A fireball 15-feet in diameter rose from the center of Denali’s 14,000-foot camp. One-hundred and thirty climbers watched shreds of burning tent filter down as a sheepish mountain guide came slinking back to his burnt-out kitchen. He’d been socializing with neighbors while snow melted in a huge cook pot over three cranked-up MSR XGK stoves.

Winter camp cooking can be a quaint, bootie-clad, hot cocoa-drinking experience under clear and cold skies. More likely though, winter cooking is a battle to stay warm, fed, and hydrated. And like this Denali guide’s experienced, it can go deadly wrong. Here are some tactics for two different winter cooking styles.

Ultralight Cooking
On a long winter backcountry trip the sole purpose of cooking is to get calories and liquids into your system. For starters, leave all extraneous items like cups, coffee rigs or thermoses at home. If you catch yourself saying: “But it only weighs a few ounces,” that means leave it at home – every ounce counts. Reduce your fuel weight by eating freeze-dried food and other instant meals like couscous. You can also conserve energy by cooking in the warm vestibule of your tent. Then in the morning, you can roll over and spark the stove from your sleeping bag.

Vestibule cooking can be dangerous though. Sealing the tent fly to the snow surface is essential to keep out drifting snow. Erect the tent first then dig a small, 12-inch by 12-inch foot well that is inset six inches – to create a seal – from the fly. Next to the foot well, place the stove on a shovel blade. When priming, keep the door wide open to vent gases and have a second shovel blade or a pot lid handy to subdue priming flare-ups. Also, to avoid torching the tent, prop sagging vestibule walls up with the shovel handle or a willow wand.

Ventilating your tent while cooking is mandatory – people die every year from carbon monoxide poisoning. No matter what, keep several door zippers open for cross ventilation, even during storms, or you will die. Also, shovel snow and ice off the tent during storms to let the tent breathe. Death occurs by simply falling asleep, so make it a rule: Nobody snoozes while cooking.

Despite the hype canister stoves, such as the Jetboil or MSR Reactor, are difficult and slow in cold weather. Occasionally I’ll use a canister stove on ultralight trips when I have to cook inside my Black Diamond Lighthouse during a storm. In these vestibule-less situations I use a Jetboil with a Hanging Kit. One trick to keeping fuel canisters warm and usable is to duct-tape a foot warmer onto the canister. Another is setting the canister in a pan of hot water as you cook, but that requires additional weight. However, when it’s below-zero, canister stoves are fighting a losing battle. The best option is to bring a white gas stove if temps are forecasted below 30°F.

Fat Base Camp Cooking
Winter camp cooking is a different story if a plane, car, burro or yak is transporting your load. Bring all the luxuries: cook tent, frying pan, big coffee thermos, bourbon, etc.

A floor-less cook tent such as the Black Diamond Mega Light will be the social center of your base camp. With some digging, the Mega Light provides shelter from weather, while allowing you to stand upright and cook high calorie, easy-to-clean meals. To build your kitchen, scribe the tent perimeter in the snow and dig one foot inside the perimeter creating a margin to seal the tent edges from drifting snow. Dig the kitchen floor five-feet deep, with knee-high benches along the sides and a four-foot tall counter extending from the back wall into the middle. The tent pole stands upon this counter. In one corner of the kitchen, dig a quarry for melting snow using a designated shovel that stays away from the latrine. Also, designate a gray water sump away from the quarry. Seal down the edges of the shelter with snow and build thick block walls if conditions get gnarly.

Most mountain guides prefer MSR WhisperLite stoves for extended trips. Yes, the MSR XGK stove boils a smidge faster, but the noise is maddening. For larger groups, nest several WhisperLites together under one large pot. To protect the plastic pumps from melting, arrange windscreens around the burners and feel the bottles and pumps for heating every half hour. Never put the fuel bottle or the pump inside the windscreen or you will become a charred winter camp cooker – once the fireball clears.

Liked it? Share it!