Sunday, September 16, 2012

An Emberlit follow up

I just wanted to do a quick followup on the Emberlit wood stove,  as I have been using it for a little over a month now. Coming from a more traditional hiking stove background-canister stoves & alcohol stoves-I was a little wary of this, as I figured gathering burnable fuel would be tedious. After a month of using this every weekend though, I have to say, this is now my go to hiking stove. I have had NO issues gathering materials for it, at all. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go out into the woods, during and after a drizzle (we havent had much rain here recently). I specifically wanted to find out how hard it would be to get fuel when its damp out. Well, I had no issues at all. Living in New England, we have mixed woods here. More importantly, we have resin producing trees, which burn, even when wet. Pine trees have a particular growth cycle, that helps too-they tend to only have live branches & needles on their crown, letting lower branches die off. What this means is that there is PLENTY of standing dead wood fuel, that is likely dry, or at least drier than what is on the ground. My initial reservations of fuel gathering, thus far, are unfounded. It doesnt take long to get fuel, the stove will not break down or need spare parts, I dont need to be concerned about running low on fuel, and, lastly, this is environmentally friendly-harvesting dead wood, over manufacturing canisters and fossil fuels, both of which require processing plants to do so.
Bottom line is, if you are considering a different stove type, I say give one of the wood burning ones a shot. There is something about making a fire at the end of the day, that feeds that primal instinct. And, its like a portable campfire-that will burn much longer than any canister or alcohol stove will, simply for heat!

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