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Trangia Westwind Stove

By Tracy Wilson-Burns

During Brian Burns' and Larry Wright's recent slide show of their trip down the Salmon River, several people expressed interest in the type of stove they used for the trip, the Trangia Westwind stove. Questions were raised as to how quickly this alcohol stove boils various quantities of water, questions for which Brian and Larry didn't have an answer (honestly, the speed of water to boil has never been a consideration on any of our camping trips).

When Brian and I and Larry and Mary are canoe camping, our pace is relaxed and our schedule is not the harried one of our workdays. However, we don't completely leave our multi-tasking lives at home. Mornings consist of a relaxed tooth brushing, de-tenting and packing of gear, which can easily be multi-tasked with occasional checking on the status of the water heating on the stove. Brian and I usually set a full pot of water to boil, which we use for our coffee or tea and our breakfast (oatmeal, cream of wheat, freeze dried omelet, or pancakes). On the mornings that we postpone our de-tenting chores to let the tent dry out in the morning sun, we sit back in our Crazy Creek Chairs and look out over whatever body of water we happen to be facing and multi-task our enjoyment of our surroundings with our supervision of the heating water. While listening to the morning crooning of loons, or witnessing snow capped peaks turn brilliant against a blue sky, or watching canyon walls dress themselves in shades of pink and orange and purple, I don't think I've ever heard Brian say, "Isn't that damn water done yet?" Even when we were camping with Larry along the Fraser River during a hideous outbreak of mosquitoes that made the front page of the regional newspaper in Canada with a warning to tourists to stay away, we never wished we had a faster burner. Even if it would have meant boiling the fist-sized mosquitoes flailing in the pot of water more quickly.

The stove doesn't boil water all that slowly (see chart below). And the benefits of it far outweigh its more leisurely pace to gas stoves. For one thing, there are no moving parts. Nothing that can get broken or stuck or clogged or gunked up. There are no cleaning or repair tools that need to be packed along with it. You won't ever be faced with a situation where your camping partners are dining and you're still trying to repair your stove. Or worse, you're all repairing your stoves and no one's dining. The stand for the stove is composed of flat interlocking aluminum parts that will fit in your hip pocket if you can't find any other place to store them. We fit our stove and its stand within the smallest of our camping cookpots (1 1/2 liters), along with our utensils, pot holder, matches, and scrapers. The stove and its stand, combined, weigh only 6.6 oz. The stove is so light and easy to pack that when we're not traveling ultra-light we bring two stoves so that we're not limited to one-pot meals. The alcohol fuel is an additional weight, but not a burden. The fuel is easily accessible and cheap (available at hardware stores, REI, the General Store, White Elephant, etc.). A quart and a half of fuel is enough for a 10 day trip (one quart sized bottle and one pint sized bottle). The fuel bottles pack easily with the rest of our gear.

The stove is instantly lit with a match, and the strength of the flame can be modified with the stove unit, an additional simmer ring, a scorch plate, and/or a windscreen to produce ideal heat for the meal. It helps to have something like a Leatherman with needle nose pliers to adjust the stove's heating options, but that isn't required. The stove can be used with a Backpacker Outback Oven, although you should try this at home first and follow the Outback Oven directions for diluting the fuel with water. I've used the Backpacker Outback Oven to make both pizza and brownies with our Trangia Westwind, but was grateful for the experience of trying it at home on a Mexican casserole dish first (you have to make sure the heat inside the oven doesn't get too hot, too quickly or it will burn the inside of the Outback Oven cozy). The pizza was wonderful with enough leftovers for breakfast and the fresh brownies were chunks of chocolate heaven during a 14 day trip!

There are different stand styles advertised with the Trangia stove, and with our experience, the three interlocking pieces that make up a triangular base work best. The three pieces pack beautifully and are stable, but not as sturdy as the more bulky circular stand that you might see advertised with the Triangia stove. Brian used one of the circular stands originally and I had a bad experience with it. I was sitting in my Crazy Creek chair with the stove between my legs (the handiest place) and lit the stove to start heating water with the wind screen surrounding it. The wind screen was too enclosed, the enclosure got too hot, and all of a sudden the paint on the exterior of the circular stand caught fire and I had a ball of flame between my legs. I couldn't move to extinguish it and yelled to Larry (who was standing nearby) to put out the flame. I didn't get burned, the stand survived, but we've been using the triangular (paint free) stands ever since.

A big advantage of the Trangia Westwind is that it can be used quickly and easily during difficult situations. We've all heard that it's wise to travel with an aluminum cup and a pack of matches so that if someone is in need of immediate hypothermic care we can quickly heat water and get some warmth into him or her. With the Trangia Westwind, the stove can be set up instantly during an emergency, and even more importantly, it's so easy to use that it doesn't require an emergency to justify setting up. It can be used quickly during a river break to provide coffee, tea, hot cider, or cocoa; and it can just as easily be disassembled. Simply piece together the three parts of the interlocking stand, set the stove into the stand, pour the fuel, and light. Entertain yourselves with some warming dance aerobics on the beach while the water is heating, and within minutes you'll have a hot drink to chase the chills away.

The Trangia Westwind stove sells for around $20 (another big advantage!) and you can find it online at a variety of outdoor stores. Two in particular are www.outdoorsportz.com and Piragis at www.boundarywaterscatalog.com. For those of you who don't have access to the Internet, the phone number for Piragis is 1-800-223-6565 and their customer service is excellent.

High tech stoves are really cool and look very flashy and desirable in retail display cases, but for simplicity, reliability, size, weight, and low cost the Trangia Westwind is a great choice for wilderness camping.

Trangia Westwind Cooking Stats

For the following, the water was room temperature (68°), the air temperature was room temperature, and the elevation was about 2000 ft.:

Boiling 2 cups of water took 8 min. 11 sec. and used about a tablespoon of fuel.

Boiling 4 cups water took 10 min. 56 sec. and used less than one and a half tablespoons of fuel.