Jackknife

A large pocket knife. Often a large one. Or sometimes one not-so-large, but a pocket knife.

The jackknife may have gotten its name because it originally was associated with sailors, formerly called "tars", or "jack tars". "Jack Tar" being an English term for seamen. (Sea men, sea-men, men who go to sea in ships, but not that other stuff you might be thinking of. Keep it clean and tidy, 'K?)

Or "tars".

They were also called "tars" because they put tar on stuff. A lot. It's what they did a lot of. To seal up the leaky ships, which once upon a time were made of boards. Boards of wood. Which were kind of leaky, you can imagine. (Right? Are we right?) But they didn't want to sink down with the ship, the tars didn't, if the ship sank, so they slathered tar all over the place. And likely the knife business came in somewhere, 'cuz guys like knives an stuff. Who can say?

Also known as: "pocket knife". Mostly because it's a knife that fits in a pocket, maybe? Yeah, prolly.

Anyhow, handy. A handy thing. A tool.

Handy to cut stuff with, and because the blade or blades fold into the handle, you don't cut your hand while handling it. Unless it's unfolded and the blade is out. Which is when you don't want to put it in your pocket, so you "jackknife" it and get it all folded and safe. And then you put it back in your pocket. If you're not stupid. (Good luck there, Bud.)

All of which seems kind of complicated, but that's life sometimes, isn't it?

Bye.

 

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Pocket Knife

Your pal in a pinch.

Pocket Knife: A knife with one or more folding blades, and small enough to carry in a pocket.

Pocket Knife: A tool that hikers can use to cut their way out of a giant's pocket, if a giant comes along and puts that hiker into its pocket, which is kind of rare. But you never know.

Pocket Knife: A kind of knife suited to whittling a new pocket if one of yours wears out while you are on the trail. These are also good for various general purpose things like cutting cord and putting points on marshmallow sticks, though for nose hairs you really need a good nose hair trimmer. (To avoid unfortunate accidents.)

Hey, Look What I Got!

When life exceeds capacity.

I knew this ultralight stuff wasn't going to work out. I just knew it.

I don't know how I could have been so stupid, but here I am. It's at least 10 miles back to the car, wherever that is, and these lightweight so-called hiking shoes I have won't boot up. I've tried everything and I can't get them to respond.

The battery check is good. Full charge. The diagnostics all come up positive. Still, no go.

When I try to fire up the built-in GPS to get my bearings, all I get is a screen full of error messages. I can't even tell how many, they just scroll off the bottom and keep going until I flip the switch back to "off".

Now I'm looking at a long hike in some random direction without being able to talk to my shoes. The voice input seems to be working, sort of -- at least I can see the LCD VU meter responding when I talk into the mic, but no rational response. And the left shoe seems to be off somewhere in la-la land. It's reporting a totally different frequency range than my actual voice carries, not to mention a bunch of noise showing up on the dynamic range function.

So where do I go? I've got these $800 shoes and all they are now is things that go on my feet. Even the heater quit working. How can anyone hike in shoes with no electric heater? I mean, get real here.

I'm at a junction of three trails. Sure, I just pick one and hike, right? But which one? I have a 66.7% chance of going in the wrong direction. How can that be good?

I need my shoes to give me some intelligence.

Things might be a little different if I'd been carrying one of those old-fashioned paper maps, if I could read one. I paid lots of attention coming in, but who needs to look where they're going any more? Isn't it enough to admire the scenery? Isn't this what it's all about? Why should I have to think? This is 2012.

Well, now I have to think. I'm not used to this. I paid good money so I wouldn't have to. Now I have to.

If I'd stuck with my old gear I'd be carrying a whole lot more weight but there's nothing like redundancy. I'd have GPS in my camera, cell phone, radio, and e-reader. They wouldn't all fail at once.

Now I'm stuck with a pair of shoes that won't quit beeping at me. Even the interactive map function is hosed. It keeps showing me the best route through Las Vegas.

If only.

The good news is that I brought an extra day's worth of food, weight be damned, so I can eat. For a while.

And my knife is working. Bless you, little Victorinox.

To save weight I did get the entry-level model with the small screen and no GPS. I can cut stuff with it, but that's really primitive. Who cuts anymore?

I don't have anything to cut anyway. All my food is powdered and freeze-dried. About all I can do besides walk is sit down every now and then and play a few minutes of Angry Bugs on my knife.

But that is a real life saver.

I'd for sure go nuts without the knife.

Surrounded by these trees and rocks, and nothing else. It's pretty creepy out here, all green and gray and brown and black, and barely 3-D, and that's only the old kind you have to see with your own eyes, like the dinosaurs did.

I'll have to go easy on the knife. Be careful not to run the battery down. If I lose that connection to reality I'm gone for sure.

More:

Technology marches on: Victorinox squeezes 1TB of high-speed storage into a Swiss Army Knife

Tiny Knives

I'm always open to finding new things I can use while backpacking.

Knives are near the bottom of the list, but, being a guy, I'm still fascinated by them. I have one that I convinced my mother to buy for me when I was 10. It cost 50 cents and though it isn't the best knife ever made I carried it for decades because it is small and because you never know when a knife might be handy, and it has been.

If you carry a knife you find lots of uses for it. If you don't carry one you wish you did.

Surprisingly for many, backpacking is a pursuit that doesn't demand having a knife, not if you do it right.

A sharp edge can be handy for cutting string, lopping off stray threads, trimming the loose edge off a stick-on bandage, or other incidental tasks, but generally a person shouldn't have a use for one on the trail.

You carry it for the time when something to cut with can be critical, but it doesn't take much to cut small things.

So even a single-edge razor blade could to the trick.

Anyway, back to the point.

For several years I've carrying something that Carol "Brawny" Wellman once posted about, a little thing made by Stanley, the tool people. It's a miniature plastic utility knife. Takes replaceable blades, though I've never found any. Anyway, it came with a spare, and I can sharpen the two of them as needed. The blade slides in and out, and locks.

The knife is light. I don't know if they still make it. I found mine at Office Depot.

It's fine, but a couple of days back I was looking for sewing machine needles and saw a package of cutters sold by Singer. You get four for under $3 and they're cute.

The blades are the snap-off kind, so you don't need to sharpen them, but I bet you could. Normally, you'd use the tip of the blade until it dulls, and then snap off that part and begin using the next segment.

I don't need another backpacking blade solution but I bought a package anyway.

Because you never know when a sharp edge will be handy.

 

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