Like the title says, I need some camp cooler recommendations. I did a search on this subject and was surprised this hadn't come up before. Either that or I just couldn't see it.

What are you using to keep the perishables cold for the weekend backcountry trips? I will be packing it in the C180. Yeti's are awesome but big and expensive. What other options are out there?

Thanks in advance, Rich

For me, I don't see any reason to get more than a Coleman 48qt for weekending. My logic is that I've had several and have never had the weekend outlast the ice. If the purpose of a cooler is to keep things cold and a cheap Coleman is doing so, why would I pay more?

Last year I got a couple of collapsible coolers from Costco. They fold down flat for transit and have very good insulation properties. I have not looked this year for them.

TD

Field and Stream did a comparison review on 12 different coolers last month. They were all Yeti types. For short trips maybe a cooler bag?

I have a Yeti....but really heavy. I've heard of these guys, but not sure if they are the real deal. Word is they are the group that does the injection molding for Yeti....just using a non-proprietary insulation. Probably lighter weight.

https://www.rticcoolers.com/

Yeti's are great for longer trips, but yes are overkill for just weekend excursions unless it is a really hot weekend.

For trips lasting just a couple of days, we have been happy with these soft sided coolers:

http://cascaderivergear.com/shop/19-quart-fabric-cooler/

If I'm in the Champ, I have to go ultra compact. My last trip I wrapped a couple beers, some salami and cheese, in a bag of frozen broccoli and stuffed that in a gallon zip-loc. This gets wrapped in my down vest, which also doubles as my down pillow when stuffed in my sleeping bag stuff sack. Beers were icy cold, and the vegi's got cooked up with dinner.

Well, since you fly a C180 and we all know C180 pilots can't leave anything at home you might as well go all out and get a portable DC fridge.

I am amazed at how much people will pay for a cooler..... Now, that said, at least some of the Yeti coolers are ALLEGED to be bear proof, which could be a significant benefit in many parts of the country, where many remote strips are in bear country. I really don't know if these things really have been rigorously tested and proven to be "Bear Proof".

I just use relatively cheap small coolers, with blue ice or equivalent. Won't last a week, but at that point, I either resupply, or just deal with it. And, with a Cub, you're pretty limited on size of a cooler anyway.

MTV

I guess maybe I'm the odd man out, but you won't ever catch me paying $250 for a damn cooler.
Ditto a camp chair (another current thread).
I'm a Walmart or Costco man when it comes to shit like this.
You can buy an entire camping outfit for what some of these high-end coolers and chairs go for.
Of course, I do the airplane equivalent of car camping-- not hard-core, northern-face, extreme-conditions wilderness expeditions. It gets too shitty out, I either head home or don't go in the first place.

I spend a lot of time camping in the desert, so coolers are near and ear to me.

Super-coolers like Yeti and Pelican are neat, but they have some drawbacks. They're very large for the amount of storage they provide, they're heavy, and they're expensive. If you need it you need it, but otherwise they're total overkill in an airplane.

I use a Colman Xtreme cooler...little better than their standard line but nothing like the big boys.

Simple tricks will make any cooler work much better. NEVER leave it in the sun; pre-cool all items before putting them in the cooler; use block ice instead of crushed ice as much as possible, and regularly drain the water. Drain water can be used to cool beers or whatever that didn't fit in the cooler...just put 'em in a cooking pot and fill it up with ice cold water.

During the day time I leave my cooler sitting on a foam pad in the airplane and cover it with sleeping bags. At night I keep my airplane emergency sleeping bag over the cooler. The sleeping bags along double the lifespan of the ice.

If you have extra beverages that won't fit in the cooler but you're going to add them later, leave them next to the cooler under the sleeping bags...they'll be ten degrees cooler when you go to put them in.

+1 on what hammer said except I like Rubbermaid/Gott marine coolers. Unfortunately they only make them in 150 or 102qt sizes which are way too big for airplane camping. I've been using a 150qt Rubbermaid cooler on my raft for 10years. I enjoy it when my $60 cooler outperforms my rafting buddies $$$ coolers. A lot of that has to do with techniques like Hammer described.

I will only add a warning that I read here on BCP, or Aviation Safety, or heard from some wobbly pilot at a fuel pump. Do NOT use "dry ice" as it out gasses (turns into Carbon Dioxide Gas which displaces your Oxygen.
Apparently slow enough for one to not realize what is going wrong. Similar to CO onset effect.
Sorta like slowly heating up a toad in water till it dies of the heat.

