wood to create a form, and cut a piece of flashing a bit larger around than the cup. I then secured the flashing to the form and pressed it around.

It looked like ass.

In search of a better solution I ran across this video by IA Woodsman, in which he made a lid for a stainless GSI cup from the bottom of a 12 oz. coffee can. I had an empty can so I went back out to my shop and made a similar lid.

The lip of the aluminum Olicamp cup is a little larger in diameter than the stainless GSI cups, so I cut eight small slits around the edge of the lid so I could spread it out to better fit on the cup. Instead of IA Woodsman's copper D-ring, I used a stainless steel split ring from my scrap box. Click on the picture to see the full sized version which shows how it can be set so that it doesn't flop over.

The ring is secured using a similar tab to IA Woodsman's. However, I used a stainless screw and nut instead of a rivet.

I'll probably carry the cup nested over the bottom of a 32 oz. Nalgene or 40 oz. Kleen Kanteen bottle, with the lid in the bottom of the pouch.

Dinner on the Mountain

Yesterday Amanda and I went up to the Conrad Weiser State Forest for a few hours, and had dinner on the mountain. (It's not much of a mountain, but hey, we're in southeast Pennsylvania.)

We used my Esbit CS985HA cookset to boil the water for our noodle soup and heat up some Vienna sausages.

It's a versatile cookset. The 33.3 oz./985ml main pot has volume graduations stamped into it, which can be read from the inside. The 15.9 oz./470ml smaller pot can be used as a lid, or as shown above, as a saucepan. Both have folding rubber-covered folding stainless steel handles.

The pot stand/windscreen has four rubber feet on the bottom which would keep it slightly elevated off a table.

The set allows you to cook with either the included brass, Trangia-style alcohol burner or using Esbit hexamine fuel tablets. A small platform to put inside the pot stand when using the tablets is included. The pots, tablet platform, and pot stand are made from hard anodized aluminum.

You could burn sticks and twigs in the pot stand but it's not really designed for that. E.g., the bottom has a large opening so you'd want to sit it on a rock or cleared dirt.

For use with the alcohol burner, a simmer cap/snuffer is included. There isn't enough room in the pot stand to use it as a simmer cap but it works well to extinguish the stove. You want to use it instead of the screw-on cap for the stove. If you use the cap to put out the stove you'll damage its O-ring, which will let the stove leak if you carry it fueled and ready to go.

All the parts nest together and can be stored in an included mesh bag. I line the pot with a plastic bag before nesting everyting else inside to keep it clean. Also, if I use hexamine tablets the outside of the pot will get a coated wth soot. The plastic bag allows me to keep that off the rest of my gear.

The total weight of the Esbit cookset is 15 oz., not including fuel. I keep the brass burner filled with denatured alcohol, three or four Esbit tablets, a bandana, and a small box of matches packed in the kit.

Our campsite is not near a water source so all of our water had to be packed in. Amanda used an Osprey water bladder in her pack, while I used three one-quart canteens. One is a 1945-vintage aluminum USGI canteen that I found several years ago at a gun show.  The other two were Nalgene Oasis canteens, which have the same exterior dimensions as US military issue canteens, but which are made of a better plastic, weigh a little less, and don't impart any taste to the water.

Further Seasoning of the Bromwell Frying Pan

I cooked breakfast in my Bromwell this morning. The bacon didn't stick but my eggs did. So, this afternoon I seasoned it more with flax seed oil (food grade linseed oil). I gave it a very light coat and heated it on the stove until it smoked, then let it cool down. Repeated this for a total of about 5 or 6 coats until I got tired of doing it.

The pan should only get better with use.

Bromwell 7" Pressed Steel Frying Pan

Something I'd been looking for was a lightweight, pressed steel frying pan to take camping. After reading a thread on Bushcraft USA with a link to eBay, I ordered a 7" Bromwell pan last Sunday. It arrived on Wednesday for $16.95 shipped. Note that 7" is the diameter across the top, not the base. The seller also lists some 6" Bromwell pans but that's a bit on the small side for my taste.

