Stout backpacking knife

22-rimfire said:
That's a pretty good point. But of course some of us watch where we walk so we don't step on snakes or trip on things.
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Takes about 5 days off trail to be off trail fit, where travelling cross country becomes second nature. Basically its when your legs and feet are fit enough to know what to do because they are mountain fit. You stop huffing and puffing too. The kind of fitness you get at the end of military basic training.
As for snakes, if they don't get out of the way they're dinner. Wear the right footwear helps, or just get tuned into your environment.. which takes a few days too.

Have backpack, am backpacking.
 
Standard78 said:
Exactly.
There's no definitive way or set of rules to backpacking. If I want to carry a back pack full of dryer lint (wink wink), ferro rods and 20 knives to a camp site, it's still called backpacking.
Transporting gear and supplies from one location to another is the basic definition of backpacking.
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Actually if you're just walking into and out of a campsite (even with a pack on your back), you are probably camping vs hiking or backpacking. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But backpackers spend a minimal amount of time in campsites. -- eat, crash, eat then on their way.
 
GREENJACKET said:
Takes about 5 days off trail to be off trail fit, where travelling cross country becomes second nature. Basically its when your legs and feet are fit enough to know what to do because they are mountain fit. You stop huffing and puffing too. The kind of fitness you get at the end of military basic training.
As for snakes, if they don't get out of the way they're dinner. Wear the right footwear helps, or just get tuned into your environment.. which takes a few days too.

Have backpack, am backpacking.
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I don't lift my feet off the ground very much when I walk. Hence I tend to trip on rocks and roots that are poking up a bit if I am not paying attention. I can think of a lot of better things for dinner than "snake". I don't kill them unless one bites me and that has never happened yet. Have seen a lot of rattlesnakes and copperheads in the woods over the years. I pay attention to where I step. There are a lot of them in the Southeast US.
 
Not too many snakes in Europe, even fewer at altitude. In truth I like them so leave them alone.
I can never get over the amount of tarantulas and scorpions you have in the States.

A to B, C to D, at speed, camping light, is trekking in the UK. I think its depends where you are and the local language or term used. Does it matter? Who needs an excuse to get outside and do stuff?

My son backpacking around the world, was half the time too hungover and crashed to get up early... unless he had a plane, train, bus, or boat to catch. He also took a cricket bat to play cricket and make friends with. In the UK backpacking is travelling with a backpack.

Here we go:
Is it a daysac, day pack, trail pack, knapsack, rucksack, backpack, climbing pack, large pack, bergen, or load carrying system?
 
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Have only seen one tarantula in the outdoors to date. Scorpions are something we have all over the place in the outdoors and you get into a habit of not putting your fingers under things like a larger rock or log to pick it up due to the potential for one or a snake. The same applies to stepping over fallen tree trunks as snakes will often lie beneath in the shade during the hotter part of the day.
 
The hilarity that this thread has become can be explained by analogy...

OP: Can somebody suggest a good sports car.
A: The Mazda Miata has a good reputation. If you want something bigger, maybe a Ford Mustang GT?
OP: Um, they don't have beds on them. I want to be able to carry 4'x8' plywood while I drive fast.
A: I think you meant to ask about pick up trucks, not sport cars.
B: I drive a F-150 Lightning and it's an awesome sports car.
Chorus: F-150! Silverado! Ram! F-150! Silverado! Ram!
A: Those are pick ups, not sports cars.
C: We like drive fast and we like trucks. Quit telling us what we should drive and what we should like.
A: Dude, chill. Nobody's telling you what you should drive. But sports cars and pick ups are different and if you all want to talk about pick ups, you'll cause less confusion if you call them pick ups instead of sport cars. Just sayin'.
C: Who made you the definition police?!

Backpacking, bushcraft, survivaling,... er, survivalist fantasy role play are different. Everyone knows this.

If anybody sincerely doesn't understand this, it is easily fixed by reading books about backpacking (Manning, Fletcher, Townsend), bushcraft (Kochanski, Mears) or survival (Ludin). But I seriously doubt that people posting here don't understand these distinctions.

I find much more likely that people understand these distinctions perfectly well and simply choose to ignore them either because they want to talk about big knives (trucks) or because they want to have fun bending language, including across North American/European lines.

By far the most common carried backpacking knife is a 4 bladed camper pattern like the generic SAK. For backpacking as it is commonly understood and described, nothing more than that is needed.
 
Greenjacket, I have to believe the European use of the term "backpacking" has become or is becoming closer to the North American use.

From the opening paragraph on the TGO Challenge web site.
The Great Outdoors Challenge is a unique and very special Scottish institution. Since 1980 thousands of people have taken up the opportunity to backpack from Scotland’s west coast to the east as part of this annual event – each of them following their own carefully crafted route.
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I should add that regular TGO contributor Chris Townsend is the author on one of the best current primers on the subject, "The Backpacker's Handbook" and is a Scot, as was Colin Fletcher.
 
pinnah said:
The hilarity that this thread has become can be explained by analogy...

