Cooking

Gone are the days of lugging about a Camping Gas stove with a blue cylinder. There are still cannister fuelled stoves on the market, and good stoves they are. However, the disadvantages are trying to guess how much fuel you have left by shaking and listening . . . Once they are finished they have to be carried until they can be discarded, invariably into landfill.

I will be using something called the Caldera Cone, designed and manufactured by a company called Trail Designs and supplied to me via Anti Gravity Gear, both in America.

There are two parts to the Caldera system. Firstly, the stove, which weighs an incredible 1/2oz (16gr). This runs on meths (denatured alcohal in the States). For me to boil enough water for a hot drink and a hot meal, this little beauty uses a miniscule 20ml of fuel (about half an egg cup!) This means my fuel for a week weighs 6.6oz (188gr). It's recycled from an aluminium drinks can and can obviously be re-cycled at the end of it's life, which will be a long way off.

The second part of the system is an intergrated windshield and pot support. Traditionally, I would need a pot stand and a windshield. The Caldera Cone's designs incorporates both into one with a 'wrap around' section of sheet metal, protecting the flame from wind and supporting the pot in one.

 My thanks to Rand at Trail Designs (See link over on the right) and George at Anti Gravity Gear (www.antigravitygear.com).