For 3-season use stove choices are simple: many of us rely on an upright canister stove – with my current favorite choice being the Soto WindMaster. For year-round utilization however and when temperatures fall in winter, and / or melting snow is one’s source of water, modifications to your stove system or a different system entirely are called for. As temperatures drop, performance of upright canister stoves begins to suffer and especially as temperatures approach or surpass the boiling point of the fuel(s) contained in your canister choice. Sleeping with your fuel canister and keeping it in your pocket help, but as you begin to burn fuel the canister cools from evaporative cooling and it all becomes a losing battle – if you’ve ever seen ice crystals forming on your fuel canister you’re familiar with this effect.

With the longer burn times required to melt snow and cold ambient temperatures, this can pose a significant problem. While other various tricks exist, from keeping your fuel canister in a water bath, to others that are perhaps more on the risky side – moving to either a liquid fuel stove (MSR WhisperLite, etc.) or to a stove that allows one to use the fuel canister remotely from the stove, and that allows for inversion of that fuel canister (turning it into a liquid feed system) is usually best. Though liquid fuel stoves are without a doubt proven and time tested, inverted canister stoves offer many of the same benefits with advantages in the ease of use and convenience departments.

Inverting the canister allows for a liquid feed mode, which greatly improves cold weather and winter stove performance.

The MSR WindPro II Stove

The WindPro II from MSR is a remote canister stove that allows for either more standard upright or inverted use of standard isobutane / propane fuel canisters by use of a swiveling mechanism at the point of fuel canister attachment. The stove is listed at a 6.6 ounce minimum / 10.3 ounce packed weight, with 3 legs that collapse together for packing and a remote fuel attachment / adjustment that features a handy clip-on stand for easier inverted canister usage. This made in Seattle stove does not include a built-in igniter. A windscreen, stand, maintenance tool, and stuff sack are all included.

At a listed weight somewhere in the half pound range and with an actual weight of 7.25 ounces (with the clip-on canister stand) for the stove, plus its fair amount of bulk, the WindPro II may not be the lightweight backpacker’s most favorite choice when packing prior to a trip and when carrying all that gear down the trail, but the weight pays off in camp and when the temperatures drop (all packed and in its stuff sack w/ an igniter the system comes to 11.3 ounces). I’ve used the stove to melt significant amounts of snow on winter trips from well below 0F, to temperate conditions and everywhere in between without any hesitation from the stove.

To use in liquid feed mode – one of the mains highlights of this stove – you’ll first need to prime the stove by simply running it for 30 seconds with the canister in the upright position. What this will do is heat the preheat tube, where the incoming fuel is routed over the flame of the stove before the fuel comes back up through the stove to actually be burned. After 30 seconds this preheat tube will be sufficiently heated so that as you turn the canister over, entering liquid feed mode, that incoming liquid fuel is then continuously heated by the stove itself, now vaporizing the fuel continuously before it moves on through the system and is burned.

The WindPro II is particularly suited for winter conditions.

Cold Weather Performance and Considerations

As temperatures drop you may fall below the boiling point – or the point at which that liquid gas in your canister will turn to vapor – of some of the fuels that make up the mix in your canister (hopefully isobutane and propane – butane mixes are best reserved for warmer climates due to a ~30 degree boiling point). Propane is your friend in winter, and will vaporize at extremely cold temperatures down to -44F (it’s a fuel used for heating houses, after all). In very cold temperatures you’ll need some of this fuel vaporization to take place when preheating the stove. Luckily, the other component in most cold-friendly canisters – isobutane – will still vaporize down to around 10 degrees, and even lower as you climb in altitude. Thus in very cold temps, you may initially be utilizing propane or mostly propane to prime the stove if we’re passed the boiling point of isobutane, but I haven’t found this to be an issue in regards to the performance of the stove throughout the life of the canister when used carefully. Even with multiple starts and stops on trips in cold weather I’ve always been able to preheat the stove – but I do immediately switch to liquid feed mode as soon as the stove is preheated.

My canister choice (and something that is readily available) are the 80/20 (80% isobutane, 20% propane) canisters from MSR which offer better performance in cold weather. Other mixes may contain 15% propane or less, but I’ve had success even with these mixes in cold weather considering the inverted operation of the stove. Even here however, it’s still a good idea to keep your canister warm if you can – I like to keep it in my sleeping bag at night so that priming the stove for that morning cup of coffee is utilizing all the fuel in the canister as equally as possible before moving into liquid feed operation, and against the backpad inside your pack or even in a pocket aren’t bad ideas when moving on the trail, either. With the WindPro II though, keeping the canister warm is not as critical as when trying to push an upright canister stove into colder temperatures.

Melting snow with the WindPro II on a sub-zero trip

Fuel Efficiency

Another highlight of the WindPro II is that since the canister is remote, you can utilize a windscreen around the burner of the stove without fear of dangerously overheating the canister. This improves efficiency by trapping some heat and blocking most wind. In testing and as a result, I’ve found the WindPro II isn’t the fastest stove that’s out there when it comes to boil times, but it is efficient and you’ll find the stove utilizing as little as 6 grams of fuel for a standard 2 cup boil in moderate temps. As a fuel canister nears empty, speed of this stove will decrease but efficiency is maintained in upright mode – however you do have the option to invert the canister to help with the speed aspect.

Be sure to take along plenty of extra fuel in winter however, as despite the efficiency of the stove, melting snow is simply not efficient in and of itself and winter fuel use will greatly vary based on outside temperatures, elevation, and snow temperatures when melting water along with the temperature of the water you add to it to get it going in your pot (if in doubt, do bring that extra canister…or 2…for those winter trips). There is some technique to be learned with the fuel control when inverted, as adjustments are not instant and the stove will even continue to run a while after the control is turned off and as the remaining fuel makes its way through the process.

WindPro II packed size

Additional Notes

The windscreen, along with the base that’s provided by MSR work well enough, but are a bit flimsy, on the heavy side, and leave something to be desired when packing everything away...they just don’t seem to quite match the quality of the rest of the components here. The components of the stove itself are however of a nice quality, with the pot supports providing excellent pot stability. While I’m a fan of stoves with an included igniter and there is none on the WindPro II. I like the feature simply for convenience. You could either use your standard firestarter / lighter that you’re already carrying here, but as I like a dedicated option I attached a separate piezo starter (MSR makes a handheld piezo igniter) to the WindPro’s stuff sack. Just be sure to keep the igniter out of the snow, as I’ve learned.

The stove has no built-in igniter and a separate way to light the stove will need to be considered (I prefer carrying a dedicated piezo igniter with the stove in addition to a lighter).

Conclusion

The WindPro II works equally well throughout the year and in either upright or inverted mode if you’re not concerned about the weight or bulk of the system, relatively speaking compared to most upright canister stoves that are now on the market. For my specific purposes, the WindPro II is my dedicated winter stove system (in warmer temperatures I’ll save some weight with a lighter stove), but for the backpacker that takes trips across all 4 seasons and wants to keep it simple with just one stove that’s an overall compromise between performance and weight, but will work across most if not all conditions, the WindPro II is an excellent choice. The WindPro II ends up being a solid stove that does the job, with efficiency, stability, and performance as its 3 greatest attributes.

The WindPro II retails for $135. You can find the stove here at Backcountry, as well as here at Amazon.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in Issue 33 of TrailGroove Magazine. You can read the original article here featuring additional photos, our rating of the MSR WindPro II, pro and cons, and more.