RE: [Philmont]: Buying 'on the trail'

David Voller asked:

> If commissaries have white gas on hand and as I understand it, you stop
> at a commissary to pick up food supplies, how important is it to carry
> extra bottles of gas along the way? Just trying to lighten the load...
> If we have a fuel bottle per stove and we have a stove for every group
> of four and you have two stops for food along the way, is that going to
> cover us?
>
>

Quite a bit will depend upon which trek you are on as that governs the
number of days between commissary stops. Also, the size of the fuel
bottles you will be using is a factor to consider. Our crews have found
it best to carry one extra full fuel bottle with 22 oz. of fuel for each
stove. We use Peak 1 Apex II stoves. Each stove starts out with a fuel
bottle filled to operating capacity (16 oz.) and has another full (22 oz.)
bottle too. At each commissary stop, the bottles are refilled as per
above. By doing it this way, we've never had a crew run out of fuel.

Once they have learned how the stoves burn while cooking the Philmont
meals, our crews often find they can reduce the amount of fuel purchased
during the final commissary stop. Remember that you'll have one
chuckwagon supper when you won't need to use your stoves. Your trek's
itinerary sheet will tell you when that will occur.

YiS,

--
Calvin H. Gray
Scoutmaster, Troop 405
Associate Advisor, Venturing Crew 405
Georgetown, Texas
I used to be an Owl (WM-62-2-98 @ Philmont)
http://www.troop405.org/
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