Sea to Summit  X-Bowl

I bought this bowl for a four day backpacking trip and it worked quite well. It packed down small, and was plenty large to make two packs of oatmeal or eat a healthy bowl of ramen with craw-fish tails fresh from the river! My only concerns are that the bottom of the bowl gets rather hot if you pour boiling liquid into it, and that the material holds scent. Even after running the bowl through the dish washer after returning from a trip, it smells like brown sugar from the instant oatmeal. I’ll be keeping this in my bear can hanging from a tree from now on. Still a good product. I’m glad I bought it, and some of the other people on the trip are sure to buy one too.

I bought this bowl specifically to combat freezing of a gas cannister at low temperatures. Especially problematic when melting snow during winter camping, the gas pressure release rapidly cools the cannister well below freezing. The propane/butane mix remains liquid at these temperatures reducing typical gas stove output to that of a standard bic lighter. How to keep the fuel liquid? Simple. Place your fuel cannister in the Sea to Summit X-Bowl with a small amount of water to cook or melt snow for prolonged times. The water will, eventually, freeze again and allow the cannister to freeze, but this technique greatly extends the time a fuel cannister can be used. Last weekend this added ~20minutes to my snow melting time at 15F ambient.

Lightweight and compact bowl ideal for backpacking. Folds flat and fits anywhere in your bag, including mesh pockets. Easy to clean with a wipe in the field and toss in the dishwasher when home. I wish it had a tiny loop on it so it can hang from my pack but it’s nearly perfect without it.

I used this product occassionally since it first came out (6-8 times a year for I'm guessing the last 5 years or so) primarily on 4-5 day backpacking trips. Rcently I noticed that the silicone was cracking all over (similar look to dry rot on an old tire but not as obvious) This past trip I noticed that holes had developed along the seams where the bowl folds. I did not use this bowl all that often, and felt it should have lasted longer. It was a cool idea, and a neat design, but the silicone doesn't seem to hold up where the bowl folds down, and over time the silicone seems to crack all over. I might still buy another, as it works well for those times when I want a bowl, but overall I feel it should have lasted longer.

This is yet another great product from Sea-to-Summit. The bowl is pretty sturdy and does not collapse while eating soup or cereal. Yet if packs perfectly flat and fits in the bottom of my pot. The cup nests inside the bowl. That means my stove, bowl, and cup all fit inside the pot, which save a huge amount of room. The bottom is really durable, and I use it as a cutting board. Never have I noticed any odor or taste from the bowl itself. The bowl sometimes is a bit hard to clean if you don't have it all the way extended, but not that bad.

I like the idea of this bowl - it flattens down so that it is easy to pack. But, it adds a plastic/rubber taste to hot food. I usually clean my bowl by rinsing with hot water that I drink. This water tasted like it came from a rubber hose. Also, the bowl is difficult to clean - food adheres to the rubber top part in the creases where it folds. Whereas a smooth bowl was cleaned easily by swishing water around with a spoon, this bowl required using a finger to scrape the food out of the cracks.

Took my X-Bowl on a multi-day camping trip last week. Unpacked all my gear only to find out the silicone had cracked/broke/had a chunk fall out. I love the concept, I love the bowl, I love the color, but it needs some improvement and I would be more than happy to purchase again but not in the current form. More durable material? Something different so it doesn’t attract every speck of dirt and fiber when dry. Fix and improve it and I’ll be back!

Note: I have not used this for backpacking. I bought it to give my dog water on long walks/hikes. It's cheaper and more compact than the fabric travel dog water bowls you see. I'm very glad I got this....it's cheaper, more waterproof, and less messy than the dog bowls that exist.

This worked as it should, folded up nice and was the perfect size for my use. On my first trip with this bowl, I was two days in on a 6 day trip and a mouse ate a hole through the side where one of the grooves extends outward. This would be significantly less likely on a non-collapsible bowl because the mouse couldn't get their teeth around any point on the wall. I'm going with some sort of metal for my next bowl. 4 days of putting fingers over the holes in the bowl was enough for me to learn my lesson. I would still recommend this product if it fits your needs, this would probably never happen again, but I'm not taking that chance.

This bowl is a great concept and worked well for the first several backpacking and canoeing trips. After about two years of occasional use I've really noticed that the food tastes and smells like rubber. The bowl also has a lot of grooves that require meticulous cleaning; particularly in bear country. I'm looking at going to Ti to address the taste and cleaning issues while also reducing my pack weight.