Backpacking/Climbing Knives of the 1960s, 70s and 80s?

I was a scout from the early seventies to the early eighties.....

Cub Scout days: my first knife was a Camillus TL-29...a tough knife, kid-proof, good for whittling
Early Boy Scout days: lots of camping, some backpacking...a mixed bag: Kamp King scout, Imperial Barlow and Imperial stockman, to name a few. Cheap but effective.
Later Boy Scout days: moved to AK, camping and backpacking year-round: Buck 112 and Buck 102...I had one or the other on for every trip. Tough as nails, never let me down, good companions.
 
I wasn't much of a hiker in the '70's but did spend a lot of time kicking around the local woods. My knife, probably my only knife at the time, was an Imperial stockman. Used it for everything. Had it until about 10 years ago when it just disappeared. I searched for that thing forever, I still keep half an eye out for it...
 
When I first got started in backpacking, the Camillus and Imperial and Ulster boy scout knives were it. Of course being a boy scout my view may be slanted. But in the 60's, you could see a bit of anything on the trail. Old Imperial barrows, scout knives, some surplus store sheath knives, Mercator K55's, surplus TL-29's. In the 1960's you saw some of the Buck knives, but then it had become the fashion to have a Buck knife in it's pouch on the belt. But the 110 was a heavy knife, and the back packing crowd didn't take to it as much as the bikers and blue color workers who added it to their uniform. In Europe, things were always a bit different, and the SAK had already become popular by the 60's. I remeber the 60's as being a sort of mixed bag. No telling what you may see on the trail backpacking.

By the 1970's, Colin Fletcher had published the first of his many "Complete Walker" books that became the bible for many of the granola bar crowd, and the red hand SAK had became king. We had a few chains on the east coast, Eastern Mountain Sports, Hudson Trail Outfitters, and a few non chain backpacking and mountain stores. They all had the shiny display of the SAK's up by the register, and after a while it became like a badge of some sort, like the granola bars in the Kelty pack and waffle stomper boots that laced to the toe.

In the 1980's, the TV show MacGuyver spawned a whole generation of SAK carrying campers.
 
Thanks, Carl, for the reminder about Eastern Mountain and Hudson Trail. I got a handful of camping gear at those places and at Appalachian Outfitters in Oakton, Virginia. Good memories... I remember ogling those displays of SAKs when I started outdoorsing around 1990 (too late for this thread), but what I carried most though scouts was a mid-80s Victorinox Climber given me by my cousin. Spot on for your description of 70s-80s granola bar, saw-it-on-MacGuyver crowd.
 
Growing up in NH I did a lot of backpack camping in the White Mountains and along the rivers in the northern parts of the state in the '70's. just carried what I had, a Buck 112 on the belt. Got it in a local hardware store back when I was a young teen. I believe my pack and bag and tent were also obtained from a local hardware store that carried a diversity of outdoor gear. We didn't really do much catalog buying back then, just made do with what we had, and that was good enough for us...
 
I think this is a great idea for a thread, really enjoyed reading the posts and am posting partly so I get the email updates and don't miss anymore :D

I was not alive at the time, BTW, first knife was a cheap copy of the buck 112 from a car boot sale that I stored somewhere "safe" in my room because i couldn't take it anywhere. like all my "safe" places at that age I probably lost it the minute I left the bedroom but didn't realize it till I went looking for it a week or two later. this happened more then once with similar cheap copies of the buck 112, it's really the only knife I remember seeing in England apart from SAK's when I was a kid all the way back int he 80's.

Sometimes I feel young, sometimes i feel old, and it's always a bad thing!

sorry, rambling
 
Peregrin said:
I'd say that most knives that were carried during the 60s came from Hardware stores, Army/Navy Stores or mail order from outfitters like Herter's.
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Gary, this lines up with my experience, even moving into the early 70s. It would be super interesting to hear when people saw their first brick and mortar "hiking or backpacking store". I remember the Alpine Shop in South Burlington, VT, which was a yearly stop for me in the summers. There was also the general/hardware store in Stowe that we would often stop at on the way through. They had stuff for hiking but I don't recall any hiking stores, per se. Pagocycle was a bike shop in Burglington that carried some hiking stuff but that was in the late 70s and early 80s. I think that merged with distributor/catalog Climb High later in the late 80s or early 90s (and then moved to Shelburne).
 
Liberando said:
Later Boy Scout days: moved to AK, camping and backpacking year-round: Buck 112 and Buck 102...I had one or the other on for every trip. Tough as nails, never let me down, good companions.
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I'm comforted that I wasn't the only person lugging a too big and too heavy Buck 110 (or its ilk) around in my pack back then!!