The pan is plain pressed carbon steel with a handle similar to the old "Cold Handle" type that you can frequently find a garage sales. Whatever rust preventative Bromwell used worked well but required a lot of scrubbing and soaking to remove.

I seasoned it today by first giving it a coat of canola oil then cooking up some bacon for lunch.

Mmmm. Bacon.

It'll need more seasoning, which of course gives me an excuse to cook more bacon.

This was my first time using a skillet with this kind of handle. It stayed cooler than I'd expected but I still used a pot holder. A bandana or shemagh would work in the field.

The small size allowed a lot of splatter outside onto my stove. The next time I use it I might do so outside, perhaps over my Emberlit stove.

It's a heck of a lot lighter than a same-sized cast iron pan would be. It's definitely back-packable.

Day Camp and Gear Discussion Video

On Friday I took a day trip up to the Conrad Weiser State Forest near Port Clinton, PA. In the video I demonstrate making a poncho lean-to shelter, discuss knife selection, provide a brief overview of the Hill People Gear Recon Kit Bag and Tarahumara pack, and make some coffee in an Esbit cookset.

I am trying to make and post more videos to my YouTube channel as I have time. Please hit the Like button and subscribe.

Camping Trip AAR

This weekend a couple friends and I went on a camping trip to Tioga County, PA. The main activity this time was ham radio. We went up on Friday and came home today.

I had to work on Friday but was able to cut out a little early. By the time I got on the road it was rush hour, so it took me a full four hours to get to my friend's land. By the time I arrived it was 9:30 PM. Before I got there, he'd put up an 80M dipole antenna made from aluminum welding wire, electric fence insulators, and some electric fence posts from Tractor Supply. The feed line was the welding wire, formed into an open ladder line held apart with pink duct tape.

This dipole worked well and pulling in signals on 20M, 40M, and 80M. A number of the calls we logged were from within Pennsylvania, demonstrating the viability of NVIS communications.

We're fans of the digital modes. He has an Icom 718 with which he uses a Donner Digital Interface at home. Since he's not going to schlepp a desktop PC with him, he used PSKdroid running on an LG Android tablet, using audio coupling. I also setup my Apple iPad Mini 2 running PSKer to try and pull some signals from the aether.

We were able to copy quite a few transmissions even without a digital interface between the tablets and the rig. We probably would've copied some more, but for the bourbon. ;)

On Saturday I setup my portable vertical antenna, Yaesu FT-817ND, and iPad.

As you can see, we setup inside his 16' x 24' pavilion, which was a godsend this weekend due to the weather. It rained on and off all weekend. There was little to no wind, so the open ends weren't a problem. We even setup my tent underneath the roof so it stayed mostly dry.

As you can see, I have my antenna feedline connected via the FT-817ND's front, BNC connector. As I understand it, using this instead of the SO-239 on the back reduces power consumption.  Also note that the feedline is connected straight to the rig, with no tuner. The vertical is resonant on 20M. Using a resonant antenna instead of one connected through a tuner increases your effective radiated power, and when operating QRP, every little bit helps.

The iPad is connected to the rig with one of KF5INZ's Easy Digi interfaces.

Pic of my vertical antenna:

The objects to the right of the antenna are steel gong targets set out at about 25 yards.

I mostly operated PSK31 and using the antenna above was able to reach the west coast.

I grabbed the above from pskreporter.info using my iPhone. Later, my signal was also reported in Washington state, but I forgot to get a screen shot.

After doing PSK31 for awhile I changed over to WSPR, using iWSPR. This was my first time trying this digital mode and it's amazing. The signal reports below are after transmitting for awhile on 5 watts.

Numerous hits in Great Britain, Western Europe, and Germany. WSPR basically acts like a beacon, transmitting your callsign so that other hams with Internet-connected rigs can upload signal reports. With some creativity I think it could have other applications.

We took time off from the radio to have a nice lunch of venison sausage and onions, sauteed in a red wine reduction. Yeah, we eat good when we go camping.

Saturday night's dinner was venison chili washed down with Yuengling Lager or Guiness Stout.

