Okay, my brief writeup was just that- a quick overview, not the whole of my experience! First off I had full blown shelter, I just didn't describe that. The poncho was just a luxury (on that day, that is). Without it I'd have stayed inside where it was dry. I fully agree that poncho isn't what you'd want on a 2 week hike in the boonies. While I probably neglected to mention it, I also had a 9' x 12' x .8 mil dropclothe in my pack and 8 55 gal contractor garbage bags (recall, I used two to cover my wood). So my primary shelter would have had to fail or burn down, then my dropclothe would have to be lost, then a half dozen bags would have had to fail, and I'd have had to have my car stolen- if all those things would have occured I'd have been completely without shelter!

Next, I had several knives on me: my Ontario SP8 machette, a Knives of Alaska Alpha Wolf, a KOA Bear Cub, an SOG Twitch II and my Kershaw Scallion. I also have a small gardening shovel. I mentioned the SP8 mostly because I just got it from my Dad and wanted to try it out. For the love of God, NO- it wouldn't ever be my only survival knife. With it's totally flat end it has little other purpose than to chop.

As to the chopping- yeah, one instant of carelessness can have serious consequences. Having used razor sharp blades for 20+ years as a chef I know better. But accidents happen usually when you're doing someting routine. The actual batonning part is relatively safe; the knife isn't being swung at all, and you carefully place the edge on the log. What ever possessed me to swing at that little peice of kindling like I was splitting a stalk of celery I'll never know! Again, I know better, or at least I better know better! Luckily I've had a lot of experience dealing with very bad cuts and I had good supplies.

Batonning...I realize that's pretty controversial to some. Could I have managed a fire without it? Yeah. You can't gather wood legally in the park, you have to bring it or buy it there. At the entrance to the park they sell nice dried wood cut to length and randomly split. Never an ideal mix of sizes but usuable to be sure. Processing the wood certainly made it easier to get a good fire, at the expense of lots of preparation. If I'd have been out in the deep woods where the wood may not be completely dry I might have to split it to get to the center. In this case I wanted to test the performance of the knife.

In no way was this a test of survival gear; it was just a recreational outing in a park. True, had I amputated a digit it could have quickly turned into a survival situation, though!