John Muir Trail Gear: Jetboil Personal Cooking System

In prepping for the John Muir Trail there has been a bit of a debate amongst our group on whether or not to bring a stove. After all, if we’re going to make the thru-hike in only 8 days we need to shed as much weight as possible. Maybe I’m not hardcore enough, but personally I don’t know if I could do it without hot meals. Hot meals not only warm the body but boost the moral after what will undoubtedly be tough days. A few of us are in the same boat on this. Realizing one of the advantages of backpacking as a group is we can share things – the weight of a stove, cookware, and fuel can be split amongst the people in our group. In our case, we will have 6 people and we have finally decided to bring two stoves. The stove? Both Jetboils (Personal Cooking System). As the hot meals we plan to cook are simply freeze dried packaged foods, our primary need for the stove is to boil water. The Jetboil is more than a good choice.

While not the obvious choice for ultralight backpackers at 15.25 oz/432 gm for the cooking system (without fuel canister), the Jetboil has some clear advantages over lighter minimalist systems. The particular system we’re using is with the 1 liter anodized aluminum pot. More like a large travel mug, the pot securely snaps to the stove for cooking. The mug pot is wrapped with a neoprene cozy that is designed to stay on during cooking providing safe insulated handling. It also has a lid that is designed for direct drinking. The stove itself features a surefire Piezo igniter and a burner housed in a windscreen that focuses the heat for efficient cooking (boils 0.5 L of water in under 3 minutes). The stove and 110g fuel canister (sold separately) packs into the mug pot for compact travel/storage. Considering that proper nutrition is critical to the success of any multiday adventure, it is important for us to have a faultless system but also save time and energy in cooking. I think the weight is justifiable for this reason alone especially when depending on getting a majority of your calories from packaged meals.

Alternatively we could use a common ultralight Beer Can Stove system at about 5 oz/141 gm with fuel tablets. The thought did cross our minds. The fuel tablets may be failsafe(?) but the fragile aluminum beer can receptical may not be (for the clutz or stumbling backpacker in us). It would also be frustrating to potentially wait more than twice as long to boil water, and further with even a jumbo beer can (24.5 liquid oz capacity) we’d have to do more boils than the JetBoil cup. I suppose we each could carry a beer can system but then most if not all the weight savings are gone, not to mention pack room. If anything, it would defeat the point in sharing gear and our idea of working as a team and bonding as one.

The other great thing about the JetBoil is that it can be used for more all-purpose camping and backpacking with other integrated products. So if for economical reasons only, this could be the only stove you’ll need to own. It’s already won awards from some reputable industry publications so you know we can’t be going wrong.

It retails for $99 and depending on where you’re loyalties are, you can buy it at
Moosejaw or REI.

Check back in mid September for a full review on how it worked on the JMT…

15% off Regular Priced Merchandise at Moosejaw.com with code CJ15 (Exclusions Apply)