How to Blaze a Trail

"Blazing the Trail" - Girl's hand book to the outdoors - Year 1915

"A woodsman usually blazes his trail by chipping with his axe the trees he passes, leaving white scars on their trunks, and to follow such a trail you stand at your first tree until you see the blaze on the next, then go to that and look for the one farther on; going in this way from tree to tree you keep the trail though it may, underfoot, be overgrown and indistinguishable.

If you must make a trail of your own, blaze it as you go by bending down and breaking branches of trees, underbrush, and bushes. Let the broken branches be on the side of bush or tree in the direction you are going, but bent down away from that side, or toward the bush, so that the lighter underside of the leaves will show and make a plain trail. Make these signs conspicuous and close together, for in returning, a dozen feet without the broken branch will sometimes confuse you, especially as everything has a different look when seen from the opposite side. By this same token it is a wise precaution to look back frequently as you go and impress the homeward-bound landmarks on your memory. If in your wanderings you have branched off and made ineffectual or blind trails which lead nowhere, and, in returning to camp, you are led astray by one of them, do not leave the false trail and strike out to make a new one, but turn [10]back and follow the false trail to its beginning, for it must lead to the true trail again. Don't lose sight of your broken branches.

If you carry a hatchet or small axe you can make a permanent trail by blazing the trees as the woodsmen do. Kephart advises blazing in this way: make one blaze on the side of the tree away from the camp and two blazes on the side toward the camp. Then when you return you look for the one blaze. In leaving camp again to follow the same trail, you look for the two blazes. If you should lose the trail and reach it again you will know to a certainty which direction to take, for two blazes mean camp on this side; one blaze, away from camp on this side."

I know one or two anal Park Rangers that would shoot anyone that did this. Actually, he wouldn't have to, cause if I got to them first, I would take their nifty little hatchet and blaze their scalp, two for coming and one for going, or was that one for coming... It's a wonder there is a forest left.. Brum

Interesting post Brum. Since you didn't quote it my respect for you diminished quite a bit until I got to the last paragraph <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

If you think this is bad, check out some of the old versions of the Boy Scout Handbook. As recently as the 70's, Boy Scouts would go into a wooded area and chop down all the saplings for use in camp projects.

NiytOwl, wrote:


Hey NiytOwl, Ooops! Sorry, I've added the quotes. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. You must have gotten pretty riled before seeing my comments at the bottom. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Brum

Once encountered a fellow, as we were looking for a campsite toward evening, who offered to let us camp beside him. He was about 8 feet above us in a tree, and we noticed him because of the "whack, whack" and falling branches. He said we were also welcome to share the campfire he was going to make with these green branches, and added, "I really love my awesome machete!!!"

We looked toward his pack, noticing that most of his gear was branded "Marlboro" or was army surplus.

Needless to say, we hiked on a couple of miles before stopping to camp. I guess acorns aren't the only nuts in the woods.

<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Oh, how right you are Glenn! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Back in the day when I was a Scout I was walking out of camp, and was a ways along heading towards a lake on the map with another Scout. I had been blazing as we went with a mini can of orange spray paint, in discreet little single shot squirt spots at eye level, one for going and two for returning. Along came a Scout 'Leader' from another Troop who chastized me up and down in front of the other Scout with me <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> Telling me how I was vandalizing the woods, etc. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> He proceeded to take the can from me, and then took out a hatchet and whacked away on a tree as stated in the OP <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> He then handed me the hatchet and told me, "You can either mark blazes the *proper way* ( <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />) or head back to camp". I headed back to camp and it was from that day foward that I realized not everyone knows what that don't think they knows <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

To this day I spray if I'll be in the area camped for an extended period. I spray to the pit, the kitchen and the camp. It'll be hardly noticed by anyone else in the more muted colors I use these days <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Earthling

Actually though I was taught the old school stuff both as a scout and by my grandfathers and uncles, dad. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> and I am an expert axeman. Used to split ALL of the wood for Boy Scout camp <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> AND I can acurately throw a knife and stick it with my choice of number of spins before it hits. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

The Boy Scouts get unfairly trashed by people jealous because they weren't scouts and didn't get to dig in Indian mounds like my troop did. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />
Most Boy Scouts didn't have a license to carry a knife much less an axe. The number of them that showed up for anything like "woods craft" was a small percentage. There is probably more "damage" done pruning parks than by boyu scouts. One mans damage is anothers improvement. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

There are still people in this day and age and YES in this group who live in areas where this is reasonable behavior. Now Inpolar lives in the Taiga where there are few trees, and fewer people. It matters little if she chops down two trees and starts a bonfire between them and leaves it burning when she leaves. Likewise some of our Scandinavian friends have very non-american-pc camping habits. The Europeans think we are trashing <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> the mountains because we don't have yellow posts to stay between like the trails in the Alps. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> On the AT PC <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />is very much different than on the PCT. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Inpolars husband is a poacher, I'm sure that means something very different than what someone outside the area and culture thinks of.

I think the LNT is anAmerican value. I'm not condeming it, I'm just saying it is a kind of extreme backlash to the blaze a trail ideas of those who were in continuous deep wilderness, and blazing and axemanship were important.

