A wood-fired Snow ultralight blower stove may have considerable appeal to those few people, like me, who enjoy this environment. Added to this, many of our Australian alpine areas have abundant standing fuel sticks on snow gums that have been ravaged by our all too frequent bushfires.
Making a fire on a snowy surface is not easy. Consequently, I always had in the back of my mind the idea of having a little ultralight blower stove that could just sit up on a single bush pole that was driven into the snow (much like my tent stove, but a lot less complex). To achieve this my blower stove would have to have a bottom to the burn chamber to; hold the fire and coals together, support the weight of the cooking pot, provide support for the fuel sticks (while still being compact for backpacking).
The snow stove is a derivative of Simple Fiddle-Free Stove It was modified, without excessive extra weight and bulk to stand conveniently upon a bush pole that is driven into the snow. It also has a light ‘fuel stick shelf’ under the fueling/exhaust hole to support the outer end of the fuel sticks, since the ground is no longer there to do this job. The shelf is removable and is small enough to fit inside the stove during backpacking.
The Snow Stove is versatile as it is also able to be operated normally on the ground and should be simpler and easier to use than my roll-up C-ring stoves, especially on rocks and uneven ground.
Just like the Simple Fiddle-Free Stove, it is limited to cooking in one pot at a time but will quite quickly heat another larger pot such as a medium or large Trangia pot or frying pan if required.
Tim
gge
