If I could only have one tool to survive in the wilderness, it would have to be an axe. I got to this conclusion mostly with practical experience but also, as a nod to my childhood, Gary Paulsen’s “Hatchet”. Notably though that book ultimately illustrates that an EPIRB trumps an axe if standing bewildered in a supermarket is your ultimate goal.

With an axe you aren’t just surviving. You’re comfortable. In a pinch, you can build a cabin armed only with only an axe. There’s also a lot of utility in butchering with an axe, and if you have the skill, you can even carve with them. They also will help you flip your eggs on the griddle when you can’t find a spatula.

Before resorting to actual architecture, employing an axe or hatchet you can limb, buck, and even fell trees, ensuring shelter and warmth. An axe in your truck gives you a reliable way to buck trees that fall blocking the road (I’ve lost count to the number of times this has happened to me) without requiring investment and maintenance of a chainsaw.

My first introduction to woodcraft was banal enough, chopping wood back in Vermont when we heated primarily with a wood stove. I have (now) fond memories of splitting firewood in freezing weather in a tee shirt using some cheap 4 pound maul that had come with the house. We had that and a light axe hung on a 31″ handle, and big piles of wood.

When I started camping I tended to go winter camping in areas that prevented fires, so I learned a certain tradition of surviving without the fire. Good tent hygiene (keeping it warm and dry) and a MSR whisper-lite always seemed like enough. The mountains out here feel like they have their own tradition, though, something a lot older. Something involving a campfire.

Planning for Mackenzie got me thinking about axes again. They’re a way to force multiply for clearing brush that are reasonably straight forward (seems more dangerous to hand a rookie a chainsaw instead of a long axe) and they work when the chainsaw doesn’t. And I’ve been going camping enough these winter months that I was feeling the need.

Axes were originally very regional in design, suited to local habits and forest. As industrialized forestry became a practice, the production of axes and other tools also industrialized and fell into the realities of mass production. Tens of regional axe patterns were reduced to one or two, and casting imperfections were covered with pretty finishes and brand name appellations.

Intuitively there has not really been a professional consumer of axes for some time. Forest workers have long since given up their axes and wire saws for chainsaws and logging machines, which has left us with the things you will find in Home Depot. Dull, soulless things. Of course this leads naturally to the search for the Alex of axes.

There are several companies around the world still producing quality axes in functional patterns, in some cases using very traditional techniques. In the USA, the standout example is probably Council Tool in North Carolina. If you are on a budget, this is the company I would recommend.

It’s worth noting that the Best Made axes that have become so popular with the PDX-type hipsters are produced by Council Tool, branded Best Axe, put in a lovely box, and only slightly marked up. To their credit though Council realized the potential of this market pretty quickly in their partnership with Best and now produces a line of axes which they call Velvicut which are worth looking at. I appreciate what Best is trying to do but if it were me, and their website never fails to make me want flannel, pancakes, and maple syrup but personally, I would just go to Council directly.

This brings us to the Swedish, specifically, Wetterlings and Gränsfors Bruks. Both companies have been producing axes for over a hundred years. Of the two, Wetterlings makes the most practically priced product, but by all accounts the quality is far beyond what you will find in your local hardware box store and importantly they make a full range of patterns.

Gränsfors is generally considered to be the flagship manufacturer and by some accounts is overpriced for what you get (a typical complaint of any high-end marque in any product vertical). The company re-invented itself to produce axes in the traditional way. Each is produced by a single craftsman who stamps the axe with his initials when he is finished; mine was produced by Ulrik Nilsson.

There are two primary considerations when selecting an axe. The first is the “pattern” which describes the profile and shape of the axe head. Regardless of which manufacturer you choose you are going to want to make sure they have a decent choice of patterns, since you’ll want to select a pattern that is ideal for your intended use.

The second is the length of the handle, which should correspond to the weight of the head. A full american felling axe is typically hung on a 35″ handle, although 31″ is not uncommon for folks with shorter arms or who are looking for something a little easier to stow. A forest axe, which is an intermediate, general purpose axe is generally going to be lighter and hung on a handle around 25″. Finally hatchets, which are the lightest yet, will have a handle around or less than 15″.

The weight of the head should compliment length of the handle. Too heavy an axe on too short a handle, or too light an axe on too long a handle, will not be as effective a tool. You will also want to give some consideration to the shape of the handle. For your intended use (felling, general work, making campfire wood, crafting, carving, or butchering) you will want to make sure the handle is such that you fingers aren’t at risk of slamming into the work or the ground.

The regional and functional variations in axe patterns would occupy it’s own lengthy article, but for general purpose use you will probably between choosing through the big three; the hatchet, the forest axe, and the felling axe, all in single-bit forms. In theory all three patterns will do the same work – you could cut down a huge tree with a hatchet, or make tinder with a felling axe, but neither would be particularly efficient.

A full-size felling axe is ideal for large-tree work and all-day work. Take care with the size; sometimes full-size axes come out quite heavy and just end up being tiresome to swing. I agree with Gränsfors that 3.3 lbs is a good weight. Not too heavy, but heavy enough to carry force into the blow.

