Re[2]: [at-l] another stove question

[shane@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Shane Steinkamp)]

> Hmmm - so you're in the middle of a thruhike when a fire
> ban is declared in Virginia or New Mexico - what are you
> gonna do with your stove?

Well, being as I don't carry a radio, a television set, or get newspapers
delivered while on the trail, I probably won't find out about the ban until
I hit a town.  At which point, I'll just mail it forward.

> Eating cold is OK if you have to - some people even do
> their whole thruhike that way.  But if you're already
> carrying the stove (as most people do), you might want to
> be prepared to mail it ahead.

Exactly.

> But even that's not always possible - ask the people
> who've had their Zips (and other stoves) confiscated in
> New Mexico and California.

I've never had that experience, and I don't know anybody who has.  If
someone tried to confiscate my stove, I wouldn't let it go unless someone
quoted me chapter and verse of the law.  The days of police confiscation of
personal property is gone - if they're going to confiscate contraband, they
have to arrest you to do so.  If it became a real hassle, then I suppose I'd
have to give it up and order a new one from ZIP...

> Basically, I'm not big on Zips for a couple reasons - one
> is that thruhikers generally aren't interested in long-
> cooking meals.  So trying to sell the stove to thruhikers
> on that basis is self-defeating.

I'm not trying to sell anything.  I'm trying to show a 'better' way.  ;)  I
wonder how many of those thru-hiker drop outs would have stayed the course
if they'd have had real food in them...

> But my main problem with it is the smoke/smell.  Yeah - I
> know - the smoke isn't generally a problem if you use dry
> wood.  Let's see - I had a period on the AT with 19 out of
> 23 days dumped rain, sleet, hail and/or snow on me.
>   Dry wood?  I don't think so.

In similar conditions, I have never failed to find enough dry fuel to fire
my stove.  If you do, you aren't looking hard enough, or in the right
places.  You don't need enough for a real fire, just a couple of handfuls of
short twigs.

> But then there's the smell.  I can't stand to wear clothes
> that are washed in many (most) detergents.  I can't stand
> to be around people who use heavy perfumes (or cologne).
> And I no longer tolerate campfires all that well -
> I've started "maybe" 5 campfires in the last 12 years. So
> I'm not likely to tolerate the smell of a Zip for very
> long.  Probably not any longer than the next town stop
> where I can get rid of it.  But that's personal preference
> - mine.

I can't argue with that in any way.  Personally, I love to take a smoke
bath.  I tend to smell like smoke, and even after a hike that smell doesn't
come off of me for a few days.  That's from a real campfire, though.  Very
little smoke escapes the zip stove, and really only when getting it
started - if you do it right.

> One other point that someone mentioned back there - the
> particles in wood smoke are NOT so heavy that they drop to
> the ground.  In fact, they're fine enough that they become
> part of the atmospheric circulation. Where do you think
> the Brown Cloud over Southeast Asia originates?

Not from ZIP stoves, I'm sure.  That's kind of like saying that my urine is
helping to turn the world's oceans acidic, so I should stop peeing...

Shane