Choosing a cutting tool for hiking

I love hiking and camping. And more than anything I love the mountains, like that saying, mountains are for the soul. A must-have tool on the mountain is the knife. Over the years I have tried everything from a small pen knife to the rambo style knife.

The usual gear

Most of the hikers choose a multi-function tool, which in essence is a knife with some useful add-ons. For many the lightweight and multi-purpose tools are the main reasons they go with multitools like Swiss Army Knife, Leatherman or Gerber.

The survival nut-case

I agree that a small multi-tool would cover the needs of a hiker, but that is not enough for me. I want to be prepared for anything. A small sak wouldn’t be my first choice in a survival situation. A good and thick fixed blade would be much better suited for that. At the peak of my survival-preparedness period, I went on one hike with one of the many fixed blade tactical knives in my inventory, a Leatherman Wave and a folding saw from Gerber. Let’s do some simple math, the fixed blade is somewhere around 400 grams, a leatherman Wave in its sheath is around 300 and the folding saw about 200. Almost 1 kg or 2.2 pounds of added weight. And that’s without some of the other survival-items I was carrying in my backpack.

The final compromise

By the end of that hike I was so tired I swore I would never carry so much stuff on the mountain again. So today I have found a compromise. I switched to folding tactical knives. Usually i take one of my Spyderco’s with me. It’s about ten times lighter than my previous combo and in case of a survival situation I have enough blade to build a shelter. Maybe not as fast as I could with a 7 inch fixed blade, but I did say this was a compromise. I also carry a small survival saw.