I packed some of my lightweight backpacking kit for this trip – to use whilst walking – and to review with the idea of saving some more weight for this year’s backpacking trips.
Wind shield, chopping board and stove board
My current stove wind shield is a commercial aluminium model that I cut on half. It works well with my meths stove but was useless for my MSR Pocket Rocket as it was too short and not quite tall enough for my new Alpkit Kraku stove.
I decided to replace this wind shield with something taller and ideally something lighter.
I bought two platters, made from heavy duty aluminium foil from a pound shop (2 for a £). Once I had cut off the lip I could flatten one of them out and I cut a 15cm x 30cm panel. To make it a bit more rigid I folded a small lip around the edge. I then folded this into a four panel wind shield.
Weight saved
Old wind shield 81g
New wind shield 26g
I use a small wooden board under my meths stove. When I originally cut the board I also used it under my Crusader stove, which is larger. It was time to cut the board to the right size.
Weight saved
Old board 38g
New board 23g
I was using a cut down plastic wall tile as a cutting board, I swapped this out for a plastic lid from a pot of fruit. It is about 9cm in diameter and the lip is useful to stop bits rolling off when I use it.
Weight saved
Old cutting board 18g
New cutting board 4g
I am no longer going to carry the case that I used to store all three items in – another 9g saved.
Total weight saved 93g – every gram counts.