Cold walk brings hot idea to boil Portable stove ‘test’ finds speed champion

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Perhaps it was the conversation I had the other day with one of the reporters who works with me covering news in Bar Harbor that provided the inspiration for a sortee last weekend to that tourist mecca.

Our conversation was pretty much me saying how much I tried to avoid the place during tourist season and him telling me that, since he lives and reports there, it wasn’t all that bad a place to visit regardless the season. I allowed that any place overflowing with humanity, especially on a day when a cruise ship landed, was something to avoid like the plague. He said the bustle of humanity made things interesting.

No amount of convincing would lead me to that conclusion. Give me a quiet street, no stoplights, and a clear shot through town and I’m gone – which is pretty much what it was like last Sunday afternoon when my wife and I breezed through.

We’d met a friend in Ellsworth for coffee, shared some conversation, caught up on each other’s daily routines and got in some quality shopping time at Reny’s and the L.L. Bean Factory Store before deciding to get some fresh air.

It was sunny, breezy, and the temperatures were in the teens – a perfect day to take a walk in the park. So we cruised down to The Harbor, took one quick loop around the town dock and steered south to the Otter Cliff Road. There’s a parking area down at the end near the Park Loop Road, a perfect place to ditch the car and walk along the shore path back to Sand Beach. (By the way, the restrooms there, it’s called Fabbri Rest Area, are open and heated.)

(Most of the Park Loop Road, including the road to Cadillac Mountain, is closed for the season, but the one-mile section along the ocean at Sand Beach, past Thunder Hole and to the Fabbri Rest Area is open. Access is via Schooner Head Road, two miles south of downtown Bar Harbor.)

The snow from the night before provided just enough cover to decorate the hillsides and rocks along the shore. We stopped here and there to watch the waves crash against the pink granite and on the ledges at sea. Thunder Hole wasn’t roaring, but now and again it let out a good groan as a breaking wave rushed into its recesses.

A lone surfer, dressed entirely in black rubber neoprene, was bobbing on the waves near shore at Sand Beach. I caught him in the binoculars as we approached from the south along the Loop Road. By the time we made it to the beach, however, he’d had enough and was packing it in. We had the entire beach to ourselves.

The setting sun backlit the Bee Hive, giving it a red highlight. Behind the beach the marsh was a skating rink while near the low tide mark the waves provided a slow, but steady backbeat breaking up the otherwise silent seascape. We sat for a while on a log pondering the beauty and snacking on raisins and chocolate bits.

A slight chill and the impending darkness rousted us back into motion to begin the return walk. I wished that we’d have gotten there a little earlier and thought to bring along a picnic lunch – maybe next time, before the tourists return.

On our walk back to our car, I remembered that I’d packed a little stove and some cocoa figuring that we’d heat up some water and make a cup of cocoa. However, for some reason I thought I’d forgotten to pack a gas canister, so I nixed the idea. I even stopped in Bar Harbor on our way home to buy a gas canister at Cadillac Mountain Sports just as they were closing. At least I’d have a fresh supply for our next outing.

(Had I looked in the little cook kit I’d packed I’d have found the canister I had indeed remembered to pack. Did I mention I’m getting forgetful? I’ve got to start making lists.)

The incident did prod me into action Wednesday night, though. Rod Wiley at Epic Sports in Bangor and I had discussed various lightweight stove and cooking pot combinations and he had come up with another combination of light weight, packability, and efficiency that needed testing. We gathered the pieces and I took them home to “race” them against each other to see what combination would boil two cups of water the fastest.

I headed home after work and dragged out four “systems” to race. For each test I had a new canister of fuel of the brand recommended by the stove manufacturers.

Here are the four heat sources:

. The Jetboil Personal Cooking System that weighs 15 ounces and holds 1 liter of water. I also used Jetboil’s 1.5 Liter Fluxring Cooking Pot, 7.5 ounces, and the Jetboil Pot Support, 1.2 ounces.

. MSR WindPro(tm) that other testers have rated very high for windy conditions coming in better in tests than all the competitors, according to the folks at MSR, and it is the only remote canister stove sold complete with a windscreen and heat reflector. The company claims it is the lightest remote canister stove on the market with a minimum weight of 6.8 ounces and a packed weight of 10.5 ounces. It is compact enough to fit in a one-liter pot.

. MSR’s PocketRocket(tm) is one of my go-to stoves for light weight and packability.

A reviewer for Backpacker Magazine’s called it a “midget flamethrower” and “the best cartridge stove I’ve used.” It barely tips the scales at 3 ounces and also fits in the palm of your hand. Its dimensions are 4 x 4 x 2 inches and has three pot supports.

. Snow Peak Giga Power stove with automatic lighter that weighs 3 ounces and is 4 1/8 x 2? inches. It has four pot support legs. Combined with the Snow Peak wind deflector we figured it would outperform our previous combinations.

. Snow Peak titanium cook pots. I have a three-piece minimalist’s cook set that includes a large pot (really, it’s a pretty small pot), a smaller pot, and a frying pan (really small). Total stowed dimensions are 5.5 x 2.25 inches, and it weighs 7.1ounces. And Wiley lent me another titanium cooker that fits neatly into a bottle cozy.

To make things fair, I carefully measured two cups of cold (40-41 degrees) tap water for each run and started timing when the stove fired up. When each reached a rolling boil, I noted the time. Each “run” was done at 62 degrees ambient temperature. (OK, I don’t turn up the thermostat in my house!)

Here’s how the stoves performed:

In first place by far was the Pocket Rocket and Jetboil’s 1.5-liter Fluxring pan, which came to a rolling boil in 1 minute, 42 seconds. Second place went to the WindPro and the Jetboil 1.5-liter pan at 2:17.

Third place went to the Jetboil burner and the 1.5-liter Jetboil pot with a time of 2:54. Just behind that in fourth place at just under three minutes (2:58) was the Jetboil personal cooking system. A second attempt proved a tad slower at 3:07.

The Pocket Rocket matched this using the 51/4-inch titanium pot coming in at 3 minutes.

The slow pokes in this showdown proved to be the Snow Peak Giga Power stove and titanium pot at 4:45. Using this stove and the 1.5-liter Jetboil pot turned in boiling times of 2:55 and 3:09.

There you have it. If you plan on using any of these stoves outside this time of year, plan on carrying the gas canisters inside your coat where they’ll stay warm and take along some hand or foot warmers to put under them to help them perform in the cold. Or you could take along your old, trusty liquid fuel stove until the temperatures warm up a bit.

Jeff Strout’s column on outdoor recreation is published each Saturday. He can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY JEFF STROUT

The great canister stove boil-off lineup features (from front clockwise) the MSR WindPro, The Snow Peak Giga Power, Jetboil (with pot support ring) and MSR’s Pocket Rocket.