I also took a break from radio in the afternoon to do a little shooting. I first shot my Cowboy Pimp Gun, AKA a Ruger Single Six in .32 H&R Magnum which has a color case hardened frame and faux ivory grips. It's a fun little blaster but needs a trigger job. I put a bunch of Prvi Partizan .32 S&W Longs through it, which made a nice little tink when they hit our steel gongs.

I also put 70 rounds of .44-40 through my Cimarron 1873 Sporting Rifle.

Fifty of those were black powder loads with 35 grains of Goex 3Fg under a bullet cast in my Accurate Molds 43-215C bullet mold, and they really smacked the gongs around. If you click on the picture to view the full sized version, you can see some smoke coming out of the rifle's ejection port. I was doing an 1870s-style mag dump. Off to the left, you can also see the gong that I just shot swinging from the impact.

After I finished shooting my other friend put up about 500 feet of aluminum welding wire in a loop, all around our campsite. We got back to radio after nightfall and the loop turned out to work well for receiving 80M and 160M, and they both wound up getting 160M phone QSOs. Because the antenna height ranged from only a couple feet to a max of 5 feet, they were NVIS to other hams in northern PA and southern NY.

Finally, I took this picture of my iPad which looked like it was detecting Space Invaders on the waterfall.

Even though the weather this weekend was crappy we had a great trip. We got some good field radio practice in, plus a bit of fun shooting.

Aborted Overnighter

With Monday off for MLK Day and the weather being mild for January in Pennsylvania, I thought that Saturday night would be good for a solo overnight camping trip in the Conrad Weiser State Forest Port Clinton Tract. I did an overnighter there with my daughter last Fall and we had a great time.

So Saturday morning I packed my gear and headed up to the forest around lunchtime. It's a little more than hour away. I arrived around 2:00 PM, hoisted my pack, and headed in using the same trail we used in October and when I went back for a day hike a few weeks later.

I hiked in further that our previous campsite, because on my last visit I noticed some standing dead trees a little too close for comfort. It took me about an hour to find a suitable spot off the trail that was level, away from widowmakers, and had two trees the right distance apart to support my tarp, but with enough room to extend the shelter back.

I setup the tarp with the back to the northwest, to block the prevailing wind. Rather than the lean-to pitch I've used before, I rotated the tarp so that I could extend the sides down to more fully enclose it.

I like to pitch the tarp fairly low so it doesn't catch the wind and is stealthier.

For dinner I had some jerky and beef flavored ramen noodles in a cardboard bowl. Afterwards, the bowl went into the fire.

For boiling water I used my Stanley pot and Etekcity canister stove. The stove is light, cheap, and works well at least down to about 30 degrees. But if I'm planning to be out in lower temps, my Kovea Spider will be used instead. It can be run with the canister inverted and I also have an adapter to allow the use of 1 lb. propane cylinders.

The temperature was about 40 degrees F. during my walk in and until sunset.

My bedroll consisted of:

* USGI casualty evacuation blanket for a ground sheet.
* Ridge Rest foam pad.
* Klymit Static V insulated air matress.
* British surplus jungle sleeping bag.
* Hill People Gear Mountain Serape (medium sized).

My plan was to use the Mountain Serape as an overbag with the British jungle bag inside of it. I ran into problems with this, mainly related to the jungle bag. I've used the jungle bag before without issues, but that was in warmer weather. This time, I had on a fleece top that had a lot of friction with the inside of the bag. This made it very difficult to turn over, which is a problem since I'm a side sleeper.

Eventually, I decided to just unzip the jungle bag and the footbox of the Mountain Serape and use them as quilts. This was warm when they stayed on top of me, but the Serape kept slipping off the jungle bag whenever I turned over. I'm going to have to suck it up and get a light 20 degree bag. Suggestions welcome.

To compound matters, the Klymit Static V air mattress sucks for side sleepers. I'm going to return to using my Big Agnes air mattress. My daughter may like the Klymit better.

After tossing and turning for several hours I got up in the middle of the night and fixed myself a cup of hot chicken broth. By this time it was down to about 30 degrees and expected to drop a few more degrees.

The stove is sitting on a Jetboil Fuel Canister Stabilizer. I found mine at REI but there's an Amazon link. It makes the canister stoves a lot more steady, especially when using the small diameter canisters. It will fit large fuel canisters, too.

