A wine cork

diarrhea "Stopper"

a cover for the ends of your titanium nail stakes

Have I beaten Franco and Roger to the punch in mentioning corks on strings, attached to hat – brims to keep Aussie flies away?

Ti stake pusher in hard ground, fishing float,keep buddy from snoring, pin cushion during gear repair, place to store duct tape, Platy cap if original is lost!

Nice work…I'll add one.

Tie to lanyard for us fly-anglers to poke our flies onto.

Speaking of flies, does it really keep the flies away?

Keep wine from sloshing out of the bottle in your pack, as well as all of those other great ideas.

JRS

It has been many years since such fly repellents were used.
The idea is to attach the corks (probably half or a third of a bottle cork) to lengths of string (I'm guessing 4" long) which are attached to the brim of your hat (either an old hat you don't mind punching holes in, or, if you have had to put up with Aussie flies when they go ballistic, you'd gladly punch holes in a new hat).
The idea is that the corks move around enough to keep the flies off your face.

Use for a cork . . .

if in the early morning you see it float pass your head,
you know your tent has a serious leak.

Storing fish hooks. Bobber.

Doug

.

Cut it in half, place it underneath your tarp wherever you want to add a tie-out. Loop a tie around the bottom of the cork and the tarp on the outside of the tarp and you have your tie-out holder.

hacky sack
dealer chip
emergency rations…???

If you magnetise your gear repair/first-aid needle you can combine it with the cork to make a compass.

Slice the bottom off the cork.
Push the needle through it.
Float the cork/needle compass in some still water and find out where north is.

We did this in the cubscouts.

:^)

You actually don't even need the cork. If you put a little chapstick on each end and very carfully lay it on the water, the surface tension will be enough to support it.

James

edit: oops, sorry I should read the whole thread, I didn't notice this was alternate uses for cork.

>"You actually don't even need the cork"

You actually don't need the cork, needle, Chapstick, or water.

Point the hour hand of your watch (real watches have one) at the sun. Use a twig to cast a shadow across the hand if you need to (works in the fog). South is halfway between the hour hand and twelve o'clock in the northern hemisphere. North is… well you'll figure it out from here. ;)

If you have a digital watch you know what time it is, so this still works. Just use a sketch of a watch face scratched on a piece of bark or whatever.

Sorry 'bout the hijack… just caught my eye, and I had to.

We learn that in the cubscouts too.
:^)

Another use for a cork is to stop ex-cubscouts from talking about all the ways to find north when in the bush.

On the weekend I couldn't find my little knife so I took a small boxcutter blade on my hike instead. If I had a cork I would have used it keep the blade safe. Instead I wrapped the blade in toilet paper, which is also multi-use (but only single use as toilet paper, of course).

Just spotted this one.
You all have missed the most obvious use for it, as a weapon.
Just burn it and use it to paint your face. It scares the living daylights out of the men in black during their post UFO sightings mopping up operations.
Or just draw a large line under your eyes to minimize glare and snow blindness at high altitude.
Franco
I also used my cork to stop this tread