Mistwalker
Gold Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2007
- Messages
- 19,025
We are into the last third of winter now, and much of the forest looks drab and dreary with lots of shades of grey and brown, but it's not all dead and lifeless looking as there is always some greenery to be seen here in this temperate rain forest, even when it is snowy and frozen.
It would have been alarming to have a camp set up near this tree when it split. The broken section was about two feet in diameter and the crack was really loud when it went and I was over a hundred yards away at the time.
The main knife for the day is an Arete model from Fiddleback Forge with emerald burlap micarta from Shadetree Custom Composites. It is one of my favorite handle materials in my favorite color. I have been wanting to give this model a go for some time now and found one with the right colors, right thickness and of steel and tang taper, and the right spalting on the blade that pushed me over the edge and had to get it. I have a custom ferro rod for it that Blaine (Swonut here on the forums) of Suffolk Metal Works made for me. Blaine makes very nice fire steels, and he uses a great quality of ferro rod.
Now I should probably say that I am a big advocate of carrying a match safe full of storm proof matches when it is really cold out. Cold weather injuries can get nasty and having been there and done that, I always keep a couple of forms of fire-right-now when I am out wandering, but the practice on this day was with a ferro rod and organic tinder materials.
When it is snowy here, a lot of the tinder materials I like to use will be damp from the snow thawing in the sunlight.
In some areas there are beech trees that hold onto some of their leaves all winter long.
Here pitchwood or fatwood is almost always available. Hard to hike off trail here without seeing it.
With a sharp knife feather sticks are always an option, and the Arete is very comfortable in use and has great blade control so that wouldn't be a problem.
But one of my favorite tinder materials is golden rod. They are very bright yellow flowers in late summer and early autumn, but the pollinated flowers become beige fuzzy seed heads in the late autumn and are usually around through most of the winter here. On their tall stalks they are well off the ground exposed to the sunlight, and they blow around in the breeze. So they dry quicker than a lot of other materials even in damp times.
Building a platform of broken branches gave me a place to place my kindling and fuel as I gathered it from off the ground from dead twigs hung up in tree branches, and breaking down standing dead trees. Then by layering the golden rid tinder and kindling from smallest to largest, I was all set. A couple of sparks from the ferro rod set up the chain reaction necessary to create sustained fire for a warm lunch in the cold.
It was a nice break from the office and from the seemingly unending construction project going on at home
..
It would have been alarming to have a camp set up near this tree when it split. The broken section was about two feet in diameter and the crack was really loud when it went and I was over a hundred yards away at the time.
The main knife for the day is an Arete model from Fiddleback Forge with emerald burlap micarta from Shadetree Custom Composites. It is one of my favorite handle materials in my favorite color. I have been wanting to give this model a go for some time now and found one with the right colors, right thickness and of steel and tang taper, and the right spalting on the blade that pushed me over the edge and had to get it. I have a custom ferro rod for it that Blaine (Swonut here on the forums) of Suffolk Metal Works made for me. Blaine makes very nice fire steels, and he uses a great quality of ferro rod.
Now I should probably say that I am a big advocate of carrying a match safe full of storm proof matches when it is really cold out. Cold weather injuries can get nasty and having been there and done that, I always keep a couple of forms of fire-right-now when I am out wandering, but the practice on this day was with a ferro rod and organic tinder materials.
When it is snowy here, a lot of the tinder materials I like to use will be damp from the snow thawing in the sunlight.
In some areas there are beech trees that hold onto some of their leaves all winter long.
Here pitchwood or fatwood is almost always available. Hard to hike off trail here without seeing it.
With a sharp knife feather sticks are always an option, and the Arete is very comfortable in use and has great blade control so that wouldn't be a problem.
But one of my favorite tinder materials is golden rod. They are very bright yellow flowers in late summer and early autumn, but the pollinated flowers become beige fuzzy seed heads in the late autumn and are usually around through most of the winter here. On their tall stalks they are well off the ground exposed to the sunlight, and they blow around in the breeze. So they dry quicker than a lot of other materials even in damp times.
Building a platform of broken branches gave me a place to place my kindling and fuel as I gathered it from off the ground from dead twigs hung up in tree branches, and breaking down standing dead trees. Then by layering the golden rid tinder and kindling from smallest to largest, I was all set. A couple of sparks from the ferro rod set up the chain reaction necessary to create sustained fire for a warm lunch in the cold.
It was a nice break from the office and from the seemingly unending construction project going on at home
..
