Firepan Requirements in the Grand Canyon

The important dimensions are required by the NPS regs: the pan needs to be 300 square inches – 15″X20″ – and have sides 3″ high.  The legs have to lift the firepan off the ground by at least 3″, so I had the legs be 7″ long (3″ to line up with the sides of the pan, plus 4″ of height from the ground).  The pan breaks down into 11 pieces – 4 legs, 4 sides, and 3 bottom panels, plus 8 thumb screw bolts to put it together.  The whole thing weighs 8.8 lbs.  I had made it out of 1/8″ aluminum. Actually, I just designed it, and Greg Hanlon had it made at the shop at his work.

One alteration I considered was to drill out the legs and the bottom portions of the sides to reduce some of the weight, but since the pan was being distributed among 5-6 different people the weight reduction didn’t make that much difference.

The only thing that I’d change would be to drill the thumb screw holes a bit larger, so it would be easier to match up the corners.

This article is reprinted with permission and some minor editing from Amongst It’s now-discontinued website, kayakcamping.amongstit.com. You can view some of their articles here and you can browse the entire site using archive.org. Boyce Greer contributed to both the website and the underlying Grand Canyon trips and ideas and he continues to be an inspiration to all of us. “Trip of a lifetime every year.”