Following a few minutes of considering what to do, I said <bleep> it and aborted the trip.

Striking camp when it's pitch dark is a bit more difficult than when it's light, but my headlamp worked well during this and the approximately 850 yard walk out.

Although I ended the trip early due to gear failure, the rest of my gear worked fine. A few standouts:

* Arc'Teryx LEAF Atom SV Hoody. I got this last week from SKD Tactical and I think it's my favorite jacket, ever. It was warm and stood up well to thorns. It merits its own post, which will be forthcoming shortly.

* Princeton Tec Remix headlamp. I mostly used the low power setting around camp, but when set to high it throws a nice beam. I used that when I was working my way back to my truck.

Seriously, don't go into the woods without a headlamp. The ability to work with both hands cannot be understated. I also used an inexpensive Cree LED single-AA light but if I could have only one, I'd keep the headlamp.

* Hill People Gear Kit Bag. I've had this now for a couple years and for me it's the most comfortable way to carry a gun in the woods. My S&W Shield with a spare mag is hardly noticeable. The KB also provides a secure, and easily accessed method of carrying a small survival kit, my car keys, and iPhone, which I used as a GPS. I kept the iPhone in the front zippered pocked of the KB and would stop every 25 or 30 yards to check it to make sure I wasn't walking in circles.

* The iPhone app Spyglass. It's a compass and GPS. Since I'm carrying the phone anyway, it's great to be able to use it instead of my Garmin. On our first trip to the CWSF I had marked my parking spot as a waypoint, which facilitated navigating back to the truck in the dark. (Yes, I had a compass and map. Spyglass is a lot easier to use, especially in the dark.)

* Hill People Gear Mountain Serape (medium). Whatever wind leaked around my tarp was stopped by the MS. Although it didn't work out so well as an overbag in concert with the British jungle bag, I can tell it'll make a great bag for 40 and above, or to carry on day hikes when I'm not planning to spend the night, but want something just in case. It's windproof and highly water resistant, so it could serve as both insulation and shelter. Like the Arc jacket, this merits its own post, which I'm working on.

Even though the trip didn't work out as I'd planned it was a good learning experience.

Day Trip to the Conrad Weiser State Forest

Yesterday I went up to the Port Clinton tract of the Conrad Weiser State Forest and had the chance to try a few pieces of gear.

1. Sony DSC-W810 digital camera. I chose this as my 15 year gift from my employer. I used it to take the pictures in this post. It takes good quality still photos but for video it sucks -- grainy, focusing problems, etc. Disappointing.

2. Etowah Outfitters 10 x 10 tarp. It's polyurethane coated ripstop nylon, and is nice and light. Instead of grommets it has nylon webbing loops sewn on. If one tears out you can sew it back on in the field.

I bought the Etowah tarp so that I could have a larger shelter than my USMC field tarp, for when I go camping with my daughter. The 10 x 10 tarp will allow me to set it up with enclosed sides but still give us adequate room. I brought it yesterday to try setting it up. If I was planning to spend the night I'd rig it so that the sides touched the ground, to block as much wind as possible. This pitch would work to protect you from rain pretty well, however. There was plenty of room underneath it for me and my gear.

3. Etekcity canister stove. Ten bucks on Amazon Prime and it works great for boiling water. I used it with my Stanley cookset to boil water for my Mountain House chili mac & beef lunch, and a cup of coffee. I've lit it a few times and each time, the built in piezo igniter started it on the first click. I don't know how well it'll hold up in the long run but for an occasional use unit, it looks like it'll do the trick.

4. Stanley 24 oz. Adventure Camp Cook Set. Well made except for the plastic tab handle on the lid. I previously replaced that with a stainless steel key ring. I didn't use the plastic cups that came with it. I'd left them home so I could store the stove, a bandana, and a fuel canister inside the pot. An Olicamp or GSI cup will nest over the outside. It is too tall and narrow for eating from, but it's good for boiling water on a canister stove. It has graduations stamped into the side for measuring water.

The foam pad was from Dick's Sporting Goods. It was good for kneeling on, but next time I'll schlep my REI camp chair, which is a lot easier to sit down on or get up from.

