Gas useage altitude

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 A Reid 24 Apr 2014
Hoping someone can give me some advice here. I'm trying to work out how much gas we should order for our Kyrgyzstan expedition this summer. At base camp we will have a larger cylinder and stove, but for climbing for about 3 weeks upto 5000m and then Khan Tengri at 7000m how do people calculate what to take? I've never really taken note of what I've used in the alps before.

Understand they may be refilled and not as reliable as what we get in europe, but roughly how much gas do people use between 2 at altitude per day, we'll be using a jetboil, melting snow and boiling for drinks and meals.

Thanks
 Mr-Cowdrey 24 Apr 2014
In reply to A Reid:
The Jetboil website states that a 100g canister can boil 12ltrs of water (for the Flash but look up your system). So I'd work off of this:

For example, 3-4ltrs of drinking water & hot drinks + 0.5ltrs for breakfast + 0.5ltrs for dinner. So 4-5ltrs per person, per day.

For the sake of things 4ltrs per day = 3 days per 100g canister (going by the above), 3 weeks (21 days?) So 21รท3 = 7x100g canisters per person.

But also bear in mind (as I assume you're aware of) that as the canister gets used up, the longer the boil time so the more gas you use. So possibly use a newer canister to bring to the boil, and a half empty/used canister for simmering. And also, like you suggested, I'm not sure what the quality of gas is like in Kyrgyzstan so it could be more so consider getting more rather than have the bear minimum I.e. 10 canisters instead of 7 per person.

This all works in theory and I haven't tried and tested this, but this is what I've done to calculate how much gas I'll need for a trip to Denali that I have in planning.
Post edited at 23:13
 Bruce Hooker 25 Apr 2014
In reply to A Reid:
A petrol stove is better as it actually works better the higher you go and petrol is cheap and available everywhere. I always found gas too slow even in the Alps.
Post edited at 05:55
 Flashy 25 Apr 2014
In reply to Mr-Cowdrey:

You don't seem to have taken account of melting the snow. Also, you probably don't need to boil everything.
OP A Reid 25 Apr 2014
In reply to Flashy:

Thanks for the input everyone, obviously won't be climbing every day with weather windows, rest days etc. But was also thinking about the increased time for melting snow. So many factors to consider...
 Mr-Cowdrey 25 Apr 2014
In reply to Flashy:

True, you won't need to boil everything, and I did think about melting the snow after I posted but it was late so thought it could wait till morning
 Just Will 03 May 2014
In reply to A Reid:

Went to Tajikistan last summer to climb a 5000m mountain, and a couple of 7000m mountains - generally found that 1 canister for 2 per people per day was plenty overall. In fact, below about 5,800m we didn't need nearly this amount. But you should have more than enough if you go for that! Also, we had a Jetboil Helios - I don't really know how different this will be to whatever you were using.

Good luck for Khan Tengri - see you out there! The guys who run the BC should have a shed load of spare gas out with them so you can always buy more from them.

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