Sitting on the shelf in the gear closet is a cute little brass stove that is full of camping memories. It’s a Svea 123 – the most bombproof, simple, and arguably the loudest darn stove around. In good weather, it sits on the shelf while a lightweight soda can alcohol stove goes backpacking, but in cold to freezing weather, the Svea goes. Anyway, the Svea has this awesome integrated windscreen. I was looking at it the other day and I thought to myself, this would make a pretty cool pot stand for the alcohol stove, but it’s just a little tall. Ten minutes later I dug out an extra Svea...

On a fall weekend in 1972 we hiked the white dot trail to the summit of Grand Monadnock in Jaffrey, New Hampshire for the first time. Hiking and scrambling to the 3165-foot summit wasn’t a huge accomplishment by most standards, but for wide-eyed 11 year old boy scouts it was the adventure of a lifetime. We could see for miles around. If you aren’t familiar with Monadnock, it’s known as one of the most frequently climbed mountains in the world with an estimated 125,000 ascents annually. One translation of “Monadnock,” an Algonquin Indian name, means “Extraordinary Mountain Place.” On...