Paper & Pencil

Have you considered the in/famous Blackwing pencil?

What would be the advantage of a Blackwing pencil?

Search BPL for "Which Pencil for JMT" ala Nick Gatel

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=77201

I was out in Sequoia a few weeks ago with a friend who's a talented visual artist. He wanted to sketch some stuff, but all he had handy was a sharpie and a Frogg Toggs jacket. That jacket now has lakes, mountains, and trees all over it—it's the coolest-looking $20 rain jacket you'll ever see. I should get a picture, I think this forum would appreciate it.

So from now on, I'm bringing a sharpie instead of a pencil, because it will write on whatever I need it to write on.

+1 on the Sharpie. There are "Sharpie Mini" pens, about $5 for a 4-pack. About 60% of the length of a standard one. In a pinch, you could leave a note on a rock, leaf, someone's forehead, trail sign, underwear or beer can.

About 40 years ago, Time and other magazines would include a free, very small-diameter pencil in their mailed solicitations. Skinny enough to be mailed in a standard envelope. I see them on ebay as collector's items, but haven't found a source of, say, 100 of them for $23.

I've debated about building up a similarly small pencil by dipping a pencil lead in "Plasti-grip" or some such. But there are many such projects that await some dedicated tinkering in the shop.

Edited to clarify – that's a standard pencil on top in the photo. These Time pencils were impressively small (and therefore lightweight), and yet useable.

I brought this with me while backpacking in the alps. I just about filled every inch of the 40 pages. The cover is sturdy and somewhat waterproof. Standard ( short) pencil .
I might try out a different pencil now, but the little notebook was a great find and one like it will most likely come with me on a regular basis.

I remember those teeny little pencils that came in the magazine. I used to beg for them as a kid. Those would be pretty great for backpacking.

I wish I was a talented artist. I'm not even a talented non-artist as I used a sharpie on my Z-packs jacket to mark which side is the inside. My boyfriend jokes that I could have drawn a flower or at least wrote my name, but no, my lack of creativity had me write simply INSIDE.

We use Rite-in-the-rain notebooks and a lightweight mechanical pencil with a bunch of spare leads inside. The latter weighs a fraction of an ounce with enough lead to write a novel.

I have been carrying a telescoping pen, and a few sheets torn from a Rite in the Rain pad, folded up in a small zip-loc bag designed for carrying pills, along with a couple of Aqua Mira tabs and a quart zip-loc bag folded up as an emergency water-carrier. This rides in a pocket with my emergency fire-starter kit as an EDC solution when hiking. My other pocket has my pocket knife, Photon freedom light and a keychain pill vial with petroleum jelly-soaked cotton tinder.

http://tinyurl.com/pkojqt2

I used to carry a mini-Sharpie, and a short length of yellow plastic surveyor's tape, rolled up in a film cannister. Maybe I should reconsider what pen I carry? The Mini-sharpies have a lanyard loop on them.