Backpackers! What knives are you carrying?

[gadgetgeek]

Fair enough. Where we are the "jungle shrubs" you just smash through, or as one guy I met said, you toss your two smallest squaddies onto the pile backpack first, crawl up them, repeat. Then we have the big gums, and some ironbark. The gums shed enough that firewood is rarely a problem, and if something is big and down over a track, its big enough that you are not moving it. So I can see with that stuff, you'd need some tools. Its either super small or huge. I've had to cut a couple of vines, but nothing a Vic or even Izula wouldn't handle quickly.

 

[Cobalt]

Fair enough. Where we are the "jungle shrubs" you just smash through, or as one guy I met said, you toss your two smallest squaddies onto the pile backpack first, crawl up them, repeat. Then we have the big gums, and some ironbark. The gums shed enough that firewood is rarely a problem, and if something is big and down over a track, its big enough that you are not moving it. So I can see with that stuff, you'd need some tools. Its either super small or huge. I've had to cut a couple of vines, but nothing a Vic or even Izula wouldn't handle quickly.

Yeah, your combo of tools would not have helped me in my scenario and would likely not help in many scenarios. But it is all what you feel comfortable with. You know your terrain. To me carrying the extra one pound that it costs to take a small hatchet, med to large fixed blade or saw is worth the piece of mind it gives me. I have done enough extended backpacking trips to always take some efficient wood processing tool.

 

[gadgetgeek]

That and the only snakes here that "stand their ground" I'm not messing with, stick or not! The couple that are aggressive just see the stick and a quicker path to strike range! Just another example that for every rule there is an exception, and its the subtleties that show where the differences in approach should lie.