Evernew America, a company known for its titanium cookware, was showing an interesting integrated stove-and-cookset nicknamed the Appalachian Set.
The Appalachian Set includes five interchangeable components (also available separately) that together create a versatile, light stove system.
An ultralight titanium alcohol stove forms the center of the system, which nests in two interlocking cylinders. The stove, nested in the cylinders, forms a stand for a 500-ml pot.
The pot incorporates a raised ridge on its underside, to prevent it from sliding off the top of the stove and dumping ramen on your lap.
A separate titanium trivet enables users to dispense with the locking cylinders in still weather and cook directly on the stove. Out of alcohol? Set up the cylinders without the stove and you have a serviceable micro-wood fueled stove.
Kings Peak is the highest mountain in Utah, a 13,528-foot pyramid of rock in the state’s remote Uinta Range. To climb to the top, you hike almost 30 miles round-trip, a journey that starts on a well-worn path and ends — hours or days later, depending on your speed — atop a knife-edge ridge that seems to float in the sky. Earlier this month, under blazing sun and blue above, I stood on Kings’ summit with two friends and fellow GearJunkie staffers, T.C. Worley and Pat Petschel, and gazed west. A cliff dropped off a few hundred feet, and the view went on forever. For a moment, we were standing taller than anyone else for miles around.
King’s Peak, at 13,528 feet, is the snowy pyramid behind the ridge on right
My group’s journey to the top began 11 hours earlier at a trailhead just above 9,000 feet. We had hiked fast for most of the day, taking stops to eat or shoot video to record the trip. I tracked the trip with a SPOTdevice, putting down waypoints and a virtual GPS path as we climbed (see interactive map below).
Overall, the theme of the trip was “fast and light,” and our backpacks followed suit. Our gear was skimmed to the very essentials for the climb. In my pack, I carried a tent, sleeping bag, a tiny pad, a shell jacket, and some food. Like any backcountry trip, I attempted to skim as light as possible on Kings, though without compromising on safety in the wilderness.
With a stock of lightweight gear, my 30-liter backpack, the Speed Lite 30 from Deuter, was all I needed for the trip. It weighed less than 20 pounds loaded up. Many hikers and climbers we saw on Kings had packs literally three times the size, burdening loads with over-stuffed panels and tents tied on top.
Beyond simply using lighter gear, an easy but expensive option, hikers can cut weight by eliminating repetitive or unnecessary items. One of our tents, for example, could be set up with trekking poles, allowing us to leave the aluminum stock set of poles behind. (We used to-be-released tents from Sea to Summit and NEMO Equipment.)
At the trailhead, each person in my group packed about a gallon of water for the hike in a hydration bladder. We used purification tablets, not pumps or filters, to clean our water from streams. This saved a pound or more in weight. Our product was from Potable Aqua, the company’s chlorine dioxide tablets, which I have used on trips like this for years.
Clothing is another easy area to cut the load. Plan to hike, climb, sleep, and descend all in the same set of clothes. Synthetic or merino wool clothing for base layers, never cotton, is best. I wore a merino-blend T-shirt from Ibex. I bring a mid-weight shirt or a lightweight “puffy” jacket like the RAB Xenon (first item inthis post) for warmth at night and a shell jacket for protection from wind and rain.
On the feet, Timberland’s Cadion 2.0 Mid boots are a great lightweight option if you want to balance foot protection and comfort with speed on the trail. They have a Gore-Tex liner for waterproofness, and the build rides a line between a fast hiking shoe and a full hiking boot — there is good flex in the sole, and each boot weighs about 16 ounces (in mid-range men’s sizes), which is light for a boot of this kind. On the descent of the peak, in some talus, I twisted an ankle slightly and pinched my foot between two sharp stone edges. I was fine after shouting a few choice words, but happy to have had the boots on at that moment for protection instead of the lighter trail runners I sometimes wear for mountain treks.
Food and stoves can be heavy. We took a tiny alcohol-burning stove, the EBY255 Ti DX model from Evernew Inc., which weighs just a few ounces and packs small. It was a simple solution for making hot water and rehydrating our meals in camp. Otherwise, beyond the hot meals, which were “eat from the bag”-style from Mountain House (and were super good!), our food for the hike and the climb was dense, high-calorie items like nuts and energy bars. We ate 100 to 200 calories each hour on the ascent to keep energy up.
At night, our lightweight sleeping bags rode a close line between comfort and cold. I was warm, however, using the Haven Top Bag from Therm-A-Rest, which is rated to 20 degrees. It is a strange design that does not have a bottom (to save on material weight) so you lay right on the pad. Your feet are in the bag, but your back has no bag insulation under it. (We review the Haven Top in depth here.) The funky design nets you a down bag that packs up tiny and weighs just 1 pound, 8 ounces.
