unwrapping a classic: MSR WhisperLite

Regardless of what kind of outdoor adventure you embark on and the difficulty of your day on the trail, being able to reliably cook a tasty meal is essential. While cooking over the open flame will always be a soulful and lightweight way to cook, this skill takes time and is highly dependent on your environment. As fuel management and backcountry fire safety become increasingly important, heading to the backcountry with a good camping stove is a must. In this regard, very few models of backcountry stoves are as prolific and efficient as the MSR WhisperLite.

Stoves have come a long way in the past twenty years, but even with this innovation, the classic, low-cost, and no-frills design of the WhisperLite has kept it relevant. The stove is relatively cheap for how useful it is, running for just shy of $200 on MSR’s website. The beauty of the WhisperLite is the fact that it runs on liquid fuel rather than compressed gas, making it ideal for running at higher elevations. The system slowly drips white gas, allowing one to control the flow easily and create a high range of heat, making the stove ideal for setting food to simmer. I have even known people who, against the advised usage of MSR’s safety guidelines, have used a WhisperLite to bake bread by turning the flow of white gas down a drip and occasionally flipping the stove upside down.

This said, the stove is not without its drawbacks; the lack of efficiency means that for backpacking trips, a whole 30 fluid ounce bottle of white gas may be needed for daily cooking on the stove. Additionally as compressed fuel stoves have become cheaper and fuel canisters more readily available, white gas has become harder to find at your local outdoor shack. Even with these relative drawbacks, the WhisperLite deserves its props for not only setting the stage as a classic revolutionary design but also as a stove that can still hold pace with the advanced units being produced today.