I see that a knife has been dropped on REI's updated ten essentials list. [[oops - I guess they do have a leatherman that they show]] This term has been so overused, and is so coveted and deeply enshrined in our folk lore that frankly a lot of people buy these items and either don't carry them, don't use them, or can't use them, but they still feel safe because they have this stuff even though it may do them no good.

I'm thinkin back to the last time I wrestled a grizzly barr with ma Bowie knife . Sure I wuz glad ta have it but the barr et me anyways...

I one time sat on a high point on a mountain, knowing full well where I was, with a current local topo map and one of those Silva compasses in the plastic rectangle. I tried to triangulate my position and could not AND I KNEW WHERE I WAS!!!
And I might add that theoretically I do know how to navigate by map and compass but I find it too slow and ponderous of a method to use. (I carry a GPS)

Other questionable "essentials" include repair kit, sun protection, first aid kit, fire starter, and flashlight. It might be nice to have these things, like the whistle that has somehow been dropped, BUT are they essential? That is - are they required? All of this is assuming that the fertilizer hits the fan and you want something [technology, medicine, etc] to make it better. This is ballanced against - how BAD does it have to be to create a "bad trip" and what does all that stuff cost and weigh?

I think a sit pad is pretty important and though it is covered under "insulation" in some cases "insulation" means "coat".

Now bear bells doesn't seem be on the lists that I've seen, atleast not in a very long time. I think the best way to avoid bears is to not camp where everybody else does. And what about my trusty snake bite kit and axe???
Jim

It depends on where and when. Also on the level of experience. It's usually the inexperienced that head out with nothing at all (no pack, maybe a water bottle at most). If it rains, the temperature drops, they get lost (easy to do with no map), or anything else happens, they're toast.

When hiking in the forest, sun protection isn't necessary. Out in the open, it most definitely is, to prevent skin cancer and early-onset cataracts later in life. I had the early-onset, rapidly-developing cataracts, and one of my DILs had a big chunk of her upper lip removed due to skin cancer last spring, so I know whereof I speak.

We've had I don't know how many SAR calls here in the Gorge just this fall because people underestimated the early darkness or didn't think about setting a turnaround time and were stuck because they didn't take a light.

As for a knife, I use mine (Leatherman Micra) to cut things occasionally, and I use the pliers on it for when I have to adjust straps (because I don't have the strength in my fingertips to pull them through). The scissors, pliers and file get used more than the knife blade, but the blade would be nice if I someday actually manage to catch a fish and want to gut it. Besides, if I need to use duct tape (repair or adhesive tape), I need something to cut it with.

I've never needed the first aid stuff for more than minor cuts, scrapes, the occasional sliver and blisters, but I take stuff for those, especially the dreaded infected hangnail.

Repair kit--safety pins, duct tape and a needle that will hold dental floss (the needle is also for removing slivers and puncturing blisters). Probably not needed for a day trip, but I've used all at one time or another when backpacking. I do not recommend duct tape as a patch for ripped pants, though; it peeled off and stuck to my skin instead. Ouch!

I do take a whistle; it beats yelling, especially when my grandkids are along. Each of them has a whistle with instructions not to use it for play until they get back home. They know about "Help Come Quick" (three blasts) and that two blasts from me means that dinner is ready!

The lists all say "extra clothing" but don't say that the outer layer needs to be waterproof, especially in this neck of the woods. You and I take that along anyway (along with an insulating garment and the sit pad), but you'd be surprised how many don't!

Definitely those "ten" essentials lists are for beginners. I'm sure you take most of that stuff in some form or other along anyway as part of your normal gear. I know I do! But most beginners I see (and I see a lot of them around here!) don't, and unlike us they don't have the skills to cope without it.

Au contraire, I just checked the REI website and their video blurb on the ten essentials and it still includes a knife - specifically mentioned as a component of the repair kit. They illustrate one of the new Leatherman models with small pliers and a relatively modest blade. They are not pushing the Jim Bowie, Roman short sword, "survival" knife that is still peddled to the unknowing. I usually have some sort of a knife with me when I am out and about - I have used it too. Over the years, I have carried a Swiss Army Knife the most often and it has been perfectly adequate. I did switch to a Leatherman about five minutes after I first held one - the pliers are great for freeing up jammed locking carabiners.

