That fir tree pitch may be great for firestarting, but is a real hassle when you get too much on your hands and clothing.

Benjammin, apply anything powdery to the pitch on your hands, flour, baby powder, dust. Use the clothes as tinder, burns great.

Sue

Oh yes, works great when I am making dinner and the rolls taste like pitch. It also helps when handling them hot pots, kinda like callouses then.

As for the clothes, don't you know petroleum products are far superior at making my breeches like kindling?

ONE poncho, to act as a ground cloth, cover my pack at night and wear to keep the rain off means moving really fast when getting ready...

I learned to always look into what I'm drinking before taking a drink outdoors. I nearly swallowed a HUGE hairy spider that was floating on top of my beer. A friend of mine was bitten on the lip by a bee that had crawled into his soda. His lips swelled up to cartoonish proportions. We had some great laughs at his expense.

Another thing I've learned: rain fly's dont keep out the rain when it's coming at you horizontally.

I learned that leaving the anchor down makes going full speed in a boat more difficult....until the motor cuts the anchor rope.

That Jiffy Pop popcorn does not do well on a campfire, that the smell of burned popcorc will run all the wild life in the area away, that you can't get it out of your clothes, and that I really hate the smell of burned popcorn.

The "Ten Essentials" should really be the "Eleven Essentials" (toilet paper).

The one time you forget insect repellant is the time you will be attacked by a mosquito cloud of biblical proportions.

Patrick