GSI Soloist

I used my member dividend last Friday and picked up a GSI Soloist from REI. This is GSI's newest addition to their line of Halulite cookware.

What originally drew me to the design was the folding handle which, when in the closed position, locks the unit closed. The insulated nesting bowl, the drain holes in the clear Lexan lid, and the diameter (somewhere between the SnowPeak Trek700 and the 12cm Zebra Billy Can) that makes cleaning up a breeze were all additional details that I discovered while playing around with the set at the store.

The set was designed to hold a fuel canister and small burner like the SnowPeak Gigapower but I'm going to toy around with building a kit that utilizes the Trangia burner.

The pot feels like Aluminum and it has been hard anodized to provide protection and apparently to add a degree of non-stick-ness (a new word I suspect) to the pot. I'll whip up some oatmeal and/or rice later today to see just how well the non-stick-ness works.

The clear Lexan lid is nice but might not be ideal when cooking over an open fire. You can tell this set was designed with the freeze-dried food crowd in mind. It is absolutely ideal for pasta, rice, and boiling water over a small stove. I'm not sure how it'll hold up to cooking some sausages over an open flame however.

I had planned on using it once or twice at the lake this past weekend but just never had a chance to slow down enough to build a fire in the fire pit. Now I'll give it a test drive on the stove just to break it in.

Thanks for reading,


B