Campground Dining in the Grand Canyon

GSI Outdoors’ Dualist Cooking System

Is Newer Better?

I’ll admit, as a new gear addict, I’m easily swayed by convincing marketing copy touting user-friendly features of a newly engineered product.  If it’s rated a “must have,” well, then, I guess I must get it—the sooner the better.  But when you add a “Best Buy” review from Backpacker Magazine to this equation, then you can bet I’m staying up late at night wondering when my package will arrive!

So, in the case of GSI Outdoors’ new Dualist cook system, self-proclaimed as the “definitive, integrated cooking/eating solution,” I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one.  Backpacker’s editors wrote, “It’s not any single component of this nine-piece kitchen ensemble that makes it stand out, but rather the total package, which is smart, compact, and beautifully integrated.”  Up until now, I’d been very pleased with my GSI “Extreme Cookset” that I’d used for two of us on backpacking trips.  I loved using this lightweight, hard-anodized “gourmet” system consisting of two nesting pots with lids that could be used as fry pans.  Included is a “gripper” used to grab exterior brackets, thus preserving the interior and exterior pot finishes.  With this 5-piece system I could boil water for coffee and pasta in the pots and use the lids either as plates or to fry smoky links or make pancakes.  The nesting system allowed me to tuck my fuel canister in between the lids and pots and it all fit in a nice little mesh bag.  If I chose to go on a solo expedition, I could leave the larger pot and lid at home, lightening my load, and get by just fine on a single lid/fry pan and pot.

I’ve purchased other GSI products as well, all of which I’ve enjoyed using.  I have the 33 oz. Lexan Javapress because I love coffee in the morning.  Drinking a liter of coffee is no problem for me.  Although for space considerations I bought a competitor’s single serving coffee mug/press (a great concept!) the seal doesn’t work and frustrates me each time with a mouthful of coffee grinds.  But the better-designed GSI Javapress is just too big to bring on solo trips and hard to justify packing if your partner doesn’t drink coffee.  Consequently, rather than using it for backpacking, it has replaced my glass French press for group car camping trips.  [I see that GSI has a product called H2JO!, a single serving coffee/tea mug.  I’ll have to check it out.]  All of this to say:  Hey, I like GSI products! I even bought one of their midget spatulas to flip flapjacks!   

Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that my initial enthusiasm and expectations for using the Dualist were high, I found myself reluctant to take it on a backpack trip to Arizona’s Superstition Wilderness with some friends, largely because I wanted pancakes.  Yep, it’s true.  Although I’m a guy who neither eats pancakes at home, nor orders them when going out for breakfast, there’s something special about making Krusteaz blueberry pancakes when I’m camping in the great outdoors.  But when I looked at the Dualist’s deep (nearly 5-inch, 1.8 L, 224 g) cooking pot, I instinctively grabbed my Extreme cookset instead.  I was troubled by the thought of how I might reach down the steep side of the Dualist pot with my mini spatula to flip my pancake.  Not having the time to debate the issue further, I left my new Dualist behind and took off to find The Lost Dutchman’s gold.

So a few weeks later it’s time to hit the Grand Canyon and this time I determined to test my (still brand new) Dualist system.  The single billy-can pot and accompanying mugs’ smaller diameter (compared to the Extreme) made up for it’s slightly greater height, and it accommodated both my fuel canister and a bottle of camp soap packed inside.  If I had a small stove like the MSR Pocket Rocket, it would also have fit neatly within the nest (minus the soap).  GSI includes a nifty little cloth storage bag for such a cooking device, if you’ve got one.  I like little extras like that and it shows clever engineering.

When you head down the South Kaibab trail of the Grand Canyon in the summer, the rule is, “Get an early start,” especially if you’re intending on reaching the Colorado River.  Most of this 7.5 mile trail consisting of nearly 4,500 feet of elevation drop is fully exposed to the morning sun’s blistering rays.  To minimize heat and sun exposure, smart hikers go early.  That means catching the Hiker Express Shuttle Bus from Grand Canyon Village at 4:00 am in order to arrive at the trailhead around 4:30.  Though sunrise is still an hour away, there’s enough light in the early dawn to begin the trek. 

