Snow Peak LiteMax Titanium

Summary

Very light, very small, so far very durable. It lights reliably, even in windy conditions. I have used it up to an altitude of about 11,000 feet with no issues. On cold mornings it's a little slower to get going. In wind, you definitely have to shelter it or make a wind screen (which I have not done).

I bought this about two years ago.  It's my first canister stove after many years of using an MSR Whisperlite.

Set up and ignition are a breeze.  Flame control is ok - I can simmer ok but it's not great. I wouldn't try to make anything touchy. 

Boil time in good conditions was...I dunno...I didn't time it.  i was not disappointed though.  Noticeably slower in windy conditions (duh).

With a large canister I can go one night for two of us, but that's two dehydrated meals, two cups of tea, hot cereal, and four (!) cups of coffee.  And there's still fuel left, probably enough for another dinner.

It's a little wobbly so you have to be careful.

Bottom line, it's the lightest, smallest canister out there (that I know of) and very reliable.  Perfect for mild conditions, and good enough at high altitude.  I'd use it again at high altitude.

The lightest canister stove in the world, sounds to good to be true right? At 1.9 oz it's near a full ounce lighter than its competitors. With zero trade-off for performance. At 11,200 btu's it will boil 16 oz of water in ideal conditions in about 4 minutes.

With the new redesigned burner the stove doesn't shoot the flame straight up like the MSR Pocket Rocket, but has the right mix of side and top flame holes to prevent scorching your expensive titanium cook pot. The wire knob is not as fickle as other stoves so you won't accidentally turn the stove off when simmering.

Last weekend I had a chance to test out my new Litemax I picked up open box at adventure 16 in San Diego. I first tested the stove in my garage at sea level and 74 degrees. It boiled 16 oz of water in my Snowpeak 700 with the bottom painted black with stove paint in 4 min 15 seconds. I used that as my control for the trip up San Gorgonio Mountain.

At first camp 7,040 feet at 55 degrees I had boil times of about 7 min. with a light breeze and no wind screen.

At the summit of 11,499 feet and 50 degrees the boil time was only a minute longer, with a little stiffer breeze using only some rocks as a wind screen.

With the new style titanium pot stand with fold out arms, the stove was surprisingly stable. It doesn't feel like it will bend if I put a heavy pot on it like the Pocket Rocket and Gigapower stoves and the flat titanium added to the burners wind resistance.

All together I cooked 4 meals and 1 breakfast at 16 oz water a piece. Two 8 oz oatmeals, and four 12 oz coffees, and had fuel to spare in the small Snowpeak Gigapower canister. At 3 bucks that's is a steal for a weekend of cooking.

The best part is the stove folds down and everything you need to cook with fits inside the cook pot. Canister, stove, lighter, and bandana to keep it quiet.

I definitely recommend this stove, and will be bringing it on all my backpacking trips.

Wish it was in a hard case, but I can buy one easily.

The fold out extenders need to be just a little more rugged as the hinge gets loose and the extender becomes a little difficult to manipulate.  Fixed by pressing the hinge pin with rivet press tool.

I have owned a LiteMax for over 4 years now. It was one of the first pieces of equipment I bought when I decided to get back into backpacking.

This stove has been used literally hundreds of times on camping trips, backpacking in Florida, on the AT and Yosemite and with the Boy Scouts.  It has been from sea level to near 10,000 feet with temps near 100 down to 19 degrees. It has never let me down and the only slight damage is that one of the arms has a slight bend to it. 

The stove is very adjustable and cooks everything from simmering to full out boil.  Being a very small design, you must be sure to center your pots, but that has never been a concern.

My son wants to take it to college, but I won't part with it so I'll have to buy another.

I have been really impressed with how light and compact this backpacking stove is. I also own the MSR Whisperlite and it worked well and was super reliable, but....it was bulky. It is especially bulky and I would even consider heavy after owning the Snow Peak LiteMax Stove.

was originally going to purchase the MSR PocketRocket for my cooking configuration based on my pleasant experience with MSR products. However, it wouldn't fit into my Snow Peak Titanium Trekker 700 cup.  So...I am not myopic when it comes to the Snow Peak brand.

Currently my LiteMax Stove, fuel canister, and lighter all fit into my Snow Peak Titanium Trekker 700 cup.  The size/weight of this configuration is actually lighter and more compact than the actual Whisper lite stove.

As I've gotten older, I wanted something that is easy to start after a long hike.  You can't get any easier than screwing on the stove to the fuel canister

If your primary concern is weight, ease of use, and compact-ness, you CANNOT go wrong with this stove. 

We just got one of these for a wedding gift and love it! This is comparable to the Pocket Rocket (though 1 oz lighter- but who's counting, right?). We have a Whisperlite as well, but thought we'd get a canister stove for summer camping. I read up on stoves before we added this to our registry and found pretty positive reviews.

We've used a friend's PR and liked how easy it was to use (all canister stoves are pretty easy, for that matter) but found that it got to be pretty unstable with a full pot of water on it. The thing is so light and the fold-out arms make the pot-to-stove contact area large (and thus more stable).

I can fit the canister and stove in my cook kit now, which I couldn't do before with my WhisperLite. I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's shorter than the PR, too, which would offer more stability. The spread of the flame is much wider than the PR as well which increases boil time, too. I forgot to time how long it took 1 L of water to boil- sorry.

The downside to this (and all stoves, really) is that any wind just kills your boil time. However, the set-up is too tall for the windscreen that came with the WhisperLite to work effectively.