Solo Stove Lite - Portable Camping Hiking and Survival Stove | Powerful Efficient Wood Burning and Low Smoke | Gassification Rocket Stove for Quick Boil | Compact 4.2 Inches and Lightweight 9 Ounces

As is my experience with ordering from Amazon, my stove arrived promptly and in good condition. My first surprise was that the Solo Stove was not shipped in an oversized box with lots of protective packing. The stove was shipped in a box just large enough for the stove with no extra protective packing. Frankly I was impressed that the manufacturer had enough faith in the quality of construction of the stove to ship without lots of protective packing. After unpacking and inspecting the Solo Stove, I found that the quality of construction exceeded my expectations.We have been able to use the stove backpacking for 2 weekends as well as to make several meals in the back yard. We are very happy with the Solo Stove. The stove is easy to light, burns hot and relatively clean, especially with dry hard wood. Since the stove is very efficient, it is easy even in wet weather to find more than enough dry fuel even in wet weather. We have tried the stove with various camping and backpacking pots and pans, and have found the pot stand to be adequately stable. The only pan we didn't feel comfortable stability wise was our GSI Wok due to its small diameter flat bottom. I will probably fabricate a stainless hardware cloth stand for use with the Wok.The Solo Stove worked well as a pot stand for my soda can alcohol stove and by flipping the soda can stove I can cook with Esbit tabs. I like having alternative sources of fuel for cooking in areas where burning wood is an issue.We are very happy with the Solo Stove and expect it to last many years. I plan to retire our Zip stove and the Solo Stove will be my primary wood burning pack stove.I would definitely recommend the Solo Stove to a friend or relative.Update:Well I am adding a review of my newest and third solo stove since Amazon wont let me add a separate review of the new stove.-------------------------------------------------------I still am very happy with my first Solo Stove and immediately got one for my son. The subject of this review is actually our third original Solo Stove. We keep a Solo Stove in both my wife's car and my pick-up. I decided a it would be handy to have a third stove so we didn't have to pull one from one of the vehicles when we went somewhere with the bikes, kayaking or backpacking. Having three stoves may sound excessive, but my wife and I are retired, and don't live in the city. Our time is more or less our own and we enjoy being able to stop and brew up a pot or coffee, tea or whip up a meal as we please. The Solo Stoves are preface for us, so on to the review.Upon receiving the new Solo Stove, I decided to compare it to the stove I reviewed April 29, 2012. The first difference I noticed was a much better stuff sack for the stove. The sack with the new stove is of much better construction and appears to be the same construction and material as provided withy the Solo Stove Titan and Solo Pots. After comparison of the stoves, the only difference I could detect was an apparent change in the attachment design of the wire ash grate. The new ash great appears to be every bit as rugged and durable as my first stove. Since only time and use will tell, we decided to take our first Solo Stove and the new Solo Stove on a camping and kayaking outing we had planned.Our outing was planned to be only for one week and weight wasn't a huge issue as everything would be carried in the kayaks with only very short portages. Normally we would have chosen one original Solo Stove and the Solo Stove Titan since we cook real food as opposed to boiling a little water to hydrate a packaged freeze dried meal. We used the new stove as our primary stove and our oldest Solo Stove as a second burner. As expected the newest Solo Stove performed flawlessly. We cooked soups, stews, fried, poached, steamed, stir fried and with our Banks Fry Bake pan and Scorch Buster we even baked a cake, pies, breads and even pizzas. Now that sounds like a lot of food for a week outing and it would be except we were enjoying ourselves so much we did a couple resupply runs to the nearest town and stayed out three weeks. Thinking back I wish I had kept track of how many times we actually sued the new stove but unfortunately didn't think of it. I can only describe the average days use. First thing in the morning make a pot of coffee, cook breakfast, heat water to wash dishes, boil the days drinking water, go play on water or put in some miles, brew pot of tea for lunch and make lunch, heat water for after lunch clean up and if needed boil water to replenish drinking water, back to play, cook supper, heat water for clean up, make an evening snack and cup of cocoa before bed. Probably that sounds like a tremendous amount work and wasted time to the average 21st. century backcountry traveler but my wife and I enjoy our time in the outdoors frankly we are in no hurry to put in as many miles as possible in order to get to our take out and back home.After arriving home we cleaned up the stoves, washed the stuff sacks and inspected the new stove and stuff sack of signs of wear, degradation, or damage. Other than minor discoloration, the stove in our opinion the stove was as good as new as was our oldest Solo Stove. I have no doubts that our Solo Stoves will still be going strong long after my wife and I have passed and will provide many years of service to whoever ends up with them.In closing I would like to add that in my opinion The original Solo Stove is the perfect choice for todays backpacker. It is the preface size for preparing freeze dried meals and when honestly comparing weight of stove and fuel for anything beyond a weekend of power bars and one meal a day of Raman Noodles or a freeze dried meal.I will continue to highly recommend the Solo Stove to anyone interested in hearing my opinion.

This is a cool little stove.I have been searching for the "ultimate" hiking and camping stove for a few years now. What I have found is there is no one stove. It depends on what you are doing. I have made myself a bunch of beer can penny stoves. They are good for quick lunches. But you have to carry to much fuel for extended trips. The standard fuel canister ultra-lights are very handy, but.... well. They just aren't any fun.This stove is what I would call a outdoormans stove.It is light and packs down to fit into my cook pot (I use theOpen Country 5-Cup Percolator, cheap and works great) and folds out to provide its own wind shelter and pot holder. Then, you just stuff sticks in it and boil your water.My first test, I went out in my back yard and in 5 minutes I had enough twigs and sticks to fire this bad boy up for over a half and hour. Plenty of time to get my quart of water to boil.Today, I took it on a real test to the local Tillamook mountains.And it rained on me.All of the wood was wet. So I cheated and used a half ounce of everclear (ethyl alcohol) to get it started. But once started. It was great. I huddled under my shelter for 15 minutes and then had a nice warm lunch with tea.The nitty Gritty:Good stove. Well built. Works well. However: You need to have good fire craft. Start with small stuff. Build up to about finger sized chunks. THis thing is very efficient at burning the fuel you put in. So the heat comes out of the wood and the wood is gone. You have to keep feeding small pieces in every minute or so. (actually I like this part).It will burn wet wood just fine, but you need to get it going and that is harder (as any Boy Scount knows).The other cool thing. If you are out on a multi-day trip with this stove, it can be a campfire in the evening. Something to stare into and talk about life. Not something a propane stove lends itself to. Hey, laugh if you want, but you know that a campfire isn't always possible but you miss it so...Some warnings:This stove is harder to use than other stoves. It is what is says it is. It burns fuel that you can find EVERYWHERE and it does it very well. But you need to know how to start a fire. It also makes a lot of smoke when it is coming on line (once it heats up there is very little smoke) so you can't really have it "in" your tent or closed shelter.All this said. I love it. I am going to go bug my hiking buddies to get with it.Cheers !!