We had a chance on our 8 day backpack to do some comparisons between some stoves, namely my Caldera Cone with a 1.9 L Evernew titanium pot, an MSR Pocket Rocket, a Snow Peak Giga Power, and a JetBoil. The latter 3 stoves are canister stoves, and the Caldera Cone is an alcohol stove. Each [...]
Outdoor Gear, Patents, and Outdoor Trips by Bob Shaver, Patent Attorney
Category Archives: Gear
Handy Survival Bracelet
A friend of mine and adviser to our scout troop makes and sells some really cool survival bracelets, which look great and also are a great survival and woodcraft tool. Since they are made of 7 feet of paracord, which can hold 550 lbs of weight, they can be taken apart for use as cord [...]
The Outback Oven used with the Caldera Cone Stove and Windscreen
I really like the Caldera Cone Tri-Ti Stove and Windscreen. Its great for cooking meals, heating water, and frying fish. I wanted to add baked breads and biscuits to our meals, so I got an Outback Oven and began experimenting with its use with the Tri-Ti Caldera Cone. The Outback Oven, ultralight version, comes with [...]
Can You use an Alcohol Stove in the Winter?
It is often assumed that you can’t use an alcohol stove in the winter, so I did a little test last weekend. The scouts were going on a winter campout, so I took my Caldera Cone to test in winter conditions. It was 21 degrees in the morning on Saturday, and the stove and fuel [...]
The Ti-Tri Caldera Cone – a field test
Having been a skeptic of alcohol stoves, I was pleasantly surprised with the Caldera Cone on a 5 day backpack in “cool to cold” weather, over spring break of 2009. I used the aluminum version of the Caldera Cone on that trip, and cooked solo. With cold mornings and occasional snowy conditions, the scouts compressed [...]
Ultralight Hiking
Kelly Kitchens, founder of MacLife, was the guest speaker at my college backpacking class recently, and brought us up to date with the state of the art when it comes to ultralight backpacking. Kelly Kitchen and other proponents of ultralight backpacking get their pack down to 17.68 pounds for an overnight trip, including food. This [...]
Petzl Snow Scopic Ice Axe
Ice axes started out in the 19th century being long staffs with a point at one end, and were called alpenstocks. By the 1970s the typical mountaineering ice axe was much shorter, but was still long enough to be used as a walking aid, especially on sidehills. In the 1980s and 90, ice axes got [...]
North Face Tent Uses Wind to Stand up to Wind
Popular Science has an interesting article in the September issue and the online Popular Science magazine about a new North Face tent, the Spectrum 23. The Spectrum 23 has a wind scoop which faces into the wind and scoops air into the tent. As the wind increases, the volume of air scooped into the tent [...]
The Invention of Crampons
Crampons in some form have been around for many centuries. A page on the history of crampons by Grivel shows one type of crampon carved on the Arch of Constantine of Rome, built in 315 AD. Crampon design took a major step forward in at the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time purists [...]
More on P-38 Can Openers
I wrote a first piece about P-38 can openers a while ago. Shortly I posted another piece with some P-38 patents. Here are a few more P-38 type can openers, the favorite of hikers, GIs, campers, aviators, sailors, and anyone who needs to get a can open. Later, I met Kobie of dogtagrus.com and enjoyed [...]