Mike spilled the pot three times in one cook session. He was tired from a 14-hour summit day on Denali, but three times? That requires skill. Especially from Mike Roberts, the most dialed-in expedition guide I’ve worked with. We had left the stove board back at camp 3 to save weight while moving to high camp. Now after a grueling day of guiding it was Mike’s turn to cook, but with each spilled pot I heard “Why didn’t we bring that bloody stove board!”

Balancing loaded cook pots on small camp stoves is an unstable process. Usually a spilled pot is from setting up the stove too quick. In summer, talus and dirt are wobbly for stove feet. In winter, stabilizing the stove becomes more difficult as the underlying snow melts, and the stove slowly lists until it dumps out the hard-won food; driving the staunchest of hungry campers to tears.

If you want to earn a million dollars, design and patent a light, year-round stove base. Until then, here are some solutions.

Available Stove Bases
Several companies make three-legged stabilizers for canister stoves, such as Brunton’s Canstand and Jetboil’s Stabilizer. In summer these help, but in snow they’re useless. So, my opinion is to save your money.

MSR’s Trillium stove base, on the other hand, works great on rough terrain including scree and will work on snow with some finagling. The 2.8-ounce Trillium has three aluminum leaves that fold out like a Ninja’s throwing star and is designed for MSR liquid stoves.

Placed directly on snow with a hot stove, the Trillium works momentarily and then begins to list until the pot spills. MSR recommends placing the round basal portion of their Solid Heat Reflector between the Trillium and the stove to reflect the heat up and away from the snow. MSR also recommends using a pot less than nine inches in diameter, which reflects less heat down to the snow and puts less weight on the Trillium. In practice I’ve found this doesn’t work. Instead, try placing a picket, shovel blade or rock under the Trillium to disperse the heat and keep the stove level. In a nutshell, products like the Trillium are worth purchasing and experimenting. If nothing else, it’s fun to throw around camp.

The Non-stove Board
If you’re ultralight camping on snow, like while mountaineering in Washington this summer, cut out the stove board as an option and use what’s available. (Ultralight by definition means everything has a double purpose, thus nixing small items like stove boards.) Use flat rocks, two pickets, or two nested shovel blades. These systems work fine, but need regular attention as they will eventually fail.

Dirtbag Stove Boards
Some trips call for real stove boards. Trips like Denali’s West Buttress, or where an airplane, snow machine, burro, yak, mule, sledge or porter carries your kit. In the simplest form, the stove board – a dirtbag stove board – is a 10- by 14-inch sheet of 1/4-inch plywood, large enough to support a stove and fuel tank. The problem with plywood is it catches on fire. If the flames don’t torch your tent, the char will dirty your powder pink raincoat. If you want to ride in style, without flames, char, or tipped pots, build yourself a Cadillac stove board.

Cadillac Stove Boards
Layer foam, plywood and metal to build a Cadillac luxury stove board. From the grocery store purchase a 10- by 14-inch metal “Beware of Dog” sign. This is the heat shield. Then cut a sheet of 3/16-inch plywood the same size and sand the edges. (Scrap wood paneling works well.) Then cut a piece of Ensolite foam mat the same size. The Ensolite insulates the wood and metal from the snow. Stack the three sheets and duct tape the edges together. The result is a durable stove board that weighs 14-ounces. Kind of heavy, but you’ll never spill another pot. On bigger trips, when nesting stoves together, double the platform’s size by using two “Beware of Human” signs. The 28-ounce board is beastly, but at least your six teammates won’t be crying when the slow-cook Alta Montana Linguini dumps.

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