“I had to shank him, Your Honor. He hogged all the S’mores.”
Not really liking the idea of eating with a sharpened spoon
“Justified due to extreme extenuating circumstances. DIS-MISSED :::bam:::”.
you barter the spoon for a can-opener?
Economist: “First, assume you have a can opener.”
yep, the 27 liter Merlin V12 engine never failed to open any can.
As always, there is a vast chasm between “camping” – we drive to a parking area with trees and bathrooms and put up a tent and cots, and a camp kitchen on the blacktop next to the car, and “camping” – we carried everything on our backs up a mountain to a pristine lake.
For the first one, cans and something to open them with is standard. For the second one, there is no such thing as a can or a can opener, except maybe on the first day at the trail head, unless you have never done it before and don’t follow advice. Which is a lot of people, granted.
Ultralite backpacking is now a well-established technology/skill. And that spoon would be plastic.
Good point! People (generally) never take cans backpacking because they are too heavy and bulky, for one thing, and I do not think that is obsolete advice. You can pack freeze-dried or other compact and non-perishable foods.
The spoon need not be plastic; a titanium spork-knife is reasonably light…
Forgot about titanium. And they are very reasonably priced these days.
What qualifies as light these days? I remember reading “King Solomon’s Mines”, set in the latter 19th century, where the protagonists had reached the backpacking stage. Experienced trekker* Quartermain says that after eliminating everything that was not absolutely indispensible for survival five people were still carrying forty pounds each.
*not that kind of Trekker.
My sister and her husband hiked the entire PCT with 25 lb packs, and that was at least 15 years ago. I went on a high Sierra trip with a kid whose dad was inventing ultralite camping equipment. Her pack weighed less than 10 lbs without food and water. Her one-person tent was also her sleeping bag, and her cooking kit was a prototype made out of a large beer can and a candle. Everything worked well.
We use cheap bamboo spoons for our backpacking trips.
I have one of those and it has a couple other little things built in.
How much was water?
I’m not sure it says. They did need to carry water with them because they were crossing a desert; but I figured that if they hadn’t needed to they would have found something else worth upping the packs to forty pounds each. ETA: specifically says “Five Cochrane’s water-bottles, each holding four pints.” Haggard possibly meant British pints which are larger?
Yeah, with British pints, that’d be 25 pounds each right there, plus whatever the bottles weighed empty. A pint of clear water weighs a pound and a quarter.
(cont.): here’s the full quote
Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit we five—Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the Hottentot Ventvégel—were to take with us on our journey. It was small enough, but do what we would we could not get it down under about forty pounds a man. This is what it consisted of:
The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.
The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventvégel), with two hundred rounds of cartridge.
Three “Colt” revolvers and sixty rounds of cartridge.
Five Cochrane’s water-bottles, each holding four pints.
Five blankets.
Twenty-five pounds’ weight of biltong (sun-dried game flesh).
Ten pounds’ weight of best mixed beads for gifts.
A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or two small surgical instruments.
Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocket-filter, tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we stood in.
This was our total equipment, a small one, indeed, for such a venture, but we dared not attempt to carry more. As it was, that load was a heavy one per man to travel across the burning desert with, for in such places every additional ounce tells upon one. But try as we would we could not see our way to reducing it. There was nothing but what was absolutely necessary.
Also, the first day (night, actually) of their journey they had three bearers, each bearer with a gallon of water.
Since there were five in the party I’d presumed each member had one 4-pint bottle. But yeah, five pounds of water each though of course that got used up as they went.
ETA: Wikipedia says the British pint is 568 mL, while the American liquid pint is 473mL. That fits a passage in 1984, where a pub goer was complaining that pints weren’t used anymore, a liter was too much and half a liter wasn’t enough.
Cf. Adrian Mole’s list:
1 box cornflakes
2 pints milk
box tea-bags
tin rhubarb
5 lb spuds
½ lb lard
½ lb butter
2 loaves bread
1 lb cheese
2 packets biscuits
2 lb sugar
toilet roll
washing-up liquid
2 tins tuna
l tin stewed steak
1 tin carrots
(He decides to lighten the load by not packing the cornflakes and toilet roll.)