I very much like the "ten essentials" concept, but you need to think about what you are carrying because you will often vary the components depending upon the circumstances - the Sonoran desert requires more water in your pack than does the Pacific Northwest. When I was working in Canyon de Chelly, I learned never, never ever to enter the canyon without carrying at least 60 feet of 9mm climbing rope, even if no climbing was on the adenda. In that terrain, it made good sense....

If more people had carried the essential ten, they would have had a much more pleasant excursion and maybe even survived.

The Mountaineers "invented" the ten essentials and the list is, as a result, PNW-centric. I believe it's as much intended to get folks to think before hitting the trail as to being an end-all, be-all list of things to carry, no matter what.

The "new" ten essentials

A couple got stuck in their Jeep in the Sierra snow a week ago and while she managed to walk out and survive, he did not make it. A bare minimum of planning (not to mention better decision-making) would have had them both surviving their experience. It saddens me that in addition to agonizing over approach and departure angles, a surprising number of OHV folks don't put the same energy into the possibility of getting stuck.

A baggie of essentials, be they eight or eighteen, tossed into the pack won't make a difference 99 of 100 trips. Which trip is the next one?

I stand corrected on the knife issue then.

However I have found that most women campers tend to carry scissors, which are two crossed knives with a leverage advantage, and they cut much more precisely.

If we actually left behind everything that we do not use on each trip, we would not have first aid, pliers, warm coat, compass, map, or other emergency stuff because emergencies are rare. These are the things left out to get to ultralight that make UL more dangerous during an emergency, but easyer to carry when you don't need any emergency items. Sure many will argue that not carrying emergency items makes you safer because you will be lighter and therefore less apt to have an accident. I think someone did an awesome job of marketing to get people to want to believe that.

Jim

Funny thing is that those "ten" "essentials" don't weigh that much! I generally carry all of them, in some form or other, when I'm backpacking. I don't ever go without the raincoat or the puffy jacket or the base layer; I've needed them too many times. Ditto warm hat and gloves. As already mentioned, I find my wind shirt indispensable.

About the only things I carry that I haven't used on several occasions are a couple of larger gauze pads and a couple of large non-stick bandages in my first aid kit. Maybe half an ounce altogether. My PLB, 5.4 ounces, has of course never been used, but that's a psychological weight saving that keeps friends and family off my back. Oh, yes, I haven't used the frying pan (4.2 oz.), since I haven't yet managed to catch a fish to cook in it. Do you suppose that if I left the frying pan at home, I might actually catch that elusive trout?

I wouldn't consider a firestarter, flashlight, or cutting tool (not neccessarily a knife) to be "questionable" at all. Those are all no-brainers IMO. The size/weight/cost of those three is neglegible. A small ferro rod costs a couple of bucks. A squeeze-type single LED light is tiny. A 2" blade is adequate for most any cutting task. My repair kit consists of the paracord bracelet on my wrist, and a couple of feet of duct tape wrapped around my trekking pole.

I never leave the house without a knife,ever!

Jim, you should hang out at some bushcrafting forums. Although there are people like me that like to mix the two completely different worlds of lightweight backpacking and bushcrafting, most don't. Bushcrafters generally try to go big on the "essentials" and small on everything else. Forget the stove, sleeping bag and tent. They bring a tarp, wool blanket and fire, then build a shelter for the night. They bring less food with the intent of foraging. Instead of a 1 pound frameless pack, they want a canvas frameless of the same volume, but 3 times the weight. They want a big knife, axe and saw for building that shelter and fire wood. Of course, they don't do big miles, mostly walk a few, and spend the rest of their time setting up camp and sitting in front of the fire carving. Or spending hours with a friction fire. I don't subscribe to a lot of the mentality, but I don't think they are wrong, just different. I do bring a big knife. For you guys it is big, for bushcrafters it is tiny, a mora. I use the heck out of the thing. I also use my scissors a lot.
To each their own, I guess.

