A Bump in the Lightweight Road

Phoebus Stove. Not just for camping.

Last summer I used an Esbit stove on a weeklong trip through the Wind Rivers. The Esbit Folding Stove is a tiny piece of titanium weighing about 0.4 oz, just big enough to hold the fuel tablet with your pot or mug balanced on top. It brought to boil a 16oz cup of water in short time and seemed so simple, whisper quiet, though a bit smelly and sticky. I brought this along as an experiment, to see if I’d like using something so light and simple for warm-weather trips. I looked over at at my Jetboil original model with a rumpled look of dissatisfaction. About 1 lb in weight, it’s far heavier than the Ebsit, somewhat loud, yet extremely effective at what I need in a stove, boiling water. I wondered if I could lessen my load with a ultra-light stove like the Esbit, or even better, make my own stove. The Jetboil works just fine, no fuss, no mess, but it’s size & weight started to gnaw at me. 

After all, each trip I take is an evolution of my gear weight-loss program. I’ve been consciously dialing down my pack weight ever since I volunteered to take part in a lightweight gear article in a magazine published by the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) back in 2008. For the article I was told to pack for a hypothetical, 4 day backpacking trip with friends in New England during the month of June. Several days later I arrived at the AMC Trails Dept. building in Pinkham Notch NH, where an AMC Staffer and past thru hiker of the AT and PCT meticulously unpacked, weighed and carefully scrutinized everything I packed. I certainly didn’t walk away unscathed and neither did the newbie hiker-author. Some of my gear was heavy, redundant, or simply unnecessary. In the end, my base weight added up to a whopping 30 lbs, which is nearly the same as my total weight for the Wind River week-long trip!


I learned a lot from that experiment, and over time, have reduced my 3-season baseweight to approximately 12 lbs with lighter, high-quality gear. Much of it is USA-made and sold by cottage industry retailers, such as Gossamer Gear (Kumo and Mariposa backpacks), Western Mountaineering (32˚F Summerlight sleeping bag) Black Rock Gear (down hat) and Tarptent (Moment DW tent). The one item that, until recently, remained fairly heavy had been my stove. 

When I first starting backpacking in high-school, I didn’t own a backpacking stove. I didn’t own any backpacking gear. On my first weekend trip, I borrowed an ill-fitting external frame pack and an curious, Austrian stove, proudly emblazoned “Phoebus”. It came in a bright red metal can, about 8” in diameter, advertising itself useful for “Camping, Fishing, Climbing and Driving”. Driving?! This got many laughs from my friend and I as we happily stuffed it into our packs and hiked into the White Mountains of NH. We would pump it full of pressure, wait for it to prime and listen to it roar away as a boil was achieved. It always worked when called for, and though a bit cumbersome, we came to love the Phoebus, often yelling out “Phoeeeeeeebus!!” on the trail for no reason other than we thought ourselves funny. I’m not sure of the weight, but I’d guess it was about 2-3 lbs without fuel. At the end of the summer I handed the backpack and stove over to the owner and proudly bought my own gear, much of it thrice replaced by now.

In that time, I’ve used a Whisperlight, a Primus, a JetBoil and a Snowpeak GigaPower-- all a bit lighter than the next. The Esbit was my first attempt at something ultra-light and did the trick.  After the Winds trip I continued to use the Esbit on fall weekend trips, but the fuel tablet’s smell of rotten fish, and the sticky brown residue on the bottom of my mug had me looking for other options.

So it wasn’t until this April that I dove deep into the lightweight channels of the interwebs looking up various types of alcohol stoves, boil times and kevlar wicks. Within a few days I was surrounded by a myriad of stove making supplies, hailing from a diverse range of retail locations, including an online fire performance equipment provider, REI, Ace Hardware and PetSmart. Finally one evening I sat down to make myself an alcohol stove, the Super Cat by Jim Wood. I figured this would be best model for me, as it was one of the simplest types I could make, with an amazingly detailed website. If I screwed up, I had only myself to blame. For an hour or more I read the instructions, and using my 1/4 in hole puncher, carefully made a tiny little alcohol stove, light as a feather. I tested it outdoors the next morning with great excitement, hiding myself and the stove behind a uprighted table, out of the shifting winds to get the best possible results. After several tests I stood puzzled with the same problem each time: no boil. Even though it was filled with alcohol as directed, the stove wasn’t able to run long enough to boil 2 cups of water. I had to refill it, light it again, and wait another 30-40 seconds before the water would boil. Was it the wind, the stove, or the outdoor or water temperature? After various adjustments to the windscreen and water temperatures, I still couldn’t get a boil without refilling.

After my failure, I sat distraught but still hopeful, thinking through what I liked and what I didn’t about the new stove. The overall system was lighter, but not as much as I had hoped. As I did the math, I realized I was a water hog compared to other cat stove users. I’d need 1 oz of fuel per boil and would need about 3 boils for all the soup, tea and re-hydrating I prefer each day. This meant I’d be hoofing around a lot of liquid fuel, especially for week-long trips. During testing, I found the fuel noxious when burned and easy to spill, leaving me sick to my stomach later that night. I also knocked the stove over while lit, which may have been disastrous if it wasn’t done on a cement patio and quickly righted. I did just about everything wrong one could do using this stove!

The alcohol stove was supposed to be my answer to simplicity on the trail, no fuss, no mess, something really light that worked. Everything I was trying to achieve had failed in grand form and suddenly I thought... maybe a Jetboil isn’t such a burden? I know a few hikers who love their alcohol stoves and have no problems what so ever. Even if my stove worked, would carrying the liquid, not seeing the flame and inhaling the fumes be worth it? Maybe it was a stove making error that caused the failure, but in the end I realized we all have a lightweight line we won’t cross. Some would rather carry a heavy, yet roomy tent than save weight and comfort on a tarp, losing their 4-wall-and-a-floor coverage. For me, I'd rather carry a 1lb, high-powered, no-fuss stove than fumble with liquid fuel and fumes. Or maybe an upgrade is what’s in order... there’s still there’s a few Phoebus’s kicking around online:) 

Phoebus 725 photo by RonPH