Shoutout to the $80 camp stove I bought that barely worked above 8,000 feet

So I figured I'd save some cash and grab this random branded backpacking stove off Amazon instead of the usual MSR or Jetboil. It was like $80, looked decent enough in the photos, and I thought hey how different can a stove really be. I took it up to the Wind River Range last September on a 4 day trip and the thing just kept sputtering and dying every time I tried to boil water. At one point I was literally cupping my hands around the burner trying to keep a flame going while my dinner just sat there cold. I probably wasted 3 hours total across the trip just fighting with that piece of junk. Now I'm out $80 and I still had to borrow a friend's stove for the rest of the trip. Has anyone else been burned by a cheap stove that couldn't handle altitude?

2 comments

2 Comments

elliot_barnes4d ago

Got burned by a cheap stove at 12k feet in Colorado. Ended up sticking with my old Whisperlite, thing works every time even with snow.

emmag224d ago

Right? "Every time even with snow" is exactly the thing. That's the point where you just KNOW a piece of gear is good. It's a weird pattern I see in a lot of stuff now. People chase the newest, lightest, cheapest thing and end up with junk that fails when you NEED it. Your old Whisperlite is the Opposite of that. It's like with phones or cars too. Everyone wants the flashy new model until the battery dies in the cold. The real win is finding the thing that just WORKS no matter what.