camping gear recommendations?

[fireantresq]

Hey all,
Are there any avid campers here that would be able to recommend a mess kit for backpacking?
Thanks!
Ant

 

[-Z/28-]

Go to REI and look at the Orikaso origami kits. They're awesome. They are flat plastic that folds into bowls, plates, and cups. We used them when I was in scouts. Much better than a metal kit.

Also pick up a Nalgene bottle or two. They're nearly indestructible. Used one to hammer in tent pegs in Texas one time.

 

[DCSCO]

I use a stove that fit into the pot I carried. Forget the brand, Swedish, burned gasoline, white gas, coleman..

 

[hollyb1]

A good bit will depend on what you are eating/cooking. I usually had a plastic gi canteen and metal cup that I used for cooking when I was in scouts. If your doing mres/mountain house stuff that you eat out of the pouch all you need is a spoon and a cup for mixing drink powder. When we went to philmont we each had a bowl, mine was the handless part of of a scout mess kit, and a cup, I had a good sized plastic mug that could take hot liquids, each group of four had one cook pot to heat up water for our four person food packs.

If your looking for an individual set up the pathfinder kit here:
http://stores.thepathfinderschoolllc.com/-strse-416/The-Pathfinder-32oz.-Bottle/Detail.bok
will give you a way to cook something and boil water all in one nice package.

 

[fireantresq]

Those origami kits look pretty neat, but I was looking for something to cook in and boil water in. Awesome suggestions...keep'em coming please.

 

[MattTheGunslinger]

http://m.rei.com/mt/www.rei.com/product/401067/open-country-2-quart-pot-with-lid

I just bought this kettle and used it Monday to boil water for my dehydrated food. It's really light, and made in te USA. They make other sizes and kits.

 

[hollyb1]

An additional consideration will be your heat source, open fire or commercial burner. Different heating methods have advantages and disadvantages, open fire you dont have to pack fuel but when it is very dry out the parks will have fire restrictions, commercial burner are nice little contained units that get to cooking temp really fast but you have to carry fuel for them. I got an MSR whisperlite white gas stove that I thought was pretty hightech but it looks like in the last 10 years they have build smaller lighter models. The penny can alchol stoves look pretty decent for low cost backing stoves, but scouting was against alcohol fueled stoves, due to low flash point, almost invisible flame, and probably becuase its a youth organization and someone would try to drink the alcohol.

 

[BFMIN]

I'm a huge fan of the Swedish army messkits. 2-liter pot, 1 liter frypan, alcohol burner that never has "technical issues" just add yellow "Heet" or denatured alcohol & a flame to start. One fill of the burner will bring to a boil & simmer for 20 minutes the 2- liters of stone cold water.

The outer case is also a "hobo stove" allowing twigs chips & small branches, or even charcoal briquettes, to be used to save fuel. The burner can be packed filled, & the fuel bottle is enough for 3~4 other meals.

I pack my fire kit & other stuff like simmer rings for heat control, steel matches to light & tinder inside as well together with a spare "O"-ring & vaselene in case I toast the one in use. It is designed to be strapped to the outside of a pack saving room inside & keeping it handy for immediate use, but will fit into a U.S. Army "Chaplains pouch" which is ALICE/MOLLE compatible if you prefer.

The stove burner is a bigger, better version of the ultralight can type alcohol burners, but don't try burning "snakebite medicine" these are designed for denatured alcohol, which is poisonous!

 

[Trekker]

I use a stove that fit into the pot I carried. Forget the brand, Swedish, burned gasoline, white gas, coleman..

If you are going to only get one stove, I would recommend what I suspect DSCSO is referring to, a SVEA. I most often use a lightweight denatured alcohol stove that works fine 3 seasons out of 4, but doesn’t handle cold or wind as well. For dependability in any weather, particularly winter, I would use the SVEA since it always ran well, even in -25F or 14,000 feet. One of my father’s hiking buddies pulled out a SVEA that had been in storage for 15 years, still with a half tank of white gas, and it lit up without trouble. Additionally it does not weigh too much, is fairly efficient with fuel, and has never leaked fuel in the pack.

For a pot I have a generic stainless steel pot (bit heavy but tough), but ideally someday want to get a Evernew titanium pot such as my father has. Super lightweight, they nest wonderfully within each other, no protrusions when packed up, and the handle works just fine. Can’t bang them around like stainless steel, but I try not to be too hard on my equipment anyway. http://www.evernewamerica.com/ti_ns_reg.htm

For my mess kit I have a sturdy plastic fork and spoon, insulated plastic cup for hot drinks, and often eat out of the pot I cook in (no need for extra dirty dishes, or weight for that matter)

Also pick up a Nalgene bottle or two. They're nearly indestructible. Used one to hammer in tent pegs in Texas one time.

+1 Nalgenes are my primary water bottle. I’ve near seen one broken, even if dropped and allowed to bounce down a cliff face. In boy scouts one guy tried to break one by beating it on an iron fire ring; scratched it up but couldn’t break it. The widemouth ones are my favorite since they are easiest to refill from a water filter or pouring in boiled-clean water from a pot. I’ve been putting full nalgenes into my sleeping back in winter (so they wouldn’t freeze overnight) for years and never had the lid leak once.

 

[ThatGuy179]

I always use MRE's and my metal canteen cup to heat water in over a fire

 

[mountainman]

Take two empty tin cans (can goods, soup can, coffee can), one that fits inside the other (close in size). Drill holes on the sides at the top and the bottom. The can that is to be place inside the other, flip it over and drill holes in the bottom of it (this will be the grill/supports pot over the fire). The outer can leave the bottom solid.

