Unexpected delights of going stoveless
In my younger days I would routinely embark on a three-week long backpacking expedition with a pack that weighed fifty pounds or more. But as I'm getting older I find it difficult to carry that much weight. One thing I've been experimenting with to reduce the weight of my pack is to go without a stove. That implies no hot meals. (I don't make campfires either because they are usually prohibited in the areas I visit.) Psychologically it's a big hurdle to get over because we are so habituated to having a hot drink in the morning or a hot meal in the evening. But in the Sierra Nevada in the summer the weather is usually so mild that I find a hot meal isn't really necessary to stay warm.
The weight reduction from going without a stove turned out to be significant. First of all, you don't have the stove weight itself, but then importantly you don't have the weight of the fuel. In addition, you don't have to carry a pot to cook in. Added up, it makes a noticeable difference. Another benefit I hadn't expected is that, in addition to the weight savings, there's this space savings. You are eliminating the bulky pot and stove and fuel canisters and the windscreen and all the associated accessories. Because of this reduced space requirement I've actually been able to downsize to a smaller pack. So now there's a weight savings from having a smaller pack. Eliminating the stove has a multiplicative effect on the weight reduction. So I achieved my initial objective and feel good about that.
What I didn't expect and what turned out to be an unexpected delight is the impact going stoveless has on my larger backpacking experience. The entire camping aspect of backpacking is much simpler and I love it. Cooking is such a core element of camping that I hadn't considered how time consuming it is, what a hassle it is, and how great it would be to eliminate it. Cooking involves a number of complicated and time consuming steps. First of all, preparing a typical outdoor meal means you have to fetch water and measure out the right amount, assemble all the stove parts and and set up the windscreen. Then measure the right amount of fuel or pump the fuel canister, priming and lighting the stove. Then you have to wait for the water to boil, perform whatever food preparation is needed, wait for your food to cook, having to be attentive so things don't boil over. It can be an enjoyable ritual if you have time for it. But without having to do all that stuff camping becomes so much simpler. You just sit down, you take out your food, open a bag of trail mix or cheese and crackers or whatever, and just start munching. It's ninety seconds before you're eating. You can fancy it up a bit by cutting up peppers into a tortilla and slicing cheese and spreading on some sauce. The best part is no dishes to wash. So removing the hassle of cooking preparations and cooking cleanup makes the camping experience so much easier.
Similarly, mornings are simplified as well. As much as I enjoy a hot drink on a cold morning, I found that another way to get warmed up is by walking. And if you don't have to go through the whole stove and cooking ritual in the morning, you can be hiking quicker and warming up quicker. In addition, hiking in the morning is really special. I particularly enjoy walking at sunrise or just after sunrise when the birds are waking up and you might see some animals foraging, the mountains are fresh, it's a marvelous time to be hiking. It also means you can get more miles in early before the heat of the day.
So now my backpack is lighter and smaller and in addition I've removed a whole layer of busy-ness from the outdoor experience. That's really nice. There's this whole complicated ceremony of cooking that I don't have to be engaged with. The result is that I spend more time tuned into my surroundings and enjoying these beautiful places that I hiked so far to visit. If I want I can spend more time hiking, or more time swimming, or taking photographs. I can be hiking in the morning earlier, or I can hike later in the evening. I can stop and have my main meal in the middle of the day, and then take a nap during the hottest part of the day and then walk up until sunset. It gives me more flexibility. Overall I feel like I'm more immersed in my natural surroundings when I go stoveless. It's one last piece of technology from the modern world that I've left behind. I think that works for me, philosophically, moving more in the direction of just being in nature instead of spending time messing around with technology. It's an unexpected benefit that I didn't anticipate but I'm finding that it's really permeating my whole backpacking experience in marvelous ways.