By the light of the silvery moon

After three months looking through the window at the world I finally got back to work this week. To celebrate I had a quick hammock overnighter in some Woods local to me. Thanks to my wife for driving me to the woods, and understanding my need to sleep out, I planned to call her in the morning if the walk back was too much. As I left the house one of our friend's daughters asked me where I was going and didn't believe my answer that I was going to sleep in the woods.

It was nearly Full Moon and bright enough to do most things without the head torch. The silver beams of moonlight streaming through the half bare canopy of the woods lit up the woodland floor like a frozen black and white disco dance floor. The trees looking like motionless dancers caught mid move. The sounds of birds disturbed by my twig snapping footsteps, fluttering up from the canopy above mixed with the mournful bark of a fox distant across the woods. I was grinning from ear to ear as I wandered about trying to stick at a bearing by holding the moon at my shoulder. All too soon I found the small spring fed brook that I planned to camp at, and started pacing out the distance between trees to hang my Hammock and Tarp.

An Owl came to check me out, it perched in the tree above me for half an hour or so, staring at me intently as I strung out my Tarp and Hammock. Once ensconced in Down and Pertex , with a hot chocolate in hand, I tried to engage the Owl in conversation. He or She was unimpressed with my hooting and glided silently away through the trees. 

I added too much hot water to my Fuizion Thai Green Curry in the silver light of the moon but it was tasty all the same as a thick soup and I finished off with an Adventure Food's chocolate mouse. I then settled back in the hammock enjoying Rum and hot chocolate whilst reading on the Kindle App on my phone. 

I was asleep by 10 and woke up at exactly 8 am to the sound of a chainsaw in the distance somewhere.

After a few coffees and a Peanut Butter Pop Tart I packed away slowly enjoying the  woodland in daylight, with the autumnal colours interspersed with the vibrant green of the Moss..Once packed I slowly followed the brook to the edge of the woodland collecting a carrier bag of litter from someone's camp and then  toddled along a few bridleways and footpaths back to the house.

All in all a great little bit of relaxation just a few miles across the fields from home, that has taken the edge of my cabin fever after three months of Tramadol and boredom.

 With no wind I set the Tarp high so I could look out of the sides at the surrounding woodland.

 Organised chaos beneath the Hammock

 Thumb in front of flash - Doh!

 Time to call it a night.

 Last shot past my feet.

Last chin picture.

 Morning and everything looks different. No trace of my camp.

 The brook that trickled away all night having me up for a pee just as I was dropping off.

Lightweight Cookset - Evernew 400ml Companion Cup and Trail Designs Sidewinder Ti-tri Bundle

Here is my lightweight cook set that utilises Trail Design's Evernew 400 ml Titanium Companion Cup and Sidewinder Ti-tri bundle.

Click here to be taken to the site.

I have utilised the aluminium sheet sent by Trail Designs to make the lid but have replaced their titanium stakes, and used my own DIY stove.

In the mesh bag provided by Evernew. I like my Cook Sets to be self contained so this works for me.

Out of the mesh bag you can see the lid is made from the sheet of Aluminium provided with the Cone by Trail Designs

 There is no fuel in the Cook Set as I find solid fuel tablets leave an odour as can alcohol. But I will probably use up the remaining space in the packed cup for Coffee powder and Sugar, in a small zip seal bag.

 As I remove the contents most of it is inside the packed Cone 

 Here you can see the contents of the packed Cone spread out. Note the two small wire stakes. the Trail Design kit comes with two Titanium Tent stakes, but these do not fit in the Cup. But you could carry them with your shelter stakes, I just had these bent Titanium wire stakes left over from an aborted idea with a Poncho Tarp. I cut them shorter so they would fit in the cup, but only just. I would say that the stakes provided by Trail designs are both more robust, safer to use with the Cook Set  and can have multiple uses.

 Below is the Cone set up for a wood fire

 Below is it set up for  alcohol

 Below here it is set up to use a solid fuel tablet.

 I have added an extra set of holes lower in the Cone to allow a lower setting for use with solid fuel tablets. As you can see the quality of my work is crap when compared to Trail Designs, but after a bit of testing I get a more efficient use of solid fuel when the cup is at this lower level. Originally I used a silicon band around the mug to hold the cup at this level that came with the set, but I guess that my testing with a range of alcohol stoves had burnt and weakened the silicon band and it broke. So I thought I would drill some holes to hold the cup at this height. In retrospect I would re-drill the holes I made in slightly different places, although still at this height, to make the set up safer with the wire stakes, but I only spotted that after I drilled these holes and I didn't want to turn this great piece of Engineering into more of a mess than I have already.