 Four and half hours later I was in camp, resting my aching quadriceps from the pounding descent.  Though the temperature was quickly approaching the century mark, I was thinking about the breakfast I missed because of my early departure.  In spite of the increasing heat, my obvious fatigue, and my unenthusiastic appetite, I thought I should try to improve my mood with some quick energy calories.

In my backpack I gleefully discovered some ice left in my Camelback reservoir that I’d frozen the night before.  Next to that cold Camelback I had placed a 3 oz. bottle of genuine Vermont Maple Syrup so that it would not spoil during the trip down the canyon.  “An excellent time to reward myself for my accomplishment by cooking up some pancakes to enjoy with my refreshingly cool maple syrup,” I thought.

Breaking out my Dualist, I began to look forward to enjoying my breakfast after quickly boiling some water for coffee.  Though I growled at the coffee grinds floating on the surface after I plunged the ill-fitting press down in my mug—ostensibly to force the bean flakes to the cup’s bottom—I tried to think happy thoughts about the pancake feast to come.

Using one of the plastic bowls to mix the batter, I scooped out some liquid pancake mix onto the Dualist pot and placed it on my canister stove.  Within a minute or two, bubbles started to form on the pancake, alerting me that it was nearing the time to try to flip it.   Gently, I reached down with my mini spatula to lift the edge of the pancake, finding little room to maneuver since the pot wall was so steep.  I began to see why frying pans are used to cook pancakes and not deep pots.  Then, much to my complete horror, I discovered that the pancake batter was hopelessly stuck to the bottom of the pan—totally scorched!  (No, Martha, I had not used oil.  I hadn’t needed to use oil on my other GSI Outdoors Extreme cookset hard-anodized pots and pans.  The stuff works like Teflon.  Why should this cookset be any different?)

Grrrrrr.   Not a happy camper.

The pancake was ruined.  And so was my much-anticipated breakfast.  At this point I was a little, shall we say, miffed.

Hmmm.  Now I have a food mess at the bottom of the pan to clean up.  If you know anything about waste and the Grand Canyon, I can tell you that they don’t provide garbage cans in the campground.  And you are warned repeatedly against feeding the wildlife.  It’s Pack Out What You Pack In, and Leave No Trace.  So now I have a couple problems running contemporaneously:  First, I have a waste problem (what to do with partially cooked, inedible food; what to do with the remainder of the pancake batter that is in the bowl, what to do with the rest of the dry mix of pancake batter I was going to use tomorrow, and, of course, what to do with the pure, chilled, delicious and costly authentic Maple Syrup I carefully and lovingly toted all the way down the canyon)  Second, I have a scorched pot problem that requires soap and scrubbing and lots of water and the dispersal of all that horrid stuff oh-so-near the unpolluted Bright Angel Creek that is to be protected from contaminants.  Third, I have a dietary problem that requires me to come up with an alternative to the carefully planned breakfast that should have been a slam-dunk to cook (hey, after all, I had used GSI products many times before to successfully cook meals—why should this have been any different?  Why should I have brought contingency food—just in case I burned my breakfast?)

And now, foul mood that I’m in, I really want something more than trail mix for all the cooking trouble I’ve gone through.  Across the way I see a fellow hiker lazily chomping on a crunchy apple, cocking his head sideways, wondering why my array of canister, stove, pot, mixing bowls, batter, spatula, syrup bottle and other utensils has left me frustrated with an inedible mess.  “Hungry, mate?” he asks.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I am starting to get hungry.  And the coffee grinds are still there in every sip I take. 

Fifteen minutes later I’m eating instant oatmeal, AFTER dealing with my waste management and kitchen maintenance (pot scrubbing) issues.  Ruefully, I poured my gorgeous, amber-colored maple syrup down the toilet, not thinking happy thoughts about my Dualist.

