Just the other day, we got the first snow of the year. So I thought it was the perfect occation for practicing my firemaking skills.



I went to the woods and found a good spot, where I started to prepare the fire. First off, I made a floor of branches in order to raise the fire from the ground. Both to get off the wet ground and give the maximum amount of oxygen to the fire.



I then gathered a bundle of rushes, some small dryish sticks and the some thicker sticks to get the fire going



A cottonball mixed with petroleum jelly placed upon some of the rushes was my starting point. Honestly, once I put my bare hands on the small sticks, my hopes of getting a fire going fell. They were quite damp.



I use a ESEE firesteel, and I have sharpened the spine of my Yardkeeper to bite on the firesteel better. Works great!



Two strikes, and the cottonball ignited



I then carefully placed more rushes and the thinnest sticks on to the flame.

By now the fire was hot enough to burn even the thicker sticks, and the fire got going really wel. I feel confident, that I could have kept that fire going for a long time with what I had in my surroundings.






What made this a successfull fire, was simply preparation. It made a huge difference to raise the fire from the ground and spend some time gathering twicks that were not soaked. Nothing was dry, but by searching thouroughly I managed to get hold of some usefull tinder.



Chop-off
Well I was in the woods, so why not chop some wood?
I had brought my 711, SFNO Le and Basic 6 Le



The winner was the SFNO Le, closely followed by the 711. The Basic 6 did really well also, but came last.
As for ergonomics, the 711 won. Nothing beats the Res-c handle!

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By the time I was done messing around, darkness had fallen, and finding my way back was pretty challenging¨. So I decided to backtrack, since there were no trails. Otherwise I could have walked miles in the wrong direction, which would suck big time!

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After some time I exited the woods, and the lights of the city were in front of me.

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