Soo if a hatchet would be my best choice? What hatchet should i get? I would need it light enough to pack on hikes and such?
Can you tell us where you hike and camp, how far you typically hike in from the road and what other (if any) stove you carry?
I've been doing backcountry trips in all 4 seasons for many decades, mostly in woodsy New England, and can attest that you can safely travel in the backcountry with nothing more than a key-chain sized tool. Heck, people climb peaks like Everest with no more knife than that.
IME, fire making is fun and gratifying but is largely recreational. Life and death means packing the right shelter, a decent stove and knowing how to use both. Well, that and knowledge enough to stay out of trouble.
Add to this that many areas where one is likely to backpack and hike are heavily traveled by others, so wood harvesting impact can cause a lot of damage.
IMO, hatchets make sense for car camping (where you can buy wood) and for canoe camping (provided the local woods can support the wood harvest). For lowland hiking with plenty of wood and assuming fairly good distributed camping and careful wood harvest, I think a small wood stove makes sense. I use the Emberlit but there are many others. This allows the use of a campfire with really minimal fuss and impact. Also pretty much eliminates the need for heavy duty and heavy in the pack wood processing tools. At most, a small folding saw and a 4" to 5" fixed blade is more than enough to keep an Emberlit well fed, even in the rain.
Obviously, if you have a place to go where harvesting wood is not an impact issue and if having fun means cutting and chopping and burning, then by all means, have at it. Gerber and Fiskars both make light weight camping hatchets.
FWIW, here is my standard in the woods carry.
Outdoor Carry by
Pinnah, on Flickr
The Opinel handles general cutting and food prep and making wood shavings. The PS4 handles gear repairs (pushing a needle through pack cloth) and bandage prep (scissors).
EDITED to ADD: the Opinel is enough to batton wood for the Emberlit, on trips where I take it. I generally carry white gas (winter) or alcohol stoves (3 season) as they're just so much easier to deal with.
Hope this helps.
