UKH

My son is an independent teenager who wants to get off on trips in the mountains with his friends, which is great, but some of the two and three day expeditions he's got planned coincide with outings I have in mind. He's got a fair bit of his own camping gear, or can borrow "reserves" from me, but I only have one pan set and I'll probably be using it. Consequently, I've been looking to buy him a light and cheap aluminium pan of 2l capacity, or a bit more, but the ones from MSR, Optimus, Sea to Summit etc seem very expensive to me.

The only single pan with lid I've spotted for under £20 that looks half decent is a Highlander 2.6l pot. Has anybody used this, or other pans from Highlander? Are they any good? Or are there any other cheap but decent pans available?

I have a set of these which are pretty good:

https://alpkit.com/collections/cookware/products/alipots

Alpkit are normally pretty helpful so if you email them they will probably be able to give you an indication of when they will come back into stock.

For the past 50 years I've used a 6 piece set of three very light nesting billies each with a lid doubling as a saucepan. Now very battered but still OK though I find the folding handles a bit crappy and usually take a pinch action universal handle (forgotten the name). I usually just take only either a 4 or 2 pint pan and lid. Just googled and its still around but is generally out of stock except for The Kit Shop....£18 under name Mil-Com Billy Can Nesting Pan.

Whata wrong with old army mess tins? Good bit of kit. 

How old is your son?

Surely he should be doing some research himself, if not funding things himself, although I do acknowledge that it is possible that getting a job as a teenager may not be as easy at the minute. (Yet as a teenager, I did both paper rounds, and worked for many hours in holidays at a garden centre, which was more like a farm, from 13-14 years of age. Then at 16-17 I worked on a farm.)

That seems fairly big. What is he planning to cook? And over what heat source?

He's a tall, muscular and very fit lad who decided a couple of years ago not to eat anything containing refined sugar (personally I like a chocolate bar or a few jelly babies when I'm on the hills, but he won't partake). Possibly as a result, he eats very large quantities of oatmeal, rice and pasta. His current climbing partner also has a very healthy appetite, hence the need for a big pan.

He cooks over an old MSR gas stove, possibly a Rapidfire.

Maybe he is.

And they were uphill. Both ways!

What a typical UKC response.

They can be difficult to get hold of. Because there can be only one.

I’m not a fan of Amazon, but these are great. Not cheap though. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Esbit-Anodised-Aliminium-Non-Stick-Panset/dp/B002A...

The Esbit pans look good and the size of either would be ideal. Pity about the price, and that they don't seem to sell single pans.

The nesting billy cans are more in the price range I was thinking of, although the largest and smallest of the three would be pretty much redundant.