Learning from mistakes

As I was putting away my alcohol stoves, I began to reminisce. Sitting on the shelve were the stoves that I have acquired over time, beginning in the mid to late 1970's.

My first backpacking trip should have soured me to backpacking. As a scout, I was not involved with the planning, but as I recall we were supposed to hike every other day. Fishing on the off days. The first night out, the plans changed as the adults talked with people on the trail. We ended up hiking every day from daybreak to dusk. We went down a wrong fork for most of a day.

Instead of vowing to never go backpacking again, I realized how unprepared I really was for the trip. My pack was home made, and very heavy (without gear). Cooking on an open fire after extremely long tiring days was a bad experience.  Heavy sleeping bag. No map or idea of our planned path. The list could go on and on.

We lived in a small town and, looking back, I realize how tight money was for our family.  Even then my parents were able to get me a new pack for Christmas. Later they contributed a better sleeping bag, and even added backpacking tent. I still have all that gear. The bright orange pack never fails to remind me of the many trips I took as a youth.

Since water filtration was not a necessity at the time, the most important problem for me to solve was the cooking over a fire. It took significant time, blackened cook ware, and left a scare on the land. Without any knowledge of backpacking stoves and without ready access to any data to do research, and with only one sporting goods store in town, my choices were limited. The local store catered more to fishing and hunting than anything else. Everything in the camping section seemed to have the Coleman label. My older brother, by nearly a decade, was into scouting as a leader and had just purchased a Coleman Peak 1 stove. So I did as well, mostly because the Peak 1 was the only stove available to me at the time. The stove is heavy (1 lbs 14 oz. or 837 g)  and bulky. But this stove solved my dilemma at the time. The attached fuel chamber and pump work flawlessly. The Peak 1 also has a built in jet cleaner. The folding legs make a steady platform. Liquid fuel so I could use the stove in the winter

Coleman still sells a version of this stove today as the Sportster and markets it as a backpacking stove. While I bought this stove in my youth, I cannot recommend it for backpacking today. There are too many better choices and over the course of the next few post I hope to explore them.