(1) An edged tool used as a cutting instrument. Has a pointed blade, a sharp edge, and a handle.
(2) A tool for cutting. Consists of a flat piece of hard material, usually steel (this is the "blade"), which is sharpened on one or both edges, and is attached to a handle, which is the part that smart people hold. The blade may be pointed, which makes it all the better for poking with.
(3) Something to cut yourself with.
Almost every backpacker, including ultralighters, always carries some kind of knife, though realistically speaking none hardly ever need anything more complicated than a single-edge razor blade to cut themselves with.
However, a genuine knife can be useful for cutting and splitting wood, for those who burn that stuff, or for those who just like to cut and split wood. Or for hunting water buffalo (when in season).
Unlike a fork, you seldom find a knife in the road, so you can't take it even if you are the sort of person who would, even if you really need one to hunt water buffalo with. Yet another of life's disappointments.
Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? I didn't do it.
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so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
(1) Messages describing how something is to be done. Usually ignored.
(2) Activities that educate or instruct, imparting knowledge or skill. Usually ignored.
(3) What hikers don't follow when using an unfamiliar piece of equipment.
So we're really just like all the other fools out there? Yeeg.
Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Always read 'em. Eventually.
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so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
(1) Also known as: goblin, tent rock, fairy chimney, earth pyramid.
(2) A hoodoo is a finger of rock or hard soil that pokes upward from an arid landscape. Hoodoos range from around five to 150 feet (1.5 to 45 meters) in height.
They form when relatively soft rock, topped by harder rock, erodes away, leaving behind the typical columnar formation. Usually the softer under-rock has a sedimentary or volcanic origin. The hard stuff on top forms a "cap rock", which is like a protective, stony cap on top of the hoodoo.
Hoodoos mainly form in desert or hot, near-desert areas such as the U.S. Southwest's Colorado Plateau and the Badlands regions of the Northern Great Plains.
Two weathering processes create hoodoos: frost wedging and rainfall.
Frost wedging happens when liquid water seeps into cracks and freezes, usually at night. Freezing expands water by about 10%, prying open cracks and splitting rock.
Liquid water washes away loose soil and loose stone, and is also slightly acidic, so it can eat away at certain types of stone over long periods of time..
Different kinds of minerals within different rock types in hoodoos are responsible for horizontal bands of varying colors.
The average hoodoo in Bryce Canyon (known for its hoodoo gardens) erodes at the rate of two to four feet (0.5 to 1.5 meters) per 100 years.
(3) A jinx (originally from baseball slang). A charm. A spell.
"The jinx [is] that peculiar hoodoo which affects, at times, a man, at other times a whole team. Let a man begin to think that there is a jinx about, and he is done for for the time being." (Technical World Magazine, 1911)
Like this: "Don't try no voodoo near them hoodoo. They can fall on you head an give you a good jinxin' fer sure, Ed."
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Me? Still got a pointy head, me.
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so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
Gully erosion is the removal of a deep channel of soil by water running downhill.
Gully derosion is the replacement of a deep channel of soil by water running uphill. (You have to watch closely to see this though — water is tricky).
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Me? Frequently not seen running uphill.
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so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
(1) A result of inadequate trail hygiene. Contrary to what you might think, the most extreme face gardens do not show up on those with the most snout foliage. In fact most of those are little leaguers since it takes just about zero talent at all to accumulate soil, decaying organics, mineral elements, and bits of moss, twigs, and insects in the male beard.
Bearded females, of course, get extra points. Think about it.
The truly dramatic and most staggeringly accomplished thru-hiking gardeners are clean-shaven. How someone can manage to both shave and yet hold onto enough plant food to even sprout a thin layer of vegetation is a matter of brilliant, hard-won skill and closely-guarded knowledge, inherited only down long generations of inbreeding, after acquisition via the most painful means involving the most intricately arcane yet subtle permutations of slovenliness. And the learned part of this skill is in two entirely antagonistic and antithetical realms, face-scraping and horticulture.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that it is possible at all to carry a crop of snow peas to maturity, on one's face, while hiking, while remaining otherwise relatively clean (no, not in town terms — have to be clear about that).
Come to think of it, the most remarkable cases actually are among women, so I guess they get double-extra points all round. Clever critters, as usual, those gals.
(2) A face-first tumble. Takes no talent at all, even if done from atop a bicycle. Though that kind is quite a bit of fun to watch happening in front of you while you are having lunch along the trail.
(3) The act of landing face first, an acquired taste. And soon to be an Olympic exhibition sport, with three divisions, six weight classes, in both team and solo forms.
Try one of these (but only after proper instruction, please): Argentine face plant, arm triangle face plant, chickenwing face plant, diving face plant, double underhook face plant, electric chair face plant, full nelson face plant, full nelson wheelbarrow face plant, kneeling face plant, lifting double face plant, push up face plant, reverse chokeslam face plant, shoulder face plant, sitout face plant, spinning face plant, underhook face plant, and wheelbarrow face plant.
Granted, most of these are not used in backpacking, where face planting is considered gratuitously strenuous. Walking around in dirty underwear with a growling stomach while smelling like an unburied corpse and fleeing from swirling dark clouds of ravenous flies is pretty much enough for most backpackers, most days. Though they do enjoy watching those bicyclists who recently came screaming down the trail as they demonstrate the proper way to execute a rock crusher face plant, which, to be done right, requires a loud thwack and a full-on floral tomato splat. Go for it, boys, please.
Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? No one really cares.
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so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
