One of the most impressive pieces of gear I stumbled upon at the 2019 Outdoor Retailer Summer Market was a prototype of the GSI Pinnacle Pro stove. A product of four years of development, it was impossibly thin at 1.4″ and the fuel and air delivery system seemed to bend the rules of combustion. The clever engineering of the burners and a parallelogram design for the grate eliminated as much empty space as possible when closed, making the incredibly thin profile possible. One could easily have mistaken it for a notebook computer with the 20″ x 12.4″ dimensions. With its legs extended and lid open, it looked and felt like an elite, high-end stove that punched way above its planned MSRP of $235.
Stainless steel, die-cast alloy and steel, and the clean lines reinforced the 9.5-pound stove’s promise of quality and durability. I felt the quality of the sample to be equal to outfitter stoves I’ve used that cost nearly three times as much. But the Pinnacle Pro blows those stoves away in terms of packability and weight. This stove takes up roughly half the space of a traditional two-burner unit, which should interest car campers, overlanders, and vanlifers alike.
Each patent-pending, incredibly thin burner puts out 11.000 BTUs of power and they come to life with a built-in igniter. They are said to simmer as well as they boil. A standard one-pound canister connection provides the fueling, while the fold-out side windshields have cutaways for panhandles. Finally, the grate easily pivots out of the way to reveal a non-stick coated spillover tray to make cleaning a snap.
GSI, along with many other outdoor brands, struggled through the COVID-19 related delays in production and shipping but soldiered on with the development of their most ambitious stove ever. They just announced their first Kickstarter campaign to launch the Pinnacle Pro, with deliveries of stoves targeted for February of next year. Check the stove that stopped me in my tracks out Outdoor Retailer and get a substantial discount for your support!