OP: Can somebody suggest a solid truck that can last me years of hard use?.
A: The Mazda Miata has a good reputation. If you want something bigger, maybe a Ford Mustang GT?
OP: Um, thanks for the response but I want a truck not a car.
A: I think you meant to ask about cars. A car is all you need. Why waste fuel on a big huge vehicle when a car can do it all you need.
B: Dude, an F250 or Ram 2500 would work for you.
A: Ughhh(rolls eyes)....Yes keep on destroying my nature.
C: We like trucks. Quit telling us what we should drive and what we should like.
A: Dude, chill. Nobody's telling you what you should drive. But I know better than you that the right pickup is a car.
C: Who made you the definition police?!

.
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Fixed it for yah!!! :D

Funny thread. OP get the 911 and don't look back. It is a perfect back packing knife. I carry one in my travel pack everywhere I go.
 
Standard78 said:
Exactly.
There's no definitive way or set of rules to backpacking. If I want to carry a back pack full of dryer lint (wink wink), ferro rods and 20 knives to a camp site, it's still called backpacking.
Transporting gear and supplies from one location to another is the basic definition of backpacking.
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I would define the scenario you described as a "human pack mule" and not backpacking.
 
Cobalt said:
Fixed it for yah!!! :D

Funny thread. OP get the 911 and don't look back. It is a perfect back packing knife. I carry one in my travel pack everywhere I go.
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The knife or the car? :D

I keep looking at those handles, do they absorb shock as well as I imagine?
 
I blame the Victorians, who didn't have enough work to do so started thinking up "sports". Safaris, Mountaineering, Skiing, messing around with boats, and for the children: the Scouts. You name it they started it. A couple of wars later and the hippies suddenly thought they had found something "new" called nature, but conveniently forgot how unloving nature is. Then the 80's fitness fanatics went all high tech and thought up new speed sports and started labelling everything so they could sell it. Package it up and sell the kit, so the urbanites might venture beyond their metropolis's. Its got to the stage where there is a car park at the beginning of the trail, and a gift shop at the end. And don't leave the trail as you might hurt yourself.

Once upon a time climbing over mountains, or trekking across hills, was to get out of the valley because the girls in your valley were your sisters.
 
GREENJACKET said:
....Once upon a time climbing over mountains, or trekking across hills, was to get out of the valley because the girls in your valley were your sisters.
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Or your cousins. But this is essentially true. Southeast KY is a pretty tight knit area and when my wife's daughter was dating, her future husband to be only looked at perspective brides who lived at some distance from his community and then checked the bloodlines as best he could to make sure he wasn't marrying his second or third cousin.

Of course, he wasn't hiking or back packing over mountains in his quest, he drove.
 
22-rimfire said:
GREENJACKET said:
Once upon a time climbing over mountains, or trekking across hills, was to get out of the valley because the girls in your valley were your sisters.
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Or your cousins. But this is essentially true. Southeast KY is a pretty tight knit area and when my wife's daughter was dating, her future husband to be only looked at perspective brides who lived at some distance from his community and then checked the bloodlines as best he could to make sure he wasn't marrying his second or third cousin.

Of course, he wasn't hiking or back packing over mountains in his quest, he drove.
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In western KY and WV, you just stay in the valley lookin' for a date. It's where the kid at summer camp gets a letter from home and it's signed, "Your favorite Aunt, Mom".
 
Well I'm pretty sure I did both Chris and Colin's Welsh and Scottish National Parks when I was in the military. Lots of sheep, and it was a bitch tabbing with bergens; lots of watching your feet due to the incline, weight of the kit, and to stop either the sweat getting into your eyes or the sleet... always one or the other; too hot or too wet. Tab tab tab, I'm sure the view was lovely. Get to the top and the cloud would come in, pelt down with freezing rain, and the wind would try and push you off. Why does water taste so good at the top of a mountain?
Always makes me laugh when its repackaged as a holiday.

I prefer a hotel, sometimes a hut, tents are great, but a tarp and bivi bag will do. Recently a hammock as the kids like them in the summer. Annoyingly my son is taller and fitter than me now! Like a flippin mountain goat up a hill, he is.
 
mmmotorcycle said:
The knife or the car? :D

I keep looking at those handles, do they absorb shock as well as I imagine?
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Both :thumbup: oh and yes they do. The resiprene handles might be the most comfortable handles I have ever used, albeit maybe not the best looking.
 
leghog said:
Actually if you're just walking into and out of a campsite (even with a pack on your back), you are probably camping vs hiking or backpacking. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But backpackers spend a minimal amount of time in campsites. -- eat, crash, eat then on their way.
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The first paragraph of my post was mostly a joke that I thought you would've caught where a certain know-it-all "Frontiersman" was telling everyone how they should light fires.
I completely understand the differences between camping, hiking and backpacking, all I'm saying is that some people need to lighten up and quit telling people they're doing it wrong.
 
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