 Here is my DIY stove. I made this after standing on a soda can stove made from a Redbull can. I cannot claim the idea as original as I stole it from a blog on the internet. It is a pocket Vaseline tin.

 I have filled the tin with fibre glass, and then covered that over with some mesh from an old coffee press to keep the fibre glass in. This stops it spilling the alcohol every where when you accidentally knock it. I use the lid to burn solid fuel tablets in, which allows me to shut the tin and keep all the gunk and soot from spreading inside my cup.

I also pop the stove in a zip seal bag to stop any odour being left in the cup.

 This is it with a Gelert 6.5g solid fuel tablet.

 Ariel view of solid fuel set up.

  If I had drilled the holes for the nearer wire stake closer to the join in the Cone, the wire stakes would be more stable when you move the Cone

 Ariel view of alcohol set up, set slightly higher as the alcohol stove flames are higher.

 The whole set open

 The whole set packed in the cup, leaves room for Coffee and Sugar in a zip seal bag.

 Weighed on the scales

 Photos of it in action taken in my garden. This is the solid fuel set up.

 Solid Fuel boils 350 ml of tap water in about 7 to 8 minutes dependant on conditions like wind etc. The cup will only really hold 350 ml but that is great as it is exactly the amount needed for most Fuizion freeze dried meals.

 The Gelert solid fuel tablet is more than enough to boil the 350 ml of water in these conditions, but that extra fuel would be useful in the wind and rain.

 Now set up for use with alcohol.

 Just boils the 350 ml of water in  6 mins with 10 ml of alcohol but I use 15 ml as usually it is used in less ideal conditions.

This is the first time I have tried the Cone as a wood fired stove and I was extremely impressed with the results. I placed the base of an Aluminium pie dish under the Cone so not to scorch the paving slab, but I think I need to create a folding Aluminium Base that fits into the cup. The cup sits on the wire stakes at their highest position.

 Note also that I have turned the handles away from the hole I feed the wood into, for obvious reasons. Well I say obvious, but I learnt the hard way. Ouch!

 I like the versatility of this set up and was impressed at the wood burning capability, it boiled the water in about 15 minutes, but the fuel was free and was plucked from my garden hedgerow.

 Smallest driest twigs I could find in my hedge.

 All in all I am really pleased with this set up, and being versatile enough to use alcohol, solid fuel tablets or wood is useful for longer distances. I have even used alcohol based hand cleanser gel, squirted into the lid of this stove when I ran out of solid fuel and alcohol on a trip before.

At 134.7 grams this is fairly light, but it is also robust and very versatile. I am sure many will say that the pot is too small but my previous light weight set up utilised a 400ml Titanium cup, just a taller one. I find that you boil once to add the hot water to rehydrate a meal and whilst the meal is hydrating, you boil another cup of water for a hot drink. Then you have a hot drink and a hot meal.

The only drawback with this set is boil times, my Jetboil Sol set up will boil the same water in just over 2 minutes. But weighs nearly four times as much (with gas canister inside) and is three times the size when packed. On a long trip carrying, replacing and even disposing of gas cannisters is not always easy and the extra weight unwelcome.

Stove and Cookware

Like many outdoor enthusiasts I have quite a selection of stoves and cookware for camping that I have collected across the years, decades even. My current set up is not the lightest that I own but I use it on all but the longest of multi day trips because of convenience. It is extremely quick! It is the Jetboil Sol Titanium. As with most things I have made some adaptations that work for me.

The Jetboil in a netting drawstring bag

I have replaced the plastic heat exchanger cover with an Evernew Companion Cup, this came about after I cracked the plastic cover. I cannot claim this idea as my own as I picked it up from Bob at backpackinglight in one of his Outdoor Station video podcast things. This allows me more versatility as, at a push, I can cook in the cup as well using the pot stand that comes in the Jetboil kit. 

Zip bags of Coffee and Tea

Titanium Spork sits on the Gas cannister.

The Gas is carried inside the pot with a titanium Spork and cleaning pad/cloth(stops any rattle from Gas Cannister in pot), along with the small zipseal bags with instant tea and coffee.

The entire contents.

 I mix a little extra whole milk powder, whole milk powder doesn't have that nasty taste that normal powdered milk does, and sugar into the instant tea and add sugar to the instant coffee.

In addition I always carry a lighter and a couple of solid fuel tablets, like Esbit but cheap ones, so in the event of the Jetboil not working, I can sit the pot on a burning tablet. The heat exchanger holds the pot above the burning tablet at just the right height. It works quite well.