In the last year, I've gone from long-distance solo trips during school breaks to lots of shorter mileage weekend trips with my wife.

I almost never build fires on solo trips, but I've found that after a 6-8 mile walk, a fire is a great way to keep her occupied. But we've had issues with finding the right kinds of wood, dry enough to work in cold weather. Last year at Hobbs Cabin at Savage Gulf Natural Area in southeastern Tennessee, I really wished I'd had some decent pioneering tools for prepping wood for the fireplace there.

So recently I made a couple of purchases for enhanced base camp life, a Sven Saw and a Gerber Camp Axe. The saw is MUCH preferable for cutting a decent length of log, while the longer (17.5 inch) Camp Axe is a reliable splitting tool.

Yeah, it's a 2 lb, 6 oz load for the two, but for those shorter trips with camp comfort in mind for the wife and me, I suspect it will be worth it.

I'll let you all know how the system works after the 3-day trip we have planned at Thanksgiving.