Our camp was at 10,900 feet, and it was in the 40s as we slept. A tiny sleeping pad kept me off the ground, and I wore my jacket to bed — an extra layer of insulation that was enough to keep me warm. My camp pad, the Inertia X-Lite from Klymit, is touted as the “world’s lightest camping pad,” as it weighs a miniscule 6.1 ounces. It has a cut-out pattern that looks suspicious (will my hips be pressing into the tent floor as I sleep on my side?) but on Kings it worked surprisingly well. The pad-with-holes kept me suspended off the ground, and I stayed toasty all night.
Beyond all the gear, a hike/climb strategy can play into keeping things light and fast. On Kings, we found a campsite a couple miles from the top and stowed a bulk of our food and gear tied up high in a tree. We then cut off the main trail, avoiding a snaking and roundabout pass, the common route, for a steep chute that aimed straight at Kings’ top.
It was a sharp climb up a scree chute and onto the ridge. A fast final climb, unburdened by extra gear, to the highest point in the state. The off-path route cut about two miles off the trek and positioned us for the summit earlier in the day. We were on top as the sun started to sink in the western sky, hiking off in dusk with headlamps at the ready for the darkening trail back down below.
At Outdoor Retailer Show 2011 Summer in Salt Lake City, UTAH, EVERNEW invited friends to our second Annual Minimalist Party.
We had a first Minimalist party last year and invited 20 guests. This year we had 30 guests at the party. It has been a great experience to meet with many people who are leading Ultralight backpacking movement. Purpose of this party is to communicate with people and exchange new ideas in order to
Here is the list of Companies and people shared the FUN Night:
Justin Lichter (AKA Trauma) made a great presentation about his 2400 mile Himalaya trip that he just came back from. This minimalist party was the first Himalaya trip presentation. Even though he has done triple crown in 1 year... yes 360 days of hiking in 1 year... in the past, this hiking in 20,000 ft elevation was the most difficult trip that he has ever experienced. What Trauma has done was little more than Backpacking, but the gears that he used were not too far from what you use for regular backpacking trip.
Ultra strong, ultra light, and won’t corrode. As far as metals go, it’s superior. It could be outside for an entire summer, an entire winter, an entire lifetime, and it will still be an intact, usable piece of pure titanium. Keep it in the family and your grandkid
will be drinking a piping of cup of coffee in the same titanium cup you did.
When camping, every ounce counts, as does every square inch in the rucksack. Everything has to be able to take a beating and carry on singing, and if it’s not bringing you comfort or the necessaries of surviving, it’s not coming.
This little stove and cup combo brings both. Boil your water to purify it and drink it out of the pot you boiled it in. Heat up your coffee. Cook your dinner in it, give it a rinse, and finish with a sip of whiskey. Everything tastes better in the outdoors and the fact that it’s made completely out of titanium means it won’t leach any unwanted chemicals into your warm and nutritious food.
It also won’t budge, and won’t topple over. It has no frills and no silly moving parts. This sturdy little marvel is the god that crushable, aluminum beercan stoves pray to. Best of all, every piece of the stove fits inside the securely lidded pot, which holds 500 ml, or just over 2 cups.
Aside from losing it down a mountainside or to the imperial jaws of a grizzly who absconds with it in the night, this compact stove set is virtually impervious to harm.
Comes with three parts, all made with titanium: a lidded pot, an alcohol stove, and a multi-fuel stand with wind guard.
The best fuel is denatured alcohol, which is cheap, clean burning, and can be found in camping stores, hardware stores and gas stations.
Set the stove on a patch of level ground. 40 ml of fuel can burn for about 12 minutes, enough time to cook up something tasty or boil four cups of water. Put the fuel in the fuel chamber and if it’s cold, douse the outside of the entire stove in a few drops and light it. This will reduce cooking time by instantly heating up the metal. The flames on the outside will burn off and soon whatever’s in your pot will be piping hot.
If you don’t have denatured alcohol on you, simply remove the fuel chamber and use wood or other solid burning material.
The lid handle is protected with heat resistant silicone, the pot handle is not, so you’re going to want to use gloves or at least your shirt sleeve when lifting your yummy stew off the stove.
Clean it with soap and water and air or pat dry. If water supply is low, clean it by filling the inside with sand or dirt and then give it a good shake and swipe with a towel. Alcohol burns clean, but if you have carbon residue from wood or other fuel and want to get the black off, use steel wool or a hard brush.
This little set was born in the lab, inspired on the mountain, and manufactured in ice.
Outside of space exploration and medicine, it’s relatively unheard of to work with titanium that’s only 3 mm thick, because the titanium is likely to crack or break when pulled into shape in sub-zero temps.
Using a cold press machine, countless research hours, rigorous testing and lots of love, the Evernew have learned to bend this super metal to their whim. The parts are made one at a time by hand, the edge of each cup painstakingly bent to fit comfortably against your lip. This stove has been used and enjoyed at 14,000 feet.
I also got to hang out with a lot of the other UL cottage manufacturers and family members at OR over meals and at parties. Ron Bell was there from 
