When i was a kid, about 13+ years old, me and my best buddy would go hiking way back in the hills behind Whittier, near Los Angeles. We used to get pretty far into the thick of it and even though we carried hunting type knives, we found we needed machettes. They "worked", but ate up alot of energy, and really weren't that efficient. We got into snorkeling and spearfishing with full wetsuits and of course diving knives, and found the diving knives also worked quite well when hiking in the boonies as we could hack a small tree down if needed. We eventually got into going to Catalina Island without "parental guidance" and hacked out our own special little illegal campsite right in Wrigley's back yard just up the hill from "Lovers Cove" where the glass bottom boat goes. We would spear large fish for food and get some pretty healthy abalone too. We did quite well for a couple of 15 year-olds. Needless to say, it was all quite "knife intensive" and so we became VERY serious about our knives... particularly our diving knives. Eventually my buddy got his hands on a old civil war bayonet/short sword with a blade about 20 inches long. This baby came in pretty handy, but little did we know how handy it would come in. At the far north end of the Island the terrain is extremely rugged, some of the most rugged i have ever hiked, and covered with huge patches of cactus. Many of these cactus patches had trails going right through the middle of them which the wild spanish goats would use. The goats would knock of sections of cactus into the middle of the trail making the trails very difficult to hike. The trails themselves were already extremely tight with cactus growing across the trails blocking them, and we had to hike like a ballerinas on a seriously booby trapped trail. There was zero room for mistakes. If you lost your balance and fell in the cactus, you were screwwwwwed. This is where that sword came in REALLY handy. We found we could make short accurate little chops on the cactus blocking the trail, stick it with the tip of the sword, and fling them out of the way. This was not something we could do with the machettes, and could only do on a limited basis with the diving knives. The machettes didn't have pointy tips, and the diving knives were too short, although they where better than nothing.
These experiences and more taught me that there is a place for at least short swords for modern day use. We also took alot of martial arts classes together and studied quite a bit of sword. All this made me want to have a "hiking sword" so every time i went to a gun show i would aways check out all the swords, looking for that one with "my name" on it. I found one that really seemed to scream at me. Al Mar's double edged "Pathfinder" short sword. 14" x 2.5" x 3/16ths" blade, 19.5" over all length, hollow ground edge, stabbing point, and wickedly sharp. Everyone who sees it calls it "The Knife". Eventually i move up to Washington State where i start getting into hunting elk in the rain forest. Of course i have to take The Knife.
The Knife has seen more use than i ever imagined. Having it with me and so being able to use it, it has literally...saved-my-life... and more than a few times too. Wet, cold, hypothermic, and losing the trail with glasses fogged up from trying to hump it out of the rain forest as it gets dark, The Knife comes out to make a trail. Hack hack, step, hack hack hack, step... until i finally got out to a trail i could follow and back to the camp to warm up by the fire.
One time i got myself surrounded by blackberry bushes at night trying to find a "short cut" (yeah, right... oooops!). I found that i could cut down small trees about 6-8" thick and about 20 feet tall and drop them on top of the blackberry bushes and walk down the tree until i got to the next tree, cut that down, walk down it, etc... until i got out. Got hung up several times by the stickery vines, but it still worked great.
Another time it was pretty comforting having The Knife when i found myself in the middle of a bears clear warning sign marked territory in the Cascades while bow hunting elk. Now i did have my G20 with me... but somehow having The Knife... and my hand on The Knife... made me feel like i had a little better chance with The Knife, than the gun.
I never do any serious hiking without it.
and grab the katana, which I purchased while I lived in Japan, that is resting against the edge of my desk.
