Mark G.
The trailstove rocks. I like mine. The Kni-co packet Jr. has been a disappointment. It smokes me right out of my tipi.
Andy
I use my gear a great deal. For the guy going out maybe a few times a year I guess it would not mater. But I have used my Kifaru stove more times than I could count. It has been kicked, dropped and run for days on end. The Ti-goat has a foil body. Will that hold up to a carless foot? I know the Kifaru box stove will and bet the Ti-goat box stove is durable too. I just don�t have enough experience with the rollup stove to answer these questions. It does seem to me that the wire and spring combo could be an issue. I was able to field repair the spring by making two out of one. I guess some stainless wire should be packed too. But the Kifaru legs are not going to break and will be much harder to drop than a spring. I guess familiarity makes for confidence. So I will get back on the durability issue in about a year�s time.
As for a survival situation? There is no way I could setup a tipi stove camp before freezing to death if I just fell into the ice. I have taken a dunk in winter and let me tell everyone it sucks. It takes me an hour to fully setup a tipi camp. I can setup the Paratipi in less than 5 minutes. The larger tipis takes me longer but then again I use them less. The stove takes another 10 or 15 minutes for full assembly and placement. I am picky about my wood. Only standing deadwood will due. This stuff tends to be harder than punky wood so I need to saw and or split the stuff to fit into the small fire box. This takes about 40 minutes. I like to gather more wood than necessary just in case I need to run the stove longer or get snowed in.
I would first warm up next to a fire before stetting up the stove and tipi. I have been turned around to the woods before and didn�t like the experience. However even in the coldest winter an unexpected bivy inside a Paratipi with stove would hardly quality for one of those I shouldn�t be alive shows. More like easy living.
