___ Knife—seldom. I used to carry a ½ ounce tiny key-chain knife. There are so few things needing cutting on the trail I no longer take it. If I need a knife I wait until the next town or borrow one from someone I run into.
___ Lighter--seldom. The tiny mini-lighter between three people is perhaps nice—though I doubt it. It might be nice for someone to have one. Serious backpackers seldom or never build fires except for romantic purposes.
Serious backpackers? He's not a very serious backpacker. He's a guy who mails himself supplies then power walks. He's an alien in foreign territory that must have white gas and all types of other bits of petroleum (tarps to inflatable sleeping pads to sporks) to make it. He just walks through nature on a non-paved superhighway using mile markers for navigation, hoping to make it to his next mailbox where his sleeping bag and food is waiting. And praying he doesn't run out of freeze dried dinners in the meantime.
I'm not even sure I should take this guy seriously. He carries a quarter of a bandanna to save weight? And carries only six sheets of TP, but some "city folk" carry half a roll? He only carries a refill portion of a pen to save weight? The weight of the plastic outside part of a bic pen? I should take this guy seriously?
If he is serious, he's the reason that SAR exists. He can't handle even the simplest of emergencies or even the most minor of bad weather. He can't signal for help. He can't even make it through a cold night, because he mailed his damn sleeping bag and doesn't have a match. His emergency plan is borrow from someone else or hope someone else will rescue him. Unfortunately society is full of his types, and I don't mean just on the hiking trails.
I'm not saying he's the first of this type of fool I've read about. One says they cut off their toothbrush handle to save a tenth of an ounce. The other says he cut half the head off two. The first says he just took one bristle off the brush, the second says he no longer brushes (like professor deodorant). I'm surprised they haven't decided to go naked...to save weight you know. (Admittedly some of these knife nuts and gear whores are just as bad in the opposite direction.)
Just because there are plenty of these extreme ultralight fools, doesn't mean I should consider professor deodorant any less of an idiot. And there's no way to soften the statement. Anyone who recommends that other hikers go into the woods without a compass, knife, lighter, and other essential emergency gear is a as pompous as he is ignorant. My 8 year old boy knows better. I would think anyone with more than a couple of hours in the Boy Scouts knows better. Hell anyone he's seen a Boy Scout (or Red Cross or ready.gov) commercial knows better.
When the time comes, I'll go find professor deodorant, tracking him if I have to. It shouldn't be hard because he won't stray from the trail much at least until he gets too dehydrated or hypothermic and loses his faculties. However, that doesn't change the fact that I would tell him to his face he's ignorant.
Thanks for the lectures from the ultralight fanboys, now go home. I don't go to ultralight boards to talk knives or survival skills. Why do you come here?