Hammer wrote:use block ice instead of crushed ice as much as possible

I fill gallon jugs with water and keep them frozen in my chest freezer. Then when I go camping, I use those as my blocks of ice in the cooler. As they thaw, you have water to drink from a bottle and don't have all that water in the cooler getting things soaking wet. Plus I always like having as much drinking water just in case. I usually come home with jugs still with cold water in them, but I had it if I needed it.

I reccomend one of these, it takes care of your ground transportation problem as well once you get to where you're going! http://crazycoolers.com

wannabe wrote:I will only add a warning that I read here on BCP, or Aviation Safety, or heard from some wobbly pilot at a fuel pump. Do NOT use "dry ice" as it out gasses (turns into Carbon Dioxide Gas which displaces your Oxygen.
Apparently slow enough for one to not realize what is going wrong. Similar to CO onset effect.
Sorta like slowly heating up a toad in water till it dies of the heat.

Good advice...sort of. I frequently fly with dry ice without any problem. The air displacement as dry ice sublimtes is an issue in a pressurized airplane or maybe if you're sleeping in a camper with a bunch of dry ice, but a '54 C170 has more than enough air flow to keep O2 plentiful.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I've used the frozen water jug trick before but never thought about freezing the vegies. Makes sense though.

The soft bags look interesting for their flexing and forming abilities. I have to check them out firsthand and see how rugged they really are. I wouldn't want to find out they self drain the hard way.

Rich

Lots of good suggestions here. +1 on freezing water bottles, insulating with sleeping bags and pre-cooling/freezing food.

For beer, nothing beats the mountain man aesthetics of cooling your brews in a glacial stream. When that's not an option, using a Hydroflask as an insulated growler works great for a short trip. It's amazing how long drinks stay cool in those for the weight.

Hammer wrote:Simple tricks will make any cooler work much better. NEVER leave it in the sun; pre-cool all items before putting them in the cooler;

Very good points.

Hammer wrote:use block ice instead of crushed ice as much as possible, and regularly drain the water.

This part I disagree with. The main thing that matters is the weight of the ice. 20 pounds of cubes or crushed will have the same cooling capability as 20 pounds of block, but with the added benefit of being able to push around and take up volume around foods instead of just a lump at the top.

Similarly, draining the water is unnecessary and likely counter-productive.

http://outdoors.stackexchange.com/quest ... or-leaving

Hammer wrote:
use block ice instead of crushed ice as much as possible, and regularly drain the water.


This part I disagree with. The main thing that matters is the weight of the ice. 20 pounds of cubes or crushed will have the same cooling capability as 20 pounds of block, but with the added benefit of being able to push around and take up volume around foods instead of just a lump at the top.

Similarly, draining the water is unnecessary and likely counter-productive.

Crushed ice will fill voids and that's valuable, but there's more to it than that… There’s a direct trade off between how cold you can keep something and how long you can keep it cold with a given quantity of ice. If your objective is to keep things reasonably cool for a long time, block ice and draining water pay big dividends.

Yes, twenty pounds of crushed ice has the same cooling energy as 20 pounds of cubed ice, just like twenty pounds of wood shavings has the same energy as a twenty pound log. The question is at what rate the ice or the wood gives up its energy.

A twenty pound log will burn in a stove much longer than twenty pounds of wood shavings because while the net amount of energy released is the same, the rate at which it’s released is not. Ice is no different.

Crushed ice has many times the surface area of block ice, so it releases its energy to the surrounding environment much faster. It brings the contents of the cooler to a lower temperature more quickly than block ice, but it does so at the expense of longevity.

Crushed ice gives you 33 degree beer for 12 hours where as the same weight of block ice gives you 45 degree beer for three days…for illustrative purposes only of course.

Draining water from the cooler seems counterproductive because it releases thermal ballast, but it is extremely important if you want your ice to last as long as possible. The reason is that the water acts as a conduit that transfers the cooling energy of the ice to the walls of the cooler, where it is transferred to the atmosphere. If the cooler walls were a perfect insulator it wouldn’t matter as much, but they’re not…not even close.

Now that can of Schlitz sitting in melted ice water is going to be colder than a can of Schlitz sitting a foot away from a dry block of ice…once again it comes down to how cold do you want it verses how long do you want it to stay cold.