Maintenance packs... was Re: [at-l] Nat'l Trail Days - Oswald Dome

[sloetoe@yahoo.com (Sloetoe)]

--- hopefl@juno.com wrote:
> > The great thing is that I can walk along and access the swing blade 
> > or loppers without losing a step, just by reaching overhead. 
> > 
> Interesting. Do you carry the swingblade with the handle in the rucksack
> and the blade out? 
### Yes. The handle is much heavier than the blade end and the balance
would be nasty if the blade were in the pack. When I reach over my
shoulder, my hand hits the shaft about a foot from the blade. The loppers
are carried jaws up *or* jaws down, depending on conditions/laziness/such.
Unfortunately, they carry better handles down and jaws up; but they are
short enough that I have an abiding fear of getting the jaws right in the
base of the neck with a good forward fall..... Dang.

> Do you have a blade guard for it? I have been wondering if a blade guard
could be fashioned from an old garden hose I have, maybe an old inner
tube. I guess I'll have to visit a bicycle shop for an inner tube.
### Luckily, the blade stands above my head when it's in the pack and I'm
hiking along - so if I were to fall in any direction, the likelihood that
I'd end up with a blade in the scalp is minimal. And I forgot about the
axe -- that's carried head down, instead -- initially for balance reasons,
but not wanting to get a well-dressed axe head in the brain is right up
there...


> > The annoying thing is that to do garbage work, I have to stop and 
> > take the pack off to put garbage in with the chain saw in the main
bag.
> 
> I have a light duty carabineer that started life as a key chain. I clip
> a plastic grocery bag to my belt for fairly easy access. The problem
with
> this system is the bag gets in the way sometimes. Hopeful
### It never fails: if I put a garbage bag on a belt loop, I'll get one
piece, then walk for five miles with whap-whap-whap sounds as company. If
I don't have a garbage bag handy, I'll see a piece of something every
hundred yards, and have to take my pack off or carry it.

Oh the joys.....

### But there have been those times... no garbage, a hoe/cultivator in one
hand, and a swing blade in the other, when I have gone *miles* whopping
and whacking away as a regular Trail John Henry two-fisting the
trail/water bars into shape. *That's* a good day.........

Yeah, the joys.....

### Random thought: The place on the Virginia AT where I took the tumble
last month was turrible close to the area I worked on as a trail-building
virgin back on 1986... You don't suppose... Nahhhhhh.

Sloetoe

=====
Spatior, Nitor, Nitor, In Nitor!

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