Oh, my, look at the time. Another week has passed. It must therefore be time for another "Stove of the Week" (SOTW) post.

Recently, a friend of mine who enjoys mountaineering asked the proverbial $64,000 question, "what's a good, light weight way to melt snow?" A fair question I might add, and perhaps one that I can actually shed some light on. So, for the next few weeks, my SOTW posts will focus on winter capable stoves. In that vein, this week's stove is the Coleman Xtreme, shown here in full fury.


The Coleman Xtreme is a lightweight, winter capable liquid feed remote canister stove. Coleman rates it as operational down to about -4F (-20C). That's pretty dang good for a gassie. I've read posts on the net indicating that it will operate down as low as -10F (-23C), which is extremely good for a gas stove.

Let's take her for a whirl, shall we? For this week's post, we'll head over to the former Cobb Estate in Altadena, CA, now part of the Angeles National Forest. Here we'll catch the Sam Merrill Trail to Echo Mountain.


At the top, we have a commanding view of the San Gabriel Valley.


For tonight's stoving, we'll set up here on what remains of the front steps of Echo Mountain House, a hotel built in the 1800's that burned down years ago.


The pot's on to boil!


And in very short order, we've passed the tea test.


to be continued...