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This past week I attended a 4 day wilderness skills course in the Adirondacks in NY. The course was taught by Josh Enyart, a former Ranger and Green Beret. It is designed to teach skills that are essential to stay safe and have a good time in the woods, and I chose the FK2 as my belt knife for the trip.

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I mainly used it for carving, splitting firewood, cutting cordage. It is an excellent carver and remained comfortable after sustained use of a couple hours. I found the blade width to make deeper scooping cuts a bit more challenging, but overall it worked really well for carving try sticks and tent stakes. It held an edge beautifully and would still shave hair after the carving.

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The next most prominent use for the FK2 on the trip was fire prep. We built long fires for nighttime as the temp fluctuated between high 40s during the day to low 20s at night. We had snow, rain, sleet, hail and sunshine over the 4 days. I used the FK2 for feather sticks, shaving fatwood and striking a ferro rod. I ground the forward 3rd of the spine to 90 degrees prior to the trip (was on the fence about doing that but I'm overall glad I did) and it makes copious sparks with a firesteel. On our 3rd night, it got dark after it had been raining and sleeting for hours. I kept having to shake the slush off the top of my tarp. We had seasoned wood for fuel that we'd cut from dead standing trees, but it was soaked and we were running low on tinder and smaller fuel. I don't think I could have gotten the fire started without the stoutness of the FK2 to baton through some dry hardwood rounds that we got to light more easily. It may well have saved me and my partner from potentially becoming hypothermic. After we got the long fire lit, we were able to dry out and sleep comfortably for our last night.
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A large component of the course was land navigation. Having the FK2 on my belt made me feel more comfortable on the nav course because I knew that I'd be able to start an emergency fire, or cut limbs for splinting if my partner or I sustained an injury (he was a few months off quad tendon surgery). It also opened mountain house packets, spread peanut butter and was an impromptu handle grabber to get my pot off the fire once 😆. 20230326_115442.jpg

My sleep setup with fire aftermath

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our class and instructors

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Right after getting home; my 2yo son said "Daddy's back from camping"

Thanks Nathan the Machinist Nathan the Machinist and the CPK team for such a phenomenal knife, and thanks Sagandavis Sagandavis for selling me my FK2. It's the best blade I own and I can't wait to take it on more adventures.

Steve
 
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Non.Nisi.Te said:
Didn't realize the significance until you said that, cool. I've always meant to read the Leatherstocking tales.
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I've read a couple over the years..."The Last of the Mohicans" is a great book. (Several of the water scenes from the movie version with Daniel Day Lewis were filmed about four miles from here...as the crow flies.)
 
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