Backpacking - Stove

Jennifer, my wife, and I are in the process of outfitting ourselves for a backpacking trip we're planning on taking in late July. We're going to hike in the Olympic National Park, on the Enchanted Valley trails. I'm really excited about it! I've been spending a lot of time reading blogs, equipment reviews, and forum threads, on everything backpacking. And as an added bonus, the company I work for owns Backpacker Magazine, so I'm trying to get my boss to give me a discounted subscription, but in the mean time I've just been stealing the office copy ;)

So today I got a new backpacking camp stove. After a bit of personal debate on weather to get a professional stove or to make an alcohol stove via an aluminum bottle, I decided that I would rather spend the money on something I know will work. I may still end up making an alcohol stove, and testing it out, but for now I wanted to go with my gut and get the higher quality product. I ended up getting the JetBoil group cooking system. I read a lot of reviews and it seemed to be the best fit for my needs, it's light weight (20 ounces) and will last a sufficient amount of time, one canister will boil 12 liters of water. After bringing it home from the local REI (which is walking distance from my apartment) I unpackaged it, quickly read the instructions and set it up. I put 1 liter of water in the pot and fired it up on my balcony. It was a little more noisy then I thought it would be, I'm sure some people walking by where all "WTF is that noise coming from that dudes balcony?" but what ever, I'm sure it's not the first time they've said that to themselves while passing my apartment. Any way... It boiled the liter of water in just over 4 min. I was impressed! My kitchen stove can't do that! I'm excited to test it out in the back country. We only need a few more items before we're outfitted enough to do a weekend hike in Sedona AZ.