I always have a knife. A little SA Classic is always in my pocket. That little sucker has tweezers, toothpick, screwdriver, file, blade, all in a dinky package. It's amazing how many times I hear "does anyone have a knife"?
I also usually have fire, even though I've never smoked. A book of paper matches in my wallet will be used up by the end of the year.
I never carry sunscreen goo....hate the feel/smell of it. I tend to wear my sun protection instead.
I've never thought in terms of "essentials", ever. The trip dictates the need and I tend to prioritize stuff instead.
Shelter, warmth, food, hygiene, and a plan.

I'll bet you don't fly much....grin

What is interesting about the classic list under Rick_D's post above is that food is listed in the 10 essential list, but not water. You can get a lot farther with water and no food than the reverse. It IS listed under the 10 essential systems however.

I can't imagine going backpacking without a real knife. I can make a lot of useful stuff using that knife. We learned how to make all sorts of things in my first Boy Scout Troupe, including how to make bearpaw style snowshoes using willow branches. And I have had to give up a pocket knife flying before. Forgot it was in my pocket!

I think that's the Western Washington influence at play. Hard to hike or climb anywhere there without water access. Took me a few years after landing in California to get over the expectation there'd be water squirting out of the hillside every hundred yards. "Carry water?!?"

I never don't have a knife on the trail--it's a guy thing--but to be honest nine trips out of ten I only use it prepping food.



Cheers,

The winter campers who post on wintertrekking carry a pair of ice awls for self-rescue if you break through the ice-they go on a lanyard around your neck. A lot are handmade, but you can buy something like these-
http://icerescue.marsars.com/it030020.html
They would consider those an essential.
Here's a video on using them-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KDqEJlwclg

For me, and likely all other experienced outdoorspeople, the ten essential items for a given trip vary depending on the trip. That said, I think the myth of the ten essentials has morphed into almost categories instead of items. Food? Shelter? really? We need to list food and shelter on a list of ten essentials. By listing these things it makes the list worthless. Perhaps it always was. If I was to categorize a packing list, I would use my house as the categories: kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, closet, garage. In fact, that is how I arrange my gear list in my mind.

That's a great post Jim!

I have a assortment of stuff that I bring that varies with the trip. Day hikes are when I whittle it down to little more than the essentials.

When I do a long day hike I'll bring a tarp. I have a visqueen one that's big enough to rig a shelter I can stay dry in, otherwise I'll bring an SOL emergency blanket nowadays.

Other than that I do bring quite a few other things I don't expect to use. I bring my FAK/Repair kit/Fire kit. It's all in one bag and I carry it with me almost all the time in a Jansport Daypack I have. I have a different day pack for hiking, so I toss it into it.

I also carry at least 2 LED lights of some kind, one is always a headlamp, others vary. I carry a compass, and usually my GPS and a map. I don't trust the GPS, and I don't really need a map, I can get close enough with a compass to find where I need to be.

I carry a small Rapala fillet knife, or a little "Cowboy Toothpick" pocket knife. Neither would kill a bear. You can clean a squirrel or a fish with them real good though.

I never had a store bought bear bell, but I have set up a stainless mug to clank on some biners or something before. I still shout a warning now and then. I'm pretty sure bears are only annoyed by all of that but since I don't actually see them often I'll keep doing it.

I carry my hiking stick on all my rambles. It's essential.

I'd say my day pack weighs between 8-16 pounds. On the heavy end I could spend a night or two out and be comfortable in most situations here. If I were backpacking I'd be closer to 28-32 for 2-3 nights.

I think anymore, everything I bring is near essential for me to be safe and self contained. That's really my goal.

Safe is an illusion of sorts, but so are the dangers, so it's an attempt at balancing them both. I mean, if I run across a bear that's hell bent on kicking my butt, well, I'm in trouble and like you said, no knife, and darn few guns are going to change the outcome. But the odds of that happening are so slim that I'm better off spending the gun money on lotto tickets.

I think the number of real uses for a knife are limited unless you use it to cut up your food. You could use a knife for a million things, my point is that without the knife you simply camping? They are lousy for chopping wood, whittling is an un-wouldn't do 999,000 of them and not suffer. I mean what would you HAVE to do with a knife besides fight with it, while essential sport, few people use their knife for surgery, and I can eat my food with my hands and no knife. I never have to strip insulation from a awire for instance, while camping.

