Alright! Well, I'm back from the trip. We ended up going to Woods Canyon Lake instead of all the way up by Flagstaff after we found out that there was a statewide ban on campfires right now due to the extreme dryness. Because of that, we elected to go to Woods Canyon, since the overnight temps were in the high 40's/low 50's instead of up by Flagstaff, where the overnight was just above freezing. This wasn't my choice, but the guys I was going with.
In the end, we had a really good time. The only downside is that my batteries died last night so I didn't get nearly as many pictures as I was hoping for. I got a couple of BK9 and BK4, as my first mission of the trip was the chopping comparison...No good pics of the BK12, BK2, ESEE 5, Izula, or my buddies BK7. Ah well. We had a great time. It's a hard choice for me between the BK9 and BK4. As much as it pains me to say... the BK9 is definitely a better chopper than the BK4. I'm sure, as many others have said, that this is largely due to the more acute angle of the grind on the BK9. I did find the BK4 was better as some smaller wood working tasks though. I used the BK4 to make a nice walking stick for my buddies son using the BK4.
I found the BK12 to be an excellent companion knife. It's light on the hip and has a great blade design. I used the combination of the BK12, my Izula, and the awl on my Leatherman to make a large wooden bead, which I attached to a piece of paracord, surrounded by a couple of diamond knots, and also gave that to my buddies son as a souvenir of the trip. Using the BK9, BK12, and Izula, I made a wooden blade, very similar in size and shape to the BK2 blade... no handle, just a wooden blade... almost like a spear tip. Just for kicks. I spent a large amount of the time sitting around just doing basic little woodcraft stuff.
We spent some time down at the lake doing some fishing too. Picking lake trout right off of the shoreline was a breeze. I got 4 trout in about 3 hours time... and that wasn't even consistent fishing. I guess the other guys might disagree though, since I'm the only one that caught anything. LOL!
Ah well. I'm really bummed that I didn't get more pics.. but here are a few decent ones that I got when we first set up camp and I started doing some testing.
#1 - Just arrived. Set down my pack and prepared to set up camp.
#2 - Got my little Eureka! Solitaire tent set up and pulled out my Beckers to get the party started!
#3 - Here's a good pic of (most) of the knives that we had in camp. (Top down: buddies BK7, my ESEE 5, BK2, BK9, BK12, BK4)
#4 - 2 pics of the BK9 just before starting to chop.
#5 - The BK4 getting warmed up as well.
#6 - My buddy and his son. My buddy has my Mossberg 590A1 which we brought just in case of any bears or anything. We were going to do a little shooting down the road, but there was a ban on target shooting in the area, for the same reasons as the fire ban. The son has my buddies BK7 in hand. He had fun learning how to strip some branches and do some light chopping.
That's all I got. Kinda bummed... but next time I'll remember to take lots of spare batteries.
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