View Full Version : Taking a Wood burning Stove only- for a thru trip? is that a wise idea?
Im planning to take a wood burning stove that I made out of a pot. Are there any places with restrictions on this? I dont care about the work of getting it started or smelling like ash all the time!! Any others using the same? Suggestions Comments plz:-?
4eyedbuzzard
03-05-2014, 03:33
While unlikely, there could be fire bans almost anywhere as the decision is typically up to individual park and forest managers, and they could include wood burning stoves. Usually if bans occur, they are in summer when it is dry. NJ, NY, CT, and MA can sometimes have fire restrictions (and lots of rules) in my experience. Wood burning stoves are often, but not always, treated the same as an open campfire, so there may be restrictions in many parks as to where you can legally use them (as in right at a fire ring at a developed campsite/shelter). At minimum it might be wise to carry a back up like esbit or a small alky stove and a few ounces of fuel when and where a fire ban could be a possibility.
My experience: I was cooking dinner on a Sierra Zip Stove at a shelter in NJ and the rising plume of smoke triggered a visit from a State Forest Ranger. He informed me that there was a fire ban in effect. I told him that I did see the sign banning fires, but that I thought it was okay because the stove was "contained". He was polite and told me to go ahead and finish cooking, but to put it out and not to relight it again.
It's a tough subject as there is no one source on what type, where, and when certain stoves are allowed as it can change during the season and is open to various interpretation by rangers and such. But, that said, even alcohol and esbit stoves (along with wood) will likely be banned pretty much everywhere out west this year due to dry conditions. The basic reasoning is that there is no mechanical on/off control (valve) that can quickly cut off the fuel source, and that most such stoves aren't UL tested/listed.
Starchild
03-05-2014, 08:07
I believe wood stoves are permanently banned in CT. It's a small enough section that you can do without. I did it in 2 overnights with one in the backyard of a cafe in Falls Village. With planning one overnight or multi town stops for hot food can be done.
Expect to have days where you can not get a wood fire going. In these conditions birch bark will work but leave a sticky soot on the pot and stove, and you will need a lot of the stuff. Better to plan some no-cook options.
Learn how to make a simple alcky stove just in case. A week of rain can really make you wish for a different stove option. Esbit it great for that but not always available.
fiddlehead
03-05-2014, 08:54
I did a thru on a zip stove.
But that was in the '90's
Lots more rules in today's world.
I loved being able to have unlimited cups of tea, cook beans if I was in camp long enough (lentils) and rice.
Making extra for others. etc.
Carried that thing on a trip around the world too and had great fun with it. (burning peat in ireland, pine cones in russia)
Great idea to take a backup for asinine places like CT where they ban fires even if it's been raining for a week.
Good luck and have fun.
You might hit an area where fires are banned due to drought conditions. Also, (semi) civilized places, like the porch out back at Dan Quinn's barn, where a wood-burning stove feels just a bit out of place, and there are no sticks to gather. I carried a Zip stove for several hundred miles. Eventually decided it was too much fuss and bother. In the matter of stoves I've gone Svea -> Whisperlite -> Zip -> Jetboil-> simple canister (Pocket Rocket.)
Slo-go'en
03-05-2014, 12:54
You should have a back up stove or no cook food with you as there will be situations where the wood stove is either not practical (like it's raining) or banned out right as mensioned above.
The rain issue is a big one, especially early on in the spring when it rains a lot. You can't cook in a shelter or under a roof with a wood stove. It takes a bit of time to get the fire started and ready to cook under the best of conditions and if you want or need something hot to drink or eat in a hurry, that time can seem to be forever.
I've used a wood stove on and off and in some situations its the way to go. I used a zip stove for a 4 week trip into the Canadian Rockies where getting liquid fuel was not easy and carrying enough for the trip was out of the question. But on the AT, it's more of a PITA then it's worth.
Wolf - 23000
03-05-2014, 13:14
I used a Zip Ztove for about 1,500 miles. In the winter months, it was nice having a nice fire atmosphere but in the summer it wasn't the best choice. In shelters, it became very annoying to the other hikers who had to deal with the smoke. There are also some places that do have bans on open fires but it really depends on the section and if it is a dry year or not.
Wolf
Here's a link to pmags' stove comparison. I did the writeup for the Zip.
http://www.pmags.com/stove-comparison-real-world-use.
The Barefoot Sisters used a Zip for a good chunk of their sobo hike (2000-2001) but switched to a canister model when winter set in. They complained that it wasn't effective in winter. If I'm recalling the story correctly.
While carrying mine I sometimes carried a few oz. of denatured alcohol to help start the thing, eg., when all the wood around me was soaked from rain.
It was a hot, hot hike thru CT and MA that finally caused me to ditch the Zip.
Expect to have days where you can not get a wood fire going. A week of rain can really make you wish for a different stove option. Esbit it great for that but not always available.
I agree that it is nice to have a backup option to a wood stove, even one of mine.
I like Esbit for this, but alcohol can work as well. I mailed a few Esbit tabs to myself in each resupply box so I did not have to worry about finding it for sale.
Trick for lighting a zip stove when all you've got is wet wood. It requires a small ziploc bag and a dollop (?? a tablespoon or two ??) of denatured alcohol. Put (pre-cut) wet wood and alcohol in the bag, zip it up and shake it all up. Then empty the bag in the stove and light it.
