I'd echo azamie10 with the Fallkniven F1 if you want a survival knife.
It's already a bit of a legend as far as survival / utility designs go as opposed to survival choppers. Both the design and the materials are outstanding for real world use. Although it is a bit thick and strong [the survival aspect] it cuts very well. It's extremely unlikely that you'd break it and it is very low maintenance. I never got so much as a speck of rust on mine and I expect survival / utility patterns to be semi-amphibious and I am very intolerant of those that can't perform in blood, juice, sap, rain, river blah blah without needing their diaper changed. In fact, look them up, they always come immaculate and they tend to staying that way. QA / QC of that caliber is far more interesting to me than if we sell you a crap one we'll make it good. It's got a nice basic handle that allows you to get up close to the business end for fine work but done in a way that still allows you to put plenty of power into a cut. Have a careful look at the leftmost one below, that's it.
To be fair I did let mine go but that's not 'cos I don't think it is an awesome knife. I let it go because I moved away from the survival thing and more towards utility. That's mainly because when I also have an ax or golok I don't really require such strength or toughness in my knife and I could move to something much thinner and with a handle I really love. None of that does anything to negate the well deserved status of the F1. I've seen them at $102 in the US so perhaps a better search would find them even cheaper. A couple of threads here recently have found some very happy buyers turning on to the F1. Superb value. Who knows, in years to come you may pimp the handle out with tortoise shell and abalone to create an heirloom. The blade is certainly of sufficiently high quality to take it.
That said, as you mentioned light weight being nice for hiking I think it must be worth flagging up a Lone Wolf Trailmate. It could be that you are on a similar page to me in that a good utility knife that does a wide range of stuff but is compact and always on you
is a survival knife too. Especially so when it is often backed up by some dedicated chopper. The Trailmate is a design by
Steve Kelly A.B.S J.S and owner of the Knife Dogs forum. I've seen those here in 154CM and G10 for £105 GBP so I'd expect it to be much less than that on the home market $. You can read up on the genesis of the Lone Wolf version
here.
Seems like great value in a light and compact knife for hiking that'll do the survival stuff to me with 154 CM around the ton mark. Needs more research though 'cos I've never used one.
