Cold Weather Camping Stove Workaround

Looking at doing a Katahdin trip this winter and hope to work up to Denali in the coming future. I know butane stoves are no good under a certain temp and have looked into white gas stoves. With that being said, I picked up a eureka stove a few years ago which runs off butane, and have recently found an adapter which could allow me to run propane through the stove instead. Would this be a reasonable stove for the winter as all of my trips would be a week or longer and propane works down to -40, or is the jerryrigging not worth it and I should just pick up an XGK.

You can pick up a whisperlite+fuel pump+bottle for less than $50 used off ebay. IMO the XGK is superior only as a dedicated snow melter/water boiler, if you only bring one stove the normal whisperlite is better.

There are ways to make canister stoves work in cold conditions (water bath, moulder strip), but if you’re melting a lot of snow canister gas gets expensive and you end up carrying more weight in canisters than you save with a lighter stove. 

Propane canisters are thicker/heavier— some people use them winter camping since they’re stupid simple, but they’re far too heavy to be a good option for mountaineering.

Gotcha, yeah the weight was a worry for me with the propane, might just pick the adapter up cause its only 20 bucks and use the propane stove for short approach/vehicle based base camp skiing. I'll keep an eye on Ebay and see if I can snag a whisperlite if one of my friends has one and if they do just shell out for an xgk

MSR makes a stove called the Whisperlite Universal that runs on liquid fuel or gas canisters. They also make a stove called the WindPro, which is basically a Whisperlite burner that only runs on gas cartridges, no liquid fuel option. The cool thing about both of these stoves is that they can be used with the canister inverted, so it doesn't matter how cold it is, the stove will work. Keep in mind that the butane cartridges sold in mountaineering shops (MSR, etc.) usually contain 80% isobutane and 20% propane, so they work in colder temps than regular butane. Normal butane boils/liquifies at arounf 30 degrees F, while isobutane boils/liquifies at 11 degrees F. If the canister is labelled "4 season fuel", it will almost certainly contain a mix of 80% isobutane/205 propane, and work fine down to 11 degrees F. 

If you're worried about the cost and weight of canisters, you can always get the 1 lb isobutane cartridges, which give you somewhat more fuel for your money than the 4 oz and 8 oz canisters. If you're just worried about weight, there are system stoves (MSR Windburner, MSR Reactor) that are much more efficient than regular stoves, which will reduce the amount of fuel you need to bring on a trip. They're expensive, though, and you're pretty well locked into the pots that MSR builds for those stoves and the pots aren't cheap either. 

The big advantage of the EX-GK (modern equivalent of an X-GK) over the Whisperlite is that it primes and warms up faster in subfreezing temperatures. The EX-GK is extremely loud though, to the point where I'd rather take an extra minute or two to prime and warm up a Whisperlite. I used various liquid fuel stoves for years, but once I tried a few gas cartridge stoves I quickly lost interest in liquid fuel stoves. Warming up a gas canister or just inverting the canister when it's on my WindPro is a lot easier than priming a liquid fuel stove, or dealing with flreups, or repairing the pump over and over again. 

mark felber wrote:

Keep in mind that the butane cartridges sold in mountaineering shops (MSR, etc.) usually contain 80% isobutane and 20% propane, so they work in colder temps than regular butane. Normal butane boils/liquifies at arounf 30 degrees F, while isobutane boils/liquifies at 11 degrees F. If the canister is labelled "4 season fuel", it will almost certainly contain a mix of 80% isobutane/205 propane, and work fine down to 11 degrees F. 

My experience is that the propane/isobutane isn’t a perfect mix, and without taking additional measures to warm (or invert) the canister the propane burns off faster and runs out while there is still isobutane left, so you don’t get the full canister worth.

Buy a Snowpeak titanium bowl.  Warm the butane canister in your jacket and then warm up a small amount of water and pour it in the bowl.  Place the canister in the bowl of warm water and start cooking.  I've used this method to cook with a butane canister stove down to 30 below.  

Kai Larson wrote:

Buy a Snowpeak titanium bowl.  Warm the butane canister in your jacket and then warm up a small amount of water and pour it in the bowl.  Place the canister in the bowl of warm water and start cooking.  I've used this method to cook with a butane canister stove down to 30 below.  

You don’t even need to warm the water (other than keeping it from freezing in extreme cold), and a plastic container pulled out of the recycling works just as well as titanium.

Kai Larson wrote:

Buy a Snowpeak titanium bowl.  Warm the butane canister in your jacket and then warm up a small amount of water and pour it in the bowl.  Place the canister in the bowl of warm water and start cooking.  I've used this method to cook with a butane canister stove down to 30 below.  

Another variation on this idea. Buy a plastic MSR DeepDish bowl ($10) and a few feet of 1/8" shock-cord. Rig up the system shown below. Also helps stabilize the stove, and could be used in a hanging stove system if necessary,

Martin le Roux wrote:

Another variation on this idea. Buy a plastic MSR DeepDish bowl ($10) and a few feet of 1/8" shock-cord. Rig up the system shown below. Also helps stabilize the stove, and could be used in a hanging stove system if necessary,

Now this I can get behind

If you are going to setup camp in one spot for an entire week using a whisperlite is going to be 1000% less of a hassle than playing keep the gas cylinder warm while it's freezing out, but if you are on the move then something like the reactor or jetboil, setup to hang inside your tent would be perfect for one or two people.

Rasputin NLN wrote:

If you are going to setup camp in one spot for an entire week using a whisperlite is going to be 1000% less of a hassle than playing keep the gas cylinder warm while it's freezing out, but if you are on the move then something like the reactor or jetboil, setup to hang inside your tent would be perfect for one or two people.

Agree that a whisperlite is a better basecamp stove, while the reactor is a better on-route stove.