Pack the inner can with sticks/flammable material. Place it inside the outer can. Light the fuel/wood at the top closest to the pot (like a candle). Once it gets started it will draw air through the bottom holes, fairly efficient at heating water, burn what is available. You might want to make a bigger hole on one side up top to be able to add fuel. The holes around the bottom end you want about an 1 inch up to contain ash/ keep wet ground out.

Drill holes 3/8-1/2" in diameter. Use a drill press if you got one/ hand drill will work. If you got time you can fool around and figure out different sizes of holes produce different burns/faster /hotter. I just did 1/2 and cut out with hack saw to make larger hole to feed fuel in.

You can prepack with nice dry tinder/then your ready to go when you stop to make camp.

Or you could just buy a Kelly Kettle

 

[aethyr]

I am certainly not an avid camper, but here is my recommendation anyways

http://www.amazon.com/GSI-50163-Out...8&qid=1354290869&sr=8-1&keywords=GSI+Ketalist

 

[mountainman]

Take two empty tin cans (can goods, soup can, coffee can), one that fits inside the other (close in size). Drill holes on the sides at the top and the bottom. The can that is to be place inside the other, flip it over and drill holes in the bottom of it (this will be the grill/supports pot over the fire). The outer can leave the bottom solid.

Pack the inner can with sticks/flammable material. Place it inside the outer can. Light the fuel/wood at the top closest to the pot (like a candle). Once it gets started it will draw air through the bottom holes, fairly efficient at heating water, burn what is available. You might want to make a bigger hole on one side up top to be able to add fuel. The holes around the bottom end you want about an 1 inch up to contain ash/ keep wet ground out.

Drill holes 3/8-1/2" in diameter. Use a drill press if you got one/ hand drill will work. If you got time you can fool around and figure out different sizes of holes produce different burns/faster /hotter. I just did 1/2 and cut out with hack saw to make larger hole to feed fuel in.

You can prepack with nice dry tinder/then your ready to go when you stop to make camp.

Or you could just buy a Kelly Kettle

forget about the soup cans, I made one years ago that worked great, this time took me 25 minutes to boil 3 cups of water. For back packing you could use a small coffee can 15 minutes to boil 3 cups of water (cold weather longer). The large solvent can is almost a camp fire, I keep it in my truck. 5 minutes to boil water. Burn it out before you cook food.

 

[nedsurf]

Having been in the outdoor industry, I had my fill of stove use from the soda can alcohol stove to the double burner picnic table stove. Here is how it breaks down for me.
Summer backpacking: Soda can stove with a cheap, light, small pot. Ultralight and cheap but slow. http://www.thesodacanstove.com/alcohol-stove/how-to-build.html
On a mission like climbing: Jet boil B/C its fast and light can be hung or hand held.
Winter for any type of camping: liquid gas stove all the way with a light pot. Alcohol and those canister stoves lose efficiency big time when camping in an snow cave.
Family camping out of a car: Double burner with the cast iron. eggs and bacey, yumm.
As far as flatware and utensils. It can range from just a spork and knife eating out of the pot to the whole steel enamel flatware set. depends if I am humping it through the wilderness and want to go fast. I like those long handled spoons cause they don't fall into the pot. ditch the pot holder to save weight and use your multitool. cut off the pot handles for the same reason. The teflon coating on pots don't last with real backpacking use.

 

[pilgrim]

I do the spork, cup, nalgene, and SnowPeak Gigapower stove. Ti except for the plastic, the wide mouth nalgene fits my purifier.
When hiking with a friend we use his larger cup to cook in and split it when done.
I skip the stove if really cutting weight, most food can be eaten room temperature.

 

[matt1]

I do a fair amount of backpacking so my gear has to all be lightweight and durable... without spending a ton of money, amazon is a gold mine for stuff like that. Just search 'backpacking cookware'. Gsi, optimus, texsport, msr, snowpeak... cant go wrong with those. Colemans been around forever but they make crap...stay away from their stuff which is mostly aluminum and not really safe to cook on. Theres a texsport kit for like $50 that you cant beat.

 

[psycosteve]

When I was into backpacking I would get a cook kit and just take out what I was not going to use. My go to was the frying pan lid and the medium pot out of a stainless steel MSR cook kit. I also carried with me a metal spork , one plastic measuring cup with a handle and that was my cook kit. Everything in your kit needs to do multiple things to justify the weight in your pack. the frying pan is a plate and lid for the pot all in one. The pot is storage for your cook kit items a bowl ,in addition to being a pot to cook in. I do not carry a knife in my cook kit as I have my leatherman on my side with a fixed blade for more serious chopping if needed. ( I love my hatchet but not the weight needed to justify carrying it ). If you do enough backpacking you can eat an steak with a spork and a leatherman knife with relative ease .

 

[chuckgregory]

I've tried the homemade stoves with denatured alcohol, and the gas canister stoves. The homemade stove was cool, but I prefer to use a small stove with gas canister. The alcohol stove wasn't as efficient as gas which meant i had to carry more weight in alcohol than I'd have to carry in gas.

Here's my stove: http://www.moosejaw.com/moosejaw/shop/product_MSR-PocketRocket-Stove_10018497_10208_10000001_-1_

I prefer to use a titanium pot. It's light weight, durable, has measuring lines, and can hold my stove, and plastic utensils. Here's my pot, its a little pricey, but it will last my lifetime:
http://www.moosejaw.com/moosejaw/sh...ini-Solo-Cook-Set_10013316_10208_10000001_-1_

I use a hard plastic spoon, and fork that I've cut so it fits in my pot.

I eat out of the pot, no need to carry a plate or bowl with you.