Furthermore, if I am actually going to attack the reasonableness of carrying a camping knife, then lets start with the multitool concept. Unless you are in the woods on a mechanised conveyance - what are you gonna use a bunch of tools on? They are a total waste of weight except on some expeditions where real time repairs might matter.

I think a fingernail clipper is about all the cutting device I really need.
Jim

Jim: I agree, with one caveat. I take a small fishing knife with me, but usually only use it to cut our salami and cheese for lunch. We don't really need to do that (we could just gnaw off a chunk) but we like the civilized effect.

And I have never understood what anyone fixes with a multitool. We take a sewing kit, which works a lot better on packs, tents, sleeping bags, and clothes...

I don't know what I'd do without my Multitool (a tiny one at 1.9 oz.):
Pliers--grasp strap ends to pull through buckles (my fingers won't do it), use as pot lifter when cooking, some uses for fishing
Knife--cut things such as moleskin, fishing line, duct tape when needed as patches or adhesive tape, trim hangnails, cut thread if I have to sew, gut fish
Tiny screwdriver--tighten screws on my glasses, which I need to do every other day to avoid losing them.
Larger screwdriver--prying off lids of water bladders in dog's pack
File--file fingernails, which split if not filed daily

Without it, I couldn't adjust straps on my or dog's pack, couldn't remove pot from stove, couldn't cut tape, glasses would fall apart, couldn't get the lids off dog's water bladders, would have seriously split fingernails and even worse hangnails, etc. And I'd have to eat fish with the guts in

Coming at this from an Arizona perspective, the question is what else do you carry in addition to your water, which can easily be a gallon or more when it gets toasty. The essentials list ought to be adjusted to the environment....

I have to agree with you Jim, the number of real uses for a knife are limited. Sometimes I'll use it to help start a fire by making a fuzz stick, but in reality it's only used for gutting fish nowadays. So usually I only bring a light pocketknife. If I have done my planning properly and I make no major errors in judgment on my trek (and don't fish), the knife is dead weight. I have in the past brought three cutting tools with me on treks where I am traveling lighter than I do now and I got along quite comfortably with very little except food.

Still, I like to have the knife with me just in case. When Tica was young, I took her to the dog park for socialization. One time, 2 dogs playing somehow got wrapped up with the jaw of one getting caught under the round profile leather collar of a smaller dog. As it struggled to get free, the collar got wetter and the dog panicked. By the time we released what was happening (at first it looked like a dog fight) the leather collar was twisted multiple times. We tried to separate them, but could not figure it out. Then the smaller dog stopped struggling, passing out from lack of air. Holding the dogs in the air and using a borrowed knife, the only clear access I had the the collar was the inside of the larger dogs mouth; that is where I had to cut the collar with the knife. Somehow in the struggle, the collar had been twisted at least 4 times. The little beagle got mouth to nose and came around. Without the knife he would have died.

Unless I'm stripping down to the human equivalent of a flying gas can, I like bringing my knife . Even my larger knife doesn't weight much. And when you need it, it's there.

Flaking takes a certain amount of real skill on marginal rock. Unless you are next to some obsidian or nice chert, its harder than it looks. And then you have to avoid hurting yourself when using it even if it is a cobble with an edge for hacking. Very cool skill though. I once found points and scrapers in Montana made out of a fine grain basalt maybe 500 years old. I thought that was pretty impressive.

Welllll...maybe, but in the desert, I've used either a single edged razor blade, or my little Swiss Army Classic to tease out more than one dagger plant spine. Plus, I like a toothpick and a tweezer as a bonus. The weight of the little package is almost nil and you can do at least 996,000 of all that knife stuff with it.

To OM's point, we also take a nail clipper that has a nail file. I think I would argue it is more essential than the knife---since a toenail problem really can keep you from hiking. And we take a needle and thread in our sewing kit that can remove splinters...

Eyeglasses? that's an interesting one. So far I've never had a problem, but I can imagine! I guess that's where duct tape comes in! grin

I can see toenail clippers. My little knife has scissors that work for that pretty well. Needles/tweezers don't remove cactus spines very well, but I do carry a little hotel sewing kit. Dental floss makes really strong thread if needed.

Indeed. I travel a ton, and I frequently replenish our first aid kit with one of those nice sewing kits. When my clients put me up at a Four Seasons, I got a really nice one! grin.