1000th post giveaway!

BJE

BJE

Joined
Apr 12, 2006
Messages
3,080
Well, I reached the big 1000, that means it's time for me to give back to BF and its members. I am posting this here because I always seem to get the best or most useful advice here. I don't post here that often becuase most of the time someone else has already said what needed to be said. I am always lurking though.

I havn't quite decided on what I am giving away yet, I am pretty sure it will be a knife from Victorinox as that seems to be my favorite company these days. I find them more useful than a dedicated knife. I am not a big fan the the pliar based tools because they seem like a tool with a knife in it, but a minimalist SAK feels like a knife with tools in it if that makes any sense. The blades cut great and there is alot of history in each knife. It will be a two or three layers SAK though, I find those most comfortalbe to use and carry. After three layers the tools get a little redundant anyway IMO.

Here are the rules, I prefer paying members to win because you should give before you recieve, but I will leave it open to all so long as you think about upgrading. Enter as many times as you like.

I would like you to tell me about your most memorable hike/camping trip, pictures earn brownie points but aren't needed to win. It can be whenever with whoever, whereever. Just tell me why it is your favorite and some other little details like location and scenery/wildlife. I will pick the best story and that person will be the winner.

For those of you who carry only one knife at a time every day. You can tell me why you like you carry that knife when there are so many others to chose from(pics help but aren't needed to win). I carry my Vic Soldier or Tinker every day, mostly without another knife (save the classic on my keychain). I find it to be my favorite edc and I really don't need to carry another.

There is no deadline, when I think I have heard enough stories, I will announce the winner.
Good luck to all and thanks for playing!
 
Great idea for a give away.
Well for me it is easy. I have always loved the outdoors, but never did any serious hiking or camping in any real remote locations. When I was in Venezuela on a fishing trip our boat broke down in an isolated spot on a lake and that little fun trip almost turned into a survival situation. It didn't due to another boat happened to come by about an hour after we broke down. However ever since then I have trying to better prepare my self if something similar happens. Thankfully I found this forum. Which brings me to my most memorable camping trip.
A few weeks ago we had the CT gathering. In those few days at Meadow Brook state park I met a bunch of great people. I learned so much from guys like Marty and K Estela and others ofcourse. I got to check out and handle alot of different equipment and get alot info from the people who have used all the equipment I was interested in. Since that experience I have alot more confidence in my abblities and also know I there is so much more I have to learn and practice. I have been trying to find a good outdoor school prior to the CT gathering, but after meeting Marty, Kevin and speaking to some people who took their course I know which school I will be attending this summer. So that weekend was easily my most memorable camping experiance.
Here's some pics.

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I usually only carry a Tinker as well. It's pretty useful in the urban environment that I stay in on an everyday basis. Aside from the big blade the toothpick and bottle opener probably get the most use, with the philips head screwdriver following those.
 
Awesome idea. Thanks for the giveaway thread.

My most memorable hike/trip was actually a weeklong trip to the Smokies with my wife. It was not too long ago and will probably be the last one for a bit since we have a kid on the way. It made it very special that my wife was pregnant for the trip and we are able to take the little one along with us :) There's nothing like spending time with your best friend on a hike :)

We hit a bunch of different trails and tried out a bunch of different gadgets. The cool part is we were also able to go see the Graham Brothers and pick up my spear point they made for me. It was an awesome trip.

Here's my wife on one of the bridges:
KristaBridge_1.jpg



Here's me on a section of the AT:
Trail_1.jpg


Here's the Graham blade I picked up while on the trip:
Graham_2.jpg
 
I have owned a Tinker for 10 years. It was my only knife when I bought it, and I have carried it all over the world. Longest period of time when I carried it, mostly by itself, was when I went camping in Afghanistan with my Uncle for awhile. It did everything needed.

I don't carry it as such anymore -- except once in a while when nostalgia hits. Mostly, it rides around in my day pack, in a little pouch that is just for pocketknives.