There are yet many good things about the Dualist that will be attractive to campers.  It is lightweight and well-designed.  GSI markets the product as a lower cost and less disappointing (?) ultralight alternative to Titanium.  The plastic bowls will serve many folks well and can even be used for measuring liquids.  Though I didn’t use it for straining, the lid for the pot has been designed with small holes in the top to help you achieve this.  (Unfortunately, the movable lid lifter popped off and took me a few minutes to force back into place.  Having once slipped out of place, I’m now dubious about the lid lifter’s integrity.)  I like the idea of having a compact carry bag for the complete unit that serves as a handy water tote. Since you’re usually concerned with washing a cookset after using it,  a little tote can be handy for transporting water to one’s campsite. 

For me, the main drawback to the Dualist is that you’ve got only one pot to put on the fire.  A couple years ago, when I first looked into buying some kind of a cookset for backpacking, this became the main reason why I chose NOT to buy the Jet Boil System (it took some power of self-denial and hard-nosed realism to turn me away from the enticing blandishments of Jet Boil’s marketing propaganda that made their system seem like the world’s best way to cook).  I realized that if you were limited to just one cooking pot, you’d have to clean it out each time you wanted to make hot chocolate, coffee, pancakes, oatmeal, eggs, etc. whenever you wanted some variety in your meal.  Sure, if you’re a one-course kind of camper, well then, one pot is all you’ll ever need. 

The upshot for me is that I’ve learned that multiple pots and pans are best, particularly when you are okay with eating out of the pot or pan you just cooked in.  My personal dualist (small d) persuasion is to use a utensil both for cooking and as a container for eating.   On that Superstitition Wilderness trip I took just a couple months ago, I ended up cooking up different side dishes for some of my friends and offered them the pan/pot it was cooked in, encouraging them to take a fork to it.  It was easy and convenient.  Had I only one cooking pot with me, I couldn’t have achieved that without washing out the same pot over and over.  I’ve decided I’m happier with GSI’s Extreme cookset after all.

The Dualist’s plastic mugs are okay, I guess, but I prefer drinking coffee out of just about anything that’s not plastic.  It’s just a penchant of mine.  A couple of foam insulators are included for two of the plastic bowls to keep food a little hotter, a thoughtful by unnecessary touch.  There are plastic 2 lids that you can use for the plastic bowls, but I’ve never been much of a lid-guy, although they may come in handy if you’re being attacked by gnats while making supper or if you’re trying to salvage some heat in cold weather conditions. The pot has a folding handle that locks into place when extended outward.  It seemed a little long for the pot (I feared bumping it while it sat on the stove—remember, I’m more at home with a “pot grabber”) and I accidentally melted the handle’s plastic coating when it rested against the hot stove for a moment.  I suppose I clumsily ran into every small difficulty one could have when trying out some new gear.  Sorry, GSI, I guess I rolled out on the wrong side of the sleeping bag that morning.

GSI Outdoors calls the proprietary alloy for its metal pot Halulite, claiming it’s as light as Titanium and that it also conducts heat better and more evenly—so you can leave the extra fuel at home. “Plus,” the website reads, “every piece is Hard Anodized to create a surface that withstands scratches and abrasions like nothing else.”  I didn’t have any problem with the rest of my meals.  Though I could have opted for the smaller Soloist version that is also available, I believe the Dualist is a better deal if your trips include 2 and possibly 3 backpackers.  If you don’t mind washing out the pot a little more often and if you don’t make pancakes, the Dualist will suit you just fine because of its lightweight and easily packable design.

Dualist Components:  1.8 L Pot, Strainer Lid, 2-20 fl. oz. insulated cups, 2-20 fl. oz. bowls, 2 Sip-It lid/tops, Stove Bag, and Storage/Sink Sack.  Price:  $49.95

Website:  www.gsioutdoors.com