Well, I'm still bummed about the igniter on my less than 6 month old Jetboil crapping out on me while on the trail. Sure I was still able to light it with my trusty Bic, but when I have gear I expect it to work. I talked to Jetboil today and they were very nice and knew what the problem was right away.
Here's a tip for you. If the button on your igniter is red, call them and they'll send you a new igniter. Apparently they got a bad run from their supplier and they've had a lot of problems with them. They have since changed suppliers and the problems seem to have been resolved. I'm hoping to have that in a few days and should be good to go after that.
The gram weenies with me on the Juniper hike kept pushing their Giga stoves. Of course, this is the same stove I was debating about when I finally opted for the Jetboil. I do have to admit that we were both impressed with certain things about each others' stoves. Since I was having problems with mine, and since I had a couple of $10 coupons, I decided to pick up the Giga.
I was originally after the auto stove which has its own piezo igniter. However, after some face time with Cool AT Breeze from whiteblaze I learned that a lot of people on the AT have problems with their igniters. He said it seems like the life expectancy is about 2 weeks. So with that in mind I opted for the cheaper manual stove. That saved me $10 to begin with and allowed my coupon to further reduce the impact to my wallet. So now I'm also the proud owner of the Snow Peak Giga. I've been busy with other things getting ready for another camping trip that I have yet to really test it out other than a quick burn test.
When I got the Giga I also needed something to cook with. I suppose I could use my GSI cookware but that's really more of a car camping set. I don't know that I want the weight/bulk while hiking. So I decided to get the Snow Peak Trek 900A. This is the aluminum version of their large cup and pan set. It's about $25 cheaper than the titanium version and while it cost me 3oz in weight, it's my understanding that aluminum distributes heat better than titanium. At only $20 to start with I didn't mind paying $10 after my coupon. Not only is the larger cup going to be (I believe) easier to cook in, it also holds the large fuel canisters.
After Juniper I was really interested in making my own hiking meals. I really don't want to pay the price for Mountain House or Backcountry Kitchen. Plus I want to eliminate shopping trips to the sporting goods stores. :-) I ended up finding a Nesco FD-60 4-tray dehydrator on craigslist and got it down from $45 to $25. I picked up some Tuna Helper (I love the stuff!) that I think will be my first dehydration experiment. I doubt I'll get to it this week but I might give it a whirl if things pan out ok.
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