My favorite camping trip ever would probably be when I was 16 and ran the Salmon River in Idaho. Bridges to jump off, old mountain men, sandbar camping, hot girls in the other boats. Just what a 16 year old needs.

On the way up, the axle on one of our trailers burned up. I mean, the bearings went out and started a fire.

We had to unload it, strap everything onto the other trailer and both trucks, find a place to crash for a few hours (ended up on an island park in the next town), and then send somebody back with a Uhaul single axle car puller to strap the broken trailer to.

That was the funniest night of the trip.

We went on a short hike one day, and several pine hens busted up in front of us. One of the guys I was with caught one like it was a baseball!! Pretty cool to watch.

Wow. That was 20 years ago, and I started talking like I was 16 again. :D
 
ok well i know i dont have a great camoing story like some of the others because i have only gone once, but my god it was great. i just graduated from hs last year(class of '07). one week before i moved back ehre to the states from japan(my dad was navy) my friends adn i decided out of the blue to make a final fun day with us all together. we went and rented tents, and sleeping bags, cooking supplies, everything, but a knife. so we went out into the woods, all 10 of us and set camp. it took forever to figure out how to get a fire going and even longer to put the tent together. finally we cooked some brats, hotdogs, and eggs. we were up all night laughing, walking, reliving the last 3 years of our lives that we have been together. we even went all "original" and brought hersheys chocolate and marshmellows. man it was a blast. makes me remember how much i miss my friends now that we are all spread over the united states again. and as for me, like you, i often carry a farmer around with me. it is jsut a simple tool. it has a nice blade which can cut everything adn anything, and it is unobtrusive. alas, to go with my farmer, i have a nice one hand opener, usually my griptilian or my alias I. thanks for the chance to win and for the help on bringing back great memories.
 
I carry a RC3 daily to work and swap between a deluxe tinker and a spyderco PE Native not counting my LMwave,any ways..my favorite memory outdoors is Sitting outdoors with a bamboo stick and kite string and bacon catching crawdads with my son who was barely two at the time,we were just passing time under a tree fishing for mudbugs and toss'em back,I love to eat 'em but we were having guy time and watching him laugh and trying to figure out those crawdads was funny,I laugh so hard when he final built up his courage to pick one up,I made sure it was a little one and he toss'em back...of course the next one he grab was a big one and it pinched him good,I did chuckle alittle ,you know live & learn and then after we got the pincher loose,he was mad and quished 'em good.
 
I think I have decided on the prize. One Victorinox Recruit and one Victorinox black signiture light. What do you all think?
 
BJE said:
I think I have decided on the prize. One Victorinox Recruit and one Victorinox black signiture light. What do you all think?
Click to expand...

BF really is one of the better forums around. Where else do people do things like this just for the sake of doing it.

Thanks!
 
Wow, I thought more people would try to win free knives by now! Lets here some stories. Thanks to everyone who posted a story or picture.
 
My best memorie of camping was a float trip w/ my wife and friends. It poured rain the first 8 miles of the trip. Once you got use to the fact that you were gonna be wet it was great. I remember the night before gettin good and sauced up and rolling my friend down a hill in his tent(he didnt stake it!). It was hillarious! I also got my first fire from spark that night. We had a great time, The little dinner we stopped at on the way home was the best biscits and gravy ive ever had.

One other trip we zipped up a buddy that passed out too early in his bag and jammed a leaf blower another buddy had in his truck into the bag and fired it up. Priceless. he screamed, and emerged black as coal. Hilarious, but im a little off so that stuff amuses me.......
 
