My new camp stove tried to be a rocket at Crater Lake

I was testing a fancy new backpacking stove at Crater Lake last fall, one of those tiny titanium ones that folds up. The instructions said to prime it for 30 seconds, but I got impatient after maybe 10. When I lit it, this huge fireball shot up about three feet high. I jumped back and my friend just yelled, 'We have liftoff!' It singed my eyebrows and melted a small hole in the rainfly I had hanging nearby to dry. The whole thing settled down after a minute and cooked fine, but I learned a hard lesson about following the priming steps to the letter, especially at 7,000 feet. Has anyone else had a piece of gear act way more dramatic than expected in the mountains?

3 comments

3 Comments

ward.piper2mo ago

Sounds like a pretty standard stove flare-up, not exactly a crisis.

stella3072mo ago

Exactly, people panic over normal kitchen stuff. A little flame on the gas burner happens if grease drips, just turn it off and wait. Calling it a crisis is a bit much.

butler.mark1mo ago

Yeah "standard stove flare-up" is right, I once had a can of spray sunscreen explode in my pack at 10,000 feet because the pressure changed, sounded like a gunshot and scared a whole group of hikers. You ever have something totally random fail on you at altitude?