Gear Review: GigaPower Auto Stove (GS-100A)

"Neee, neee, neee".  Its four AM and the pathetic alarm in the watch has gone off.  It's cold and dark and it's another alpine start.  A hand shoots out of the bivy sack.  It grabs a small stove sitting under a pot of water.  "Click….FOOOOOSH", the stove ignites.  The hand goes back into the bivy bag.  Muttering begins from the bivy bag and the one next to it.  Familiar?  Probably the alpine start and the bivy bag and certainly the muttering but a stove that can be started by just squeezing a starter is new.  The stove?  It's the SnowPeak GigaPower Auto (GS-100A).

During the Triassic era when I started climbing I started with a canister stove that ran on just butane.  This was an ok stove but it was pretty cantankerous when it got even remotely cold so I put it on the shelf and bought a Svea 123 which ran on white gas.  This was a great stove, in spite of blowing up once, and I used it for years until deciding to use a MSR Whisperlight.  Now there is a cantankerous stove.  A few years ago I climbed the Twilight Pillar with Dave Ress and he brought a Gaz stove and canister.  It worked like a charm and the new propane/butane mix was supposedly much more robust at lower temperatures.  The Monday I returned I had a Gaz stove for a whole $18.

The Gaz stove is pretty compact and light but when I saw the GigaPower stove I had to try one.  Actually, Dee got to try one since she got one for Christmas.  This stove has three outstanding features.  It is very light (under 4 ounces including the starter) and ultra compact.  It also has a piezoelectric starter, which means it can be started by pushing a button without using matches.  This is how our intrepid alpinists discussed above got going early in the morning.  This technology is based on flexing a ceramic element and then releasing it.  When it releases a large voltage is developed across the crystal and this is turned into a spark by a little finger of metal near the burner.  Presto, instant flames.

Compared to the Gaz stove it is much more compact and lighter and has the auto starter.  A version of this stove may be purchased without the starter but I don't recommend this at all.  There is also a titanium version available that saves a whole .75 ounces for an extra $35 and unless you are an engineer or technology aficionado this will probably not be cost effective.  There are two down sides to the stove.  The first is the price.  The non-titanium version runs about $64.  The second down side is this stove cannot be used with the Gaz canister which means it won't be usable in Europe.

Dee and I have put some mileage on our stove.  It can be used with the SnowPeak, Markhill, Primus, and MSR canisters.  This gives a lot of selection.  The SnowPeak canisters come in a small version which is perfect for one night out for either one or two people.  The only problems noted so far are it sometimes fails to light with the auto starter on the first try and the flame is very concentrated due to the small burner.  This makes making alpine quesadillas more difficult than using a Gaz stove.  I would recommend bringing some matches just in case the ceramic crystal breaks.  Not likely but it is an easy back up.

Where do you get one?  They seem to be available about everywhere including REI, Western Mountaineering and Mountain Gear.  All the local stores seem to carry one or more of the acceptable canisters.