Snowshoe Hike

 

Annual Virtual Bushcraft Meet

 I thought I'd mentioned this here, and I know I've discussed it in a few videos, but it's worth updating.

For 6 years I hosted an annual virtual meetup for camping and bushcraft. It was called Night Of 1,000 Blades. Due to a few factors, I made the decision that it was time to make changes to this event and host it through my forum starting in 2026.

The object of this event was/is for people to go out in their chosen area and camp for at least one night. I had also deemed that you can even camp in your yard, but you must camp for a night. Then share your trip report with everyone in an report thread. It was started to be a motivational event, but I did add a few requirements to the gathering for the past two years. It's designed to more or less be a bushcraft event, so three bushcraft related tasks should be done. It's pretty easy, your camping and part of camping is making a fire, and cooking a meal over that fire. Twig stoves are allowed for those who might be under a fire ban or not have an actual fire pit in their yard. So that's two of the tasks down by simply going camping. The third was participants choice, go as easy as you like or as difficult as you like. Each year the attendance grew less and less, so I decided that the Fall 2025 gathering would be the last NOATB. I had even swapped it one year from Fall to Spring because people said Fall was not acceptable, and that did not go any better or have any more participants. I had also been asked one year to set up a Google map and did so, but no one bothered to sue it. So I feel it was just time to move on. I feel strongly that 6 years was plenty of time for it to run. 

So for 2026 it got rebranded and is now called Night Of Smoke And Blades (NOSAS). It will also be hosted through Firepit Outdoors exclusively. The forum is free to join, all we ask is you follow the rules. Everything is the same. The date will be selected of early to mid September, after the bugs have dissipated a great deal from most areas and temps for most areas have come down and are more tolerable. One must still actually camp out for at least one night on the selected dates, and may still do so in their yard as long as they actually sleep out of doors. The three tasks will remain as well. Make a fire, cook a meal over a fire, and a third of their choosing.

This is a great way to have a virtual gathering and for participants to see what others cook, do in camp, and what other areas look like. Hopefully those who participated in past years will continue to do so from the different base camp. Maybe we will even get some new participants.

Axe Edges

 If you ask how to sharpen an axe or how sharp an axe should be on the internet, you're going to get a lot of varied replies or information. I'm going to add to the confusion, as well state a few things that will make a collector cringe.

You can sharpen a wall hanger any way you like. Make it hairsplitting sharp and use it to shave.

You should not make a user axe or hatchet shaving sharp! Yes, I just said that! The sharper and thinner the edge of an axe is, the easier and more prone it will be to chipping or possibly rolling. An axe should be sharp enough to cut paper, and that's all that's needed. It merely needs to be able to chop and cut through wood fibers. It does not need to help with manscaping.

Some people like to reshape the axe head. There's nothing wrong with that, but a user axe should be sort of wide at and behind the cheek. The theory to thinning the cheek is for felling and making the edge slice/cut into the wood better. To make chopping easier. But a thin axe head isn't always the best for splitting. A wider cheek and butt make it much easier to split wood. A wider cheek will cause the wood to septate (split) easier. Look at a splitting maul and you'll see exactly what I mean. So it's sort of a catch 22? No. Not really. I'll explain:

When we head off into the woods to camp, the odds of felling a tree are slim. Very slim. In fact, most states do not allow us to fell even dead standing trees on public land. So in reality, felling can be removed from the equation. This leaves us with possibly needing to buck and split laying and downed trees. Bucking is more or less the same as felling. You want to chop the log into reasonable size lengths to be able to split. But now you open a new conundrum- it's difficult to split small pieces of wood that do not have flat ends. The best way to fix this is to use a saw to buck and an axe for felling and splitting. But, we're not talking about saws here, are we?...

So what's the best options? Loaded question. No right or wrong answer, but I will suggest using something with a sort of thin bit, while the cheek widens a bit to force easier splitting. Something like a convex angle to the cheek with a fair amount of depth to the cheek area. Sharpened enough to cut a sheet of paper. This will offer a decent edge for both bucking and splitting.

Just my personal point of view from almost 5 decades of camping and using axes. Feel free to join the discussion over on the Firepit Outdoors Forum.

Some Light Snow