Lesson learned: In 1984 I went on a long hitch hiking trip that eventually put me in Cartwright Labrador. My buddy and I were hungry and we had a can of peas from the local store. It was there that I figured out that replacing my old Scout knife with a Buck 110 wasn't the smartest thing. No peas that night. No can opener. We cooked up the peas the next night on a coastal boat/ferry the next night and learned another thing... Never pour grey water down the anchor chain hole on a big boat (wind pushes it back up!).
 
jackknife said:
By the 1970's, Colin Fletcher had published the first of his many "Complete Walker" books that became the bible for many of the granola bar crowd, and the red hand SAK had became king. We had a few chains on the east coast, Eastern Mountain Sports, Hudson Trail Outfitters, and a few non chain backpacking and mountain stores. They all had the shiny display of the SAK's up by the register, and after a while it became like a badge of some sort, like the granola bars in the Kelty pack and waffle stomper boots that laced to the toe.
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Carl, great, great point about Colin Fletcher. Do you happen to have an old copy of either Freedom of the Hills or Backpacking One Step at a Time by Harvey Manning? It would be interesting to see what Manning suggested too, as he was publishing at the same time as Fletcher.

Regarding seeing SAKs in shops during the 70s, do you recall seeing any other knives in mountain shops during that time?
 
MarkPinTx said:
As I recall during the 70s when backpacking became kind of a fad, it attracted a lot of wheat germ and city folk types that weren't outdoorsmen already. There was a lot of European equipment in the stores. I was a Scout at the time and interested in both backpacking and more traditional outdoors activities. I felt that I needed a SAK for such activities and so did most of my peers. I saw Opinels in the backpacking stores as well as Gerber folders, which were the closest to tacticool at the time. So, an Ulster Scout was among my first knives (Scout should have a Scout knife right) and a SAK huntsman followed, in part because it was the more advanced backpacking knife.
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I find this stunning, having never seen an Opinel until well after 2000!!

Actually, in hindsight, I saw Opinels in the Colghan sections of camping stores but didn't know what those "cheap" knives were and certainly didn't know they had any heritage.

For people who saw Opinels in the 70s and 80s, did you see them sold as Opinels or did you see them sold by Colghan? What kinds of stores carried them?
 
halfaxe said:
Later, about 1978 I bought this Gerber.

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That's my 1970's knife history.
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Very nice to see that!
 
Very good thread. I'm watching this one closely as backpacking and hiking is one of the major reasons why I'm into knives.
 
I have a Freedom of the Hills 2cd ed from Dec 1967. He recommends the old boy-scout type utility knife. I bought the book (at an antique store) because it opened to that paragraph.
"For special purposes a hunting knife is superior, as are double-bitted axes, cavalry sabers, Gatling guns, and dynamite, but a modest mountaineer contents himself with a modest blade." (p.27)
My first SAK was bought in Switzerland in 1967, and was a marvelous novelty in Kalamazoo at that time.
 
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Porch, Where would have a person purchased a scout knife in Kalamazoo in 1967?

Huge thanks for the wonderful Manning quote. We could probably start a dueling quotes thread (different forum) between Manning and Fletcher.

"All things being equal, choose a john with a view." -Colin Fletcher
 
In the mid seventies my buddy "James" had a red Victorinox SAK, not sure of the model. Of course I was totally awe struck by it. I asked where I could get one. He said we where going to stop at "Eddie Bauer" and pick up some supplies when we went to their cabin in Minnesota.

I had saved up to buy one and when we went to the cabin we actually went into Minneapolis, downtown by the Foshay Tower to an actual "Eddie Bauer" store. That's back when "Eddie Bauer" was still a real Outfitter store, not a MALL store like you see today.

Paul
 
I saw Opinels in Dallas at a backpacking stote called mountain hideout. typical euro/patagonia/north face backpacking store of the 80s. I was aware of the Coghlan imports as well somehow but don't remember how. there was another store in Dallas called Sterling Jewelry that was like a Best or Service Merchandise: little bit of everything. Guns, knives, toys, stereos, etc. Tee boy heaven and good prices. Its their Case display that I see in my minds eye when we discuss such things. SAKs too.
 
pinnah said:
I'm comforted that I wasn't the only person lugging a too big and too heavy Buck 110 (or its ilk) around in my pack back then!!

Lesson learned: In 1984 I went on a long hitch hiking trip that eventually put me in Cartwright Labrador. My buddy and I were hungry and we had a can of peas from the local store. It was there that I figured out that replacing my old Scout knife with a Buck 110 wasn't the smartest thing. No peas that night. No can opener. We cooked up the peas the next night on a coastal boat/ferry the next night and learned another thing... Never pour grey water down the anchor chain hole on a big boat (wind pushes it back up!).
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Good Lord !!!!! I'm flabbergasted.

First - That anyone would think a Buck 110 would be too big and too heavy to carry in a backpack.

Second - There was a can of peas and a Buck 110 at hand and evidently nobody could open the can of peas.:eek:

Did nobody think to stick the point of the 110's blade in the top of the can and in a saw-like motion work around the top of the can to open it and then after opening, touch up the blade and call it good to go.

All said in jest - but that can of peas should have been scoffed up that night.:)

Sounds like good times.
 
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