Camp Stove suggestion?

[Becky]

DH bought one of those 2-burner Coleman stoves ~20 years ago, and it's still going strong. IMO, you can't go wrong with one if weight isn't an issue...

[eofelis]

For car camping we use a 2 burner coleman stove that uses the little propane canisters. We bought ours at a big blue box store for about $30. Works great for cooking a full meal. Easy to use and clean.

[Catrin]

Indy - thanks for checking with Brian and letting me know how it worked for you. It sounds like I need to find a Coleman stove, thanks everyone! It isn't like there isn't time to find one Spokewrench I will look into the Weber grill as well.

[ridebikeme]

I have a Jetboil stove, and have used it quite often. I've used it backpacking, touring and have had very good luck with it. The nice thing is that if you are cooking pasta, soups, etc.. then you truly don't need to carry a bowl. Now if you're trying to cook pancakes, meat, perhaps this might not be an ideal stove. However, if you're camping at a camp site then you could cook larger meals over the wood fire... can't beat that. I've had great luck with this stove, and would definitely recommend it.


http://chasecyclery.blogspot.com

[smilingcat]

Good thing I clicked on Catrin's link. It's for tailgate camping not backpacking. Two burner stoves are really great. We have a Colman stove with small propane tank and its great. It's also comes in handy when we lose power. Just make sure you use it outside. Not sure about the price but check out REI, and few sporting good stores. They would have similar items.

As for backpacking stove, I used to have one of the original Primus stove using white gas. Once it got going it was great. Priming was PITA. Backpacking in the back country while beautiful was PITA. All that climbing, getting across alpine streams. If my back wasn't in such bad shape, I might consider it again. I LOVE the Alpine country.

MREs are not that great. I don't care what the guys tell me. Besides, many of the MREs are designed to have nearly 3,000 calories per meal.

[Catrin]

It does seem like Coleman stoves get the best reviews, both here and on other sites. I think that, this year, I will go with the 2-burner Coleman stove and just get a camp skillet for when I want to grill something but don't want/have a fire. Next year I will consider a dedicated grill depending on how it works out. Interestingly enough, the 2-burner stoves with no grill seems to get better reviews across all brands than the stoves with both burner and small grill.

Thanks everyone, your tips, advice and suggestions were appreciated. Seems this is the time of my life when I do new things

Learn to ride a bike at 50, learn how to camp and mountain bike at 51. What will happen this year? Hopefully get better at all of the above

[eofelis]

As for backpacking stove, I used to have one of the original Primus stove using white gas. Once it got going it was great. Priming was PITA. Backpacking in the back country while beautiful was PITA. All that climbing, getting across alpine streams. If my back wasn't in such bad shape, I might consider it again. I LOVE the Alpine country.

I do some occasional backpacking. Not enough, need to do more. We have a couple MSR white gas stoves that are pretty nifty, but I only want to heat a bit of water for freeze dried meals and tea. That's all the cooking I want to do in camp

A couple of years ago I picked up an Esbit tablet stove, $10 at REI. The fuel tablets are just a few dollars. It all packs into my metal cup that I use to heat the water in, about the size of a quart nalgene bottle. Worked great on a 5 day trip into the Grand Canyon a couple of years ago.

[Brandi]

Coleman! Have had ours for 25 years. Every once in a while we have to clean out a line with a safety pin due to a piece of lint or dirt. But it is wonderful. Things never cook quite the same when you are camping. But that's ok always taste better when you are camping though. I Use the camp fire a lot too.