Jim YMMV <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I'm a product of Scouting in those days. Still have my 1965 handbook and yes, we did cut lots of saplings. But I learned from that. And grew in my thinking.
Now, when I cut and maintain trails in my park, I use a 3' wide Troy Bilt sickle bar mower! That sucker will take down 3 saplings at once, while I eat a sandwich! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

It's funny reading that old handbook how thinking has changed. "Blazing" a trail now has more to do with eco friendly flagging tape than cutting anything down.

Jim I ain't bashin' the Scouts, I work weekly with a local Troop doing trailwork; and just about made Eagle Scout myself before my family moved.

I'm proficent as anyone I've ever encountered in the wilds or camps with my axes, hatchets, or knives. No pissin' contest needed once I take mine out <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> It's not as if I am unaware of previous techniques, which have their place in certain areas. I no more condone blazing trails then I do throwing sharp things in camp for sh*ts and giggles. Unless someone happens to be an ER doctor <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> Things of that nature are fine in re-enactment camps, but not in my backpacking camp. Funny, you think it's ok that the guy is a poacher/inpolar, and say you're a hunter <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Hey, if my dog poop post bugged you that's the way it is Jim; on the East Coast there are way too many lazy non poop picker uppers, than responsible dog owners. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Earthling,
Heck no I'm not offended <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />by [deleted] well never mind, ahem, <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> anyway we all live in different times and places and its just interesting to me when something gets one group or another all riled up. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> I think theres something in the water here, nobody cares about much but the snow condition on the mountain. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

However - quite frankly where I live the native forests are so tight the trees are stunted and they need a good fire <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />but its been so long that the damage done would be devastating <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> so instead they combine legal firewood cutting with mechanised "cleanig" to cut down 3/4 of the saplings <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />. This is the land of a billion pine trees and if I wanted to I could go 5-10 miles from here and practice all of the woodsmanship crafts I wanted to including building a lean to <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />. People wold call it a hunter camp.

jim
<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />the Barbarian <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

It's a little known fact that, in the old days, anyone who didn't carry a metal blade to mark their trail got lost and died. That's why there was empty country when North America was settled by the Europeans.

Or not. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

FB

Earthling,

I use engineers tape to blaze trails. I camp often with a guy that lives about 60 miles away on the other side of the Divide. We meet at GPS coordinates and whoever gets there first marks the way to camp with flagging tape.

I like to get there first because it is easier to flag the trail than pick up the tape.

In the life of Daniel Boone

Trail blazing skills:
I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. Daniel Boone

Priorities:
All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife, in that order. Daniel Boone

Confused on rightful land ownership:
A zeal for the defense of their country led these heroes to the scene of action, though with a few men, to attack a powerful army of experienced Indian warriors. Daniel Boone

Waxing poetic while drunk:
Let peace, descending from her native heaven, bid her olives spring amidst the joyful nations; and plenty, in league with commerce, scatter blessings from her copious hand! Daniel Boone

Brum <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

That's the difference 3000miles makes Jim. Out here on the East coast most law abiding wilderness folks would tar and feather anyone caught doing that in a public use area.

I can see where you are out West in areas that have/are being logged it's not such a big deal to go out to play any way you want. Guess you have it better than us <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

As far as yellow snow goes, it melts in the Spring and you don't notice it in the water huh? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Must be an aquired taste or something <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

A share of dogs have owned me in the past 4 to be exact, and they were all great friends. These days i just rescue the less fortunate ones and foster them until the right person comes along to adopt them.

Last good fire we had here was when a Navy fighter jet 'accidently' dropped a flare into Wharton State Forest and burned 20,000 acres and a half dozen homes <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Food, I carry a 10ft roll of orange surveyors tape in my pack for flagging when needed. Say I decide to go off trail to get a view, I flag from the main trail out to where it drops off. I remove it on the way back, same deal. I like your situation better though <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

That sounds like a fun way to meet other folks coming into an area to camp with <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

The reason I got/get so frazzled over 'blazing' is evident by what I came aross in the woods this past weekend. I was surveying new property for the Open Space Committee here that I volunteer on for a new hiking park. There were older trees with fresh random blazes, like someone was just out whackin trees for no good reason. Then I came across a 16-20" dia cherry tree that had been 'girdled' by some jacka** with what appeared to be either a dull hatchet or a large soon to be dull knife <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> If the perp had just walked a few feet and played on a sumac it would've made a huge difference. Why? because the cherry was a rarer tree in those woods, and the sumac was plentiful in all manner of sizes. Plus, the jacka** left the tree up, which made it a hazard that I now have to go back and take down <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> It's girdled 6" in all the way around. A good tree ruined for no purpose. I will try to salvage the wood to bring to a friend that makes furniture.

When I was a scout in the 60's, I remember going on winter camp. We would pile into a school bus and head into the mountains (idaho) and stay in cabins the first night. The next morning we would head out a couple of miles and make camp. We would cut pine saplings to make lean toos and use the boughs to make the roof and bedding. Cut bigger trees to make fire wall to reflect heat into the leanto. Blaze trails to the latrine which was a deep hole with a shovel left to cover the waste after you did your business. I'm sure that camp of 60 or so scouts left an impact on the area. Oh how times have changed. BTW we had all the implements of distruction at our disposal and I had a set of throwing knives that I was professent with. (spell check all of the above).