I chose a felling axe for as a recent purchase because I keep encountering large trees that need bucking when I am off-roading, as a backup for a chainsaw. Also the trees out here in the rainforest are just… bigger. And they only get bigger as you go north. I also have little need to carry the axe, so the size is no problem.

If you could only have one axe ever, a good choice would probably be a full size forest axe (~ 25″ handle). This is going to be big enough to limb trees and even buck if you aren’t in much of a hurry, but small enough to pack around. With one of these things around you should have no shortage of wood for the fire.

If you are going to be exclusively backpacking or trekking, or your needs are primarily around the campfire, a hatchet is a good choice. They are generally small enough to be worn on your belt (a good leather cover will also enable you to do this), and will be the most suitable for carving and utility work.

There is a general consensus that the longer an axe is, the safer it is in the hands of a novice. This is presumably because the further away the head is, the more chance it will strike ground before it swings back and hits the person wielding it. I’ve often heard it told that beginners should always start with full size axes.

Truth be told these things are dangerous. I nearly clipped myself with a full size six pound maul in Vermont chopping firewood once, and axes are no joke at any size handle. Take care, practice, and don’t do stupid things and you’ll years of safe service out of any of these forest tools.

So you can be an adventioneer and apparently get paid for it, too. Steve, how about helmet cam footage the next time you go up a wind turbine?

And no, as far as I know, this is not legal in the state of Washington.

I’ve made a passing interest of convincing JG that we should acquire snowmobiles. I can think of tons of reasons to own one. JG apparently can think of reasons not to, judging by this video he sent me last night.

Go for the 1080 HD. Looks to be shot on a Hero, just like I use on my motorcycle. The jet seems to be an Avianca A320.

This reminds me that of all the different things I’ve done in my life, getting to fly a jet was like nothing else.

One of the difficult aspects of any remote trip is planning to have enough fuel. It doesn’t help that everyone going is running petrol vehicles, which generally average lower MPG than their diesel counterparts. And they make such a nice Turbo-Diesel JK, available anywhere but here.

The truth is I am not confident about what the fuel multiplier is for muddy track and bog. The closest things would probably be early-season Naches and OFR but honestly I never paid that much attention to fuel burn on those trips because they are all very short, so I never really learned anything. Thing is, the last time I actually had to care about running out of fuel on a leg was moving from Boston, and the time before that was when we all bumped down to the black rock desert the back way, which has a couple hundred mile un-refueled leg depending on time of day, times two since we were round-trip.

We plan to do some trials this spring when Naches opens up to try to determine what our fuel multiplier is over various terrain. Tom Sheppard in the VDE 2nd councils a multiplier of 1.5 to 2 for sand, and to carry +25% + 100 miles of fuel. If we assume spinning around in mud is like spinning around in sand, and go worse case, we end up with (135*2.25)+100 for the track itself, or 403 miles.

That doesn’t include getting there and back from the point of refueling stations, though. It’s 45 miles from Quesnel to the infil and (coincidentally) also 45 miles from the exfil to Anahim lake. So now it’s ((135+45+45)*2.25)+100 or 606 miles of range including the reserve.

With the TJ I almost always planned on getting 16MPG and that generally worked out for me. If the JK is similar (we’ll see later when I do practical trials) that means 37 gallons of fuel. With 18.6 in the tank (Weird because I’ve never been able to fit more than 16 in it, or so it seems) we need to carry 18 gallons, or, 4 jerry cans per truck.

That doesn’t seem so bad at all.

So I’ve been pouring over the Canadian topo maps, 2M SPOT satellite imagery, and scouring the Internet for GPS track information. I’ve managed to assemble what I think is a fairly accurate (recent to a year or two anyways) track of the main alignment for the trail.

This was, I’ll observe, a huge pain in my ass. I actually had to write software to build the track. I look forward to actually doing this trip so I can create some accurate maps. Judging by the track log, whatever GPS was being used was not entirely accurate.

The best infil point looks like it is N53 18.387 W123 08.664, which actually cuts off a 19.1 mile section of the trail which proceeds east from that point down to the Fraser river.

Exfil is at N52 56.074 W125 45.500 where the trail meets up with an improved gravel forest road network. I’m sure they are crappy but will seem like luxury after getting that far.

The track distance is 135 miles between these points (as the trail goes, not by air). Given 7 days on the trail, we need to average about 20 miles a day. There are, of course, the spots where you go a day to get two miles by all reports.

I haven’t gotten solid information but by looking at the hydrology on the NRC maps, the problems probably start around N52 57.452 W125 28.340 and proceed westward as the trail crosses ever more swamp and bog land. There are also reports of some bits earlier on (like first/second day).

There seems to be only one real river crossing, at N53 07.503 W124 24.268. I haven’t heard any stories of it being particularly difficult, although it looks like it might be on the deeper end (ala Lake Michigan in mass or that creek at the Colorado dunes).

The GPX file I’ve put together is included below; if you save it you can open it in standard tools (MapSource/BaseCamp/GoogleEarth/whatever).

AlexanderMackenzieTrail.gpx [551KB GPX]

There’s stuck and then there’s, well. Jesus.