Congrats on the milestone. My favorite is my first week long, 50 mile backpacking trip in Sequoia. I was in Scouts, probably 12 or 13. We had been doing lots of hikes in preparation for this one, I wasn't worried about the distance. We were worried about bears! We all kept hearing the stories of the bears up there, I figured there would be hundreds of them around us all the time! Every noise at night, had to be a rabid bear coming to get me. (It was tough getting any sleep nthe first few nights)

Well a couple of nights in, there was some noise coming from outside. Slowly we all started getting out of our tents to see what it was. It was a mama black bear with two cubs, ripping a guys pack to shreads! (Come to find out later he had left a packet of instant oatmeal in it) They eventually left the pack and just sort of played around our camp for a good ten minutes. We all watched and thought it was the coolest thing ever, seeing them so close like that. They acted as if we weren't even there. I wasn't afraid of bears after that. I still respect them though.
 
OK, I have some more prize choices. Either
1. a new Victorinox Red Alox Farmer
2. a new Silver Alox Farmer
3. a new Recruit and a lightly used (once) signature light
Which do you want 1,2,or 3? Let me here your choice and some more stories.
 
All you listed are fine items, in the spirit of the give away, I think what ever item you choose to give will be appreciated by the winner.
 
I've now got a hike that is such a favorite of mine that I couldn't not enter with it! I think I'm excited enough that I post it in every thread here, but I finally got engaged on a hike two days ago! For brevity, I'll post a link to the full story!

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=557234

100_0408.jpg

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Favorite belt knife:
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My favorite pocket carry blade is way too easy a decision however. I carry a Vic Farmer every day and love it. I use it more than I care to say. For pure utility, I don't think it can be beat in the woods. Sadly I don't have any quality pics of it yet!

[Edited to add: First choice would be (#1) Red alox farmer, just in case! :) ]
 
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Well, if I were fortunate enough to be blessed by your generosity, I would have to pick #2, as I have never had one of those.

My last campout, I didn't really want to go. I felt awful, but it was a father and son retreat sponsored by my church, and my 8yo really, really wanted to go. So I got home from work, changed and threw a few things into my pack while my wife and son made us some sandwiches. Loaded the truck with the tent, sleeping bags, cooler, and pack. I even took air mattresses -- I have a bad back, so I usually won't sleep right on the ground.

Well, we found the assigned campsite, and my son immediately disappeared with his friends. Sigh.

Staked out my Brittany and started setting up the tent. The air pump hadn't been used since last summer -- nor charged, so I had to borrow one from another family. Yeah, yeah, I know -- survival of the fittest! Well, I'm not, and I already didn't feel good. At all.

Quickly discovered that the sandwiches my wife so carefully and lovingly made never made it into the cooler, so we were limited to snack foods. Not a big deal, really, but kind of funny.

Guys at the next tent had a little Scotty pup that didn't like anybody elses' dogs. First time my Brit ever got snarled at like that.

We had some cobbler cooked in dutch ovens. Enough men came that we had 5 different versions. Never had strawberry and chocolate cobbler before, but there was pineapple and peach that was more what I was expecting. Big scoops of vanilla icecream on top.

We all sat around the fire whittling into the night. I split some wood with my new Estwing hatchet. My son had fun sitting at the fire with his SAK Recruit, just like all the big guys, making toothpicks out of cottonwood.

Boys found a box turtle the next morning, and followed it around for a couple of hours. Let the dog run, and had some folks surprised that you can actually have a dog trained to run loose and call her back, and have her come back. It's odd that all these city folks have never seen a trained dog before.

Still had a headache, back spasms. I survived the camp. My son had a great time. All goals were accomplished.
 
Nice stories everyone, choosing a winner isn't going to be easy. I think the Red Farmer would make the best gift as most folks around here seem to love tham and that red alox is beautiful. I wish they made a Soldier in red alox.
 
My favorite trip ever was when I was 5 and I went hiking in the gorge by niagra falls with my dad and some of his buddies. I remember getting really exited at seeing fish and a doe drinking from a stream. We got lost for most of the day and after hiking for about 8hours, we stopped and my dad made a fire which was really exiting for me. We started on again and finally emerged on a campsite when it was just about to turn dark. The only knife I had on me was a little buck stockman.
Oh yeah I like the red alox farmer, Iv never had an alox SAK before.
 
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