I made myself a cup o' joe after lunch using a Folger's coffee single. It's basically a tea bag, but with coffee. I'd rate it as better than instant coffee but not as good as coffee made using a drip, French press, or percolator. However, it's very convenient.

Finally, I practiced a little bit of fire starting. Pic of the ashes before I doused them:

Epiphany Outdoor Gear Pocket Bellows

A quick video that I made last weekend.

Emberlit Wood Burning Camp Stove

Earlier this month I posted about camping stoves, including the Emberlit wood burning stove which I bought last winter, but didn’t get a chance to use it until Labor Day weekend. This is a follow up.

The stainless Emberlit weighs 11.45 oz., has a footprint of about 4.5” inches square, and is 6 inches tall. The stove walls taper so that the top is a little smaller than the bottom. I think the earliest production models did not come with the cross bars for the top, which allow you to use smaller cups on it. They also add rigidity.

On the Labor Day camping trip I used it to make coffee in my percolator and fry up some Spam.

It worked to get the coffee boiling but really isn’t ideal for use with this percolator. It really needs a wider footprint for better stability. (That’s my friend’s modified Kelly Kettle in the background. Both are sitting on top of a park-type grill he has at his place in the mountains.)

On the other hand, it worked well to fry up some Spam to go with our breakfast.

Today I decided to give it another try, this time to make some Lipton chicken noodle soup.

Here’s what it looks like unpacked, ready for assembly. As you can see, it’s still has some soot on from the camping trip but the case kept it off the rest of my gear.

And put together, loaded, ready to be lit. I wasn’t sure how much fuel I’d need to get a cup of water boiling so I prepped a good amount, which turned out to be more than required. To get the sticks going I used some dried out flower stalks from my garden, lit with a match.

Until the flower stalks burned off and the sticks ignited the Emberlit gave off quite a smoke cloud. But once the flower stalks were gone it burned cleanly with little smoke.

(This picture was actually from the second burn of the day. For the second burn I moved the stove into the shade so I could get better pictures.)

I used a 750 ml Toaks titanium pot with lid and bail to make the soup. The dimensions of the pot are 3.75” in diameter at the base by 4.375” tall, not including the lid or bail.

I’ve used this Toaks pot a few times on my last couple of camping trips, and like it a lot. It weighs only 4.7 oz. and holds a decent amount of water. If you remove the lid it’ll fit over the bottom of a 32 oz. Nalgene bottle. The bail stays upright on its own and allows you to either hang it over a fire or pick it up. The handles are robust. The lid fits well and has a little loop handle on it that can be set to stand up, so you can easily grab it, yet still folds flat.

The one cup of water took only a few minutes to start boiling.

So, I added the soup mix and in a minute or so it boiled over, even though I only had one cup of water in the pot. I took the pot off for a few seconds then set it back on the stove but off to the side a little so the soup could simmer.

I used an 8.5” long Optimus titanium spoon to stir the soup and later eat it. The long spoon is also handy for eating from Mountain House pouches.

After a few more minutes the soup was done and I had lunch. Afterwards, there were a few coals leftover in the stove. It had burned the sticks very efficiently.

As I was eating lunch my daughter wandered out and asked me to make her a cup. After finishing I was able to rekindle the flame from the coals, using some more of the dried flower stalks, some sticks, and a lot of blowing on the coals.

Compared with my first time using the stove I now have a better impression of it, based on:

1. Using a more suitably sized cooking vessel.
2. Having an adequate supply of fuel prepped and ready to go.

However, compared with my Kovea Spider canister stove, it’s:

1. Dirtier (not just the stove, but the soot left on your pot).
2. Requires more attention while you’re cooking something.
3. Generally less convenient.

That said, it’s a very viable option for backpacking and even for emergency use. For example, charcoal briquettes are a fuel commonly found in urban and suburban areas, and for which it’s cheap and easy to store a large amount. For use in an emergency, an Emberlit would be make more efficient use of briquettes than a typical grill. I need to give this a try.

Emberlit also sells a titanium version of this model which weighs only 5.8 oz., making it even more attractive to backpackers.