Quick Tips: Camping With Propane

I have had two unfortunate propane-related occurrences thus far in my life. Thankfully, these were small, fixable mistakes and did not end in an explosion. Let me start by saying camping and hiking with propane is normal and safe. It won't explode unless you're James Bond or a Mythbuster. There was also a case of a propane canister explosion in Kanas back in 2022 due to punctured propane cylinders. One explosion set off a chain reaction and 1,000 single-gallon camping canisters all exploded. It's best to play it on the safe side and keep your propane away from explosives and unpunctured. With the basics of propane safety covered, let's get into these quick tips:

My propane "quick tips" to you are to bring the correct size and always bring extra!

Propane Tip 1: Bring the Correct Size 

The first propane incident happened on the first solo road trip I took to the Red Woods when I first moved out here. I had no job and no destination in mind other than to head south to see what the I-5 corridor had to offer. On the topic of propane, the mishap was not a lack thereof. I had quite an excess of propane since I had a “loose” timeline. I brought a Coleman double burner camp stove I borrowed from a friend to cook some yummy, hot meals.

A happy Tiff with a big tree before she realized she would not be eating a hot meal.

I made it all the way down to Redwood National Park before bringing that beauty out to cook my first camp meal. I pulled my little Saturn Astra off into a campground as the sun was setting behind the massive trees lining the river (for more on that, check out my tip about not getting a campsite after dark). I had done a decent hike that day and was ready for some calories and a warm meal.  So I pulled out the stove, attached the propane adapter to the nozzle, and grabbed the backpacker propane I picked up on the drive down. 

What I know now and did not know then is that propane canisters- more specifically propane attachments- come in multiple sizes. For example, backpacking fuel canisters do not have the same output size as any other fuel canister. It turns out there are adapters, or I could have just tried it out beforehand and bought the correct size of propane. 

Propane (or isopro) ranges from 3.53 oz to 1000 gallon takes. For an everyday life example, BBQ propane tanks are 20 lbs and most houses that use propane have 500-gallon tanks. The typical Coleman camper stove takes a 16.4 oz gas canister. I recognize that these each use different units of measurement and still don’t actually understand how propane is measured so please don't ask. All I know is the stove I brought with me needed the 16.04 oz container. I brought a 4 oz container.

MSR isopro fuel canister

Coleman all-purpose propane

The first image is the can I brought. The second is the can I should have brought. The tops are not the same. Apparently, this is a crucial factor.

I did not enjoy a hot meal that night because I could not hook my propane up to the stove. So instead, I was just sad and ate too many Cliff bars (that was a joke, there are never too many Cliff bars when you’re sad and without propane).

So there you have it. Always check to see if you have the right size top so that it fits in the stove you are using. Always! Or else you will be sad and eat Cliff bars for dinner.

Propane Tip 2: Bring Extra

The hiker in me cringes at the word extra, as it is synonymous with excessive and unnecessary. Very rarely will I bring extra propane on hiking trips and believe that if worse comes to worst, I will finish the bottom-of-the-barrel snacks I didn’t really want to eat in the first place.

However, when it comes to camping, rafting, and road-tripping, you want to keep your fuel stock full. This means bringing extra propane.  

This next unfortunate event occurred in Olympic National Park in Northwest Washington State on the Olympic Peninsula. According to the National Park Service (NPS), the park's “annual precipitation ranges from 100-170 inches of rain along the coast and western-facing valleys.” In other words, everything is wet. All of the time. Constant moisture. Even if it seems dry, it's not, it's your brain in denial.

Fun Fact: Olympic National Park is a rainforest! As seen here in the campground bathroom.

On one of my road trips, my friend Rachel and I had a friend, Matt, fly in from Michigan to meet up to camp with us. Matt had never really camped before. This is a key fact. Rachel and I wanted to show him a great time and planned to cook him a nice meal for his travels: pasta with sauce. Luxury.

We drove from the SEA-TAC airport straight to Olympic, set up camp, and went on a nice little hike. Making it back in time to cook dinner, we set up the kitchen and screwed the propane into the hose to start up the double burner- the same double burner from the first story (thanks for letting me borrow it, Molly)! The bottle turned ice cold in about a minute and the little blue flames flickered to nothing. We tried lighting the burner again. Nothing. The canister was empty. 

Poor Matt. A good southeast Michigan boy who just wanted a good ol’ camping trip was now starving because Rachel and I completely blanked on getting more propane. We even went back and checked the other empty canisters we had in the back of the car (there were three). No luck! Shocker!

So, we did what we do best. We adapted. In the rainiest national park, we decided to cook over a fire. 

Matt cooking pasta over a fire. Why is he wearing a cooking glove? That's a great question that I cannot answer.

It is one of the more embarrassing moments of my life. We could not get a fire started to save our lives because everything was damp-to-saturated. It was so bad that not one but two camp neighbors gave us fire starters. They either felt bad for us or they were sick of watching us struggle so hard. 

Eventually, the fire started. About two hours after we were supposed to have dinner, the spaghetti softened. It was a hilarious meal and Matt will probably never go camping again in his life, or at least not with Rachel or me. 

All that’s to say, bring extra propane. Just do it. Every time. Or, at the very least, make sure you have enough.

Thumbs up to having full and correct-sized propane!

There ya have it folks! You’re caught up on the bare minimum of propane use! You should have probably known these things. But if you didn't, literally no shame! I struggle for you so you can practice good, self-explanatory camping techniques.

I hope you like this quick tip. Enjoy hot meals while camping!