Slo-go'en
03-05-2014, 16:41
Wet wood is rarely a problem. If your at a shelter with a fire ring, there are always pleanty of little sticks to burn under the eve of the shelter were they tend to accumulate. You can always find dead branches on trees to snap off. At worse, you just have to scrape the wet layer off the wood with your knife. However, since your trying to light a fire at the bottom of a small, confined space, it is worth while to have some kind of fire starter, be it cotton balls with petroleum jelly, cardboard soaked in wax and so on. It makes life SO much easier and starting the fire much quicker and more reliably.
The only problem with a wood stove is cooking out in the rain, places where you can't use it due to fire bans and having to deal with the soot on you cook pot. Be sure to have a bag to store your cook pot in or you'll get soot all over everything.
Much Help people! got me a coleman mini burner today.Now I'm safe! Its gonna be a backup for me! Thank you all!
Starchild
03-06-2014, 09:35
Much Help people! got me a coleman mini burner today.Now I'm safe! Its gonna be a backup for me! Thank you all!
If that is a canister stove you got your set up will become: primary stove is the canister with a novelty luxury item of a wood stove. Which is fine, HYOH, but it is not a setup for a primary stove as a wood stove. There are many reasons for this, like you will be carrying around weeks worth of fuel with you, convenience, weight carried. etc.
Also there is usually no synergy between those 2 stoves. A wood stove can usually be used as a wind screen and or pot support for Esbit or alchy stoves, but you don't use either with a canister stove.
SouthMark
03-06-2014, 09:58
I met a thru in the 100 MW that had finished and was hiking back home to NJ. He used a Fosters can pot and just built a very small wood fire to set the can on. He had used it the entire trail.
SunnyWalker
03-06-2014, 10:23
I'm gonna go ahead and try out a wood stove on CDT this year. Take a look at WiWiz.net Fire Fly stove. I have two different wood stoves. The Fire Fly is the one I will start CDT with. I, no doubt will have to change to something else once I hit CO.
Starchild
03-06-2014, 10:57
I met a thru in the 100 MW that had finished and was hiking back home to NJ. He used a Fosters can pot and just built a very small wood fire to set the can on. He had used it the entire trail.
Was that Grandpa?
SouthMark
03-06-2014, 11:02
Was that Grandpa?
No I forgot his trail name. He was deaf and was hiking with his dog named Yolo. I met a mother hiker at the Spaulding Lean-to named GrayJay that was using a homemade wood stove. It had rained for days but he did not have a problem. Collected wood while hiking. The small dead branches at the base of conifers (squaw wood).
Read Barefoot sisters. They used one.
Read Barefoot sisters. They used one.
Yes, but they switched to a canister stove halfway through. A Zip actually makes more sense for hikers traveling as a pair or a small group. You're carrying extra "infrastructure" so that you don't have to carry fuel.
If that is a canister stove you got your set up will become: primary stove is the canister with a novelty luxury item of a wood stove. Which is fine, HYOH, but it is not a setup for a primary stove as a wood stove. There are many reasons for this, like you will be carrying around weeks worth of fuel with you, convenience, weight carried. etc.
Also there is usually no synergy between those 2 stoves. A wood stove can usually be used as a wind screen and or pot support for Esbit or alchy stoves, but you don't use either with a canister stove.
+1
The main attraction of a wood burner is not to have to carry fuel weight. A canister stove is the opposite idea, since you not only carry the fuel, but also a relatively heavy fuel container. Alcohol can be stored in light plastic bottles; Esbit comes in very light plastic individual tab sleeves.
Old Grouse
03-07-2014, 09:49
"Great idea to take a backup for asinine places like CT where they ban fires even if it's been raining for a week."
Fiddlehead, you'd malign a whole state, the majority of whose population probably doesn't even know the AT exists, because of a regulation you don't like?
G2outdoors
03-07-2014, 12:00
I've used my DIY ikea wood stove a LOT! It works great! I find it's perfect for quick overnights and short 2-3 day trips that are spent lounging around camp. On trips where I'm expending a lot of energy (mountain biking, fishing, hunting, hiking, etc) I've found that the LAST thing I wanna do at the end of the day is fuss around with my wood stove. An alcohol stove is marginally better. On trips where I'm wrecked at the end of the day, my Jetboil is what I reach for. YMMV.
Sent from my Hammock.
SunnyWalker
04-20-2014, 14:58
Hey QiWiz, I just realized (it dawned on me) that a backup problem I was having would be solved with your UL Esbit stove thingy that hangs in your FireFly. I should say "my FireFly" as I bought one from you. I don't want to fight the USPS on mailing fuel like ISO and etc. The Esbit would sure solve that. I just ordered one from you on your web site. Your site looks better every time I review it. Now I'll have the FireFly with the little UL Esbit stove thingy for it and I hit the CDT this June 2014 for SOBO hike. Thanks.
Hey QiWiz, I just realized (it dawned on me) that a backup problem I was having would be solved with your UL Esbit stove thingy that hangs in your FireFly. I should say "my FireFly" as I bought one from you. I don't want to fight the USPS on mailing fuel like ISO and etc. The Esbit would sure solve that. I just ordered one from you on your web site. Your site looks better every time I review it. Now I'll have the FireFly with the little UL Esbit stove thingy for it and I hit the CDT this June 2014 for SOBO hike. Thanks.
Thanks for the nice comments. Just sent you a PM about how I mailed Esbit (heat sealed in a seal-a-meal bag, then heat sealed that bag into a second bag). I also used the heat sealer to bag olive oil and campsuds to refill small plastic bottles of each that I carried with me. All of my resupply boxes with these three items inside went through just fine. I double bagged the Esbit because I was concerned the Esbit smell might become noticeable otherwise. Might be overkill. YMMV.