MYOG on the trail

Good job Michael!

I forgot spoons for my daughter and I on one trip. Carved two crude spoons from found wood. I was so proud of my "impressive" skills. My daughter was just glad she ate.

What kind of a knife did you use?

I used a Mora Classic 1…which, oddly enough, I had found about ten feet off the trail earlier the same morning. Serendipity strikes again.

I thought about trying to whittle down some driftwood (plenty of that on the shore of Lake Monroe where I was camping), but past experiments in carving spoons without a hook knife have been less than successful for me.

The lakeshore did yield a one-gallon container that served me as a fire bucket though.

Mike,

I have had to make DIY spoons before out of drink bottles in my truck when I did not remember to bring a spoon.Its nice to have a decent version of mankind's most useful tool around to do things other than just open food packages or clean your finger nails..;)

Smart man for carrying a Mora.That bottle plastic is pretty tough and unless you have good control of a sharp blade, its dangerous cutting it.

On my last Trinity Alps trip I picked two trees to hang my hammock. To me they were the best choice, right distance, nice view while laying down etc. One of the trees was close to another smaller very "pitchy" tree. If I swung at all, which one does at least when entering and exiting the hammock, I would have gotten pitch on my underquilt. So I gathered a few bundles of spent bracken fern and wrapped them around the wounded trunk; I used a piece of string that someone had left behind. It worked .

[…]

>"That bottle plastic is pretty tough and unless you have good control of a sharp blade, its dangerous cutting it."

One word:

Scissors.

Alas, no photos. The last thing I did with it was stir some instant coffee into near-boiling water. Didn't look much like a spoon after that.

Scissors might have worked for the plastic shaping, though I'm not sure I could have gotten the cut started. The knife didn't feel unsafe in use. Might have been tricky if I'd been only carrying a razor blade.

And I'm ashamed that I didn't even *think* of chopsticks. Would have worked fine for the quinoa and I could have had my wine properly with dinner. The refried beans would have been a challenge though.

I realise scissors can be an alternative for the job, but most hikers only have cheesy litle little scissors (such as those on a small SAK or multi tool), which dont work very well on plastic drink bottles that are heavy enough to make a decent spoony.

Thats what I was eluding to without just saying "teeny scissors suck at such jobs"..lol.

There,I got that out and feel so much better now..;)

Not really, since Michael found the knife on the trail. Would have been fine without it. Checklists. Now there's a topic. Use the checklist, don't forget stuff. Man lived for thousands of years without utensils.

Much easier to 'fashion' chopsticks than a spoon!

For eating things like beans, stew, noodle soups, etc, just hold the cooking vessel or bowl up to your lips and drink the liquid and shovel in the solids, the same way it's done by the vast majority of Asians. Slurping is perfectly fine.

But for cyring out loud, learn how to hold them properly. Funny to watch TV/movies with gringos using chopsticks to display their 'sophistication' when it's obvious to the average life-long chopstick user that they don't have a clue… they hold them down near the tips like a baby.

I have a Leatherman Micra

I've wittled things with the knife before, like a a stopper for air mattress or "spoon". That knife is pretty sharp, although small.

It also has a scissors that's pretty good.

[…]

A small piece of birch bark would make a nice curved scoop.

"A small piece of birch bark would make a nice curved scoop." Plus, it adds nice woody accents to your soup.

–B.G.–