On April 22, 2026, at the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail at Campo, California, Tomas Lendvai weighed two knives on a small kitchen scale before sliding them into different pockets of his pack. The first was a Victorinox Bantam, 42 grams, two blades, no scales beyond the standard red plastic. The second was a Mora Garberg in carbon steel, 174 grams without sheath, with a stacked-leather handle worn from previous use.
He had agreed with the editor of this section to walk roughly three hundred miles of the southern PCT, finishing near Tehachapi, with both knives and to write down every use of either one. He was curious whether the fixed-blade earned its place.
The Bantam, predictably, did most of the cutting. Lendvai used it to slice cheese at lunch, to open packets, to trim a moleskin patch for a heel blister near Warner Springs, to whittle a peg for a torn tent stake, and to cut paracord on at least four separate occasions. By the end of the trip he had used the Bantam, by his count, ninety-two times.
The Garberg, over the same distance, came out of its sheath fourteen times. Most of those uses could have been performed by the Bantam, with more effort. Three could not.
The first was near Mike's Place, at mile 127, where Lendvai needed to split a section of pitchy wood to start a small fire after an unexpected late storm soaked his fuel canister beyond use. The Bantam could not have done this. The Garberg, with a baton struck against the spine, split the wood in three blows and produced enough dry shavings to catch a spark.
The second was on the bench above the Silverwood Lake area, when Lendvai came across an injured rattlesnake on the trail, struck by a previous hiker. The snake was suffering. He used the Garberg to end the matter. The Bantam was not the right tool. He buried the snake off the trail and walked the next mile in unhappy silence.
The third was at a camp near Cajon Pass, where another hiker's tent pole had snapped at the ferrule and a field-repair was wanted. The fixed-blade allowed Lendvai to carve a tight-fitting splint from a small section of manzanita branch in roughly twenty minutes. The Bantam could have done the work, eventually. The Garberg did it in time for the other hiker to sleep dry.
Over three hundred miles, three uses for a 174-gram knife is, by ultralight reasoning, a poor return on weight. A small folding saw, at similar weight, would have done the wood-splitting more efficiently. The other two uses were less common.
And yet. Lendvai is not, in his middle age, an ultralight hiker. He has come to believe that the right tool, used three times in three hundred miles, can be worth its weight if those three uses are the right uses. The injured snake on the trail was not in the morning's plan.
On the question of sharpening, the carbon-steel Garberg held an edge longer than the Bantam's stainless. Lendvai touched the Garberg up once, at a hostel in Wrightwood, with a small ceramic rod that weighs nine grams. The Bantam was sharpened twice over the same distance, mostly because cheese is harder on a small blade than it should be.
Carbon steel rusts. The Garberg developed a faint patina by week two, which Lendvai welcomes, and a small spot of rust at the choil that he wiped down with mineral oil. The Bantam, stainless, looked the same at the end as at the beginning.
On legality, neither knife caused trouble at the few resupply points where someone might have asked. The Garberg, in its leather sheath worn on the hip belt, attracted no notice. Lendvai is aware that other jurisdictions, particularly in Europe, would have a different view.
For most thru-hikers a small folding knife is the right tool. The Bantam is excellent. The Opinel No. 6 is a similar option at slightly more weight. For hikers who expect to do any wood preparation, any field repair more demanding than a thread, or who simply prefer a real knife on a long walk, a small fixed-blade earns its place.
The Garberg is heavier than necessary for the task. A Mora Companion at 124 grams would serve as well and cost less. Lendvai carried the Garberg because he had it and because he likes it.
He came off the trail at Tehachapi on May 27, walked into a hardware store for a pair of socks, and noted with quiet satisfaction that the Garberg was still on his hip. He had not noticed it most days.
For Field Lantern readers contemplating a similar trip, the lesson is not which knife to carry. It is to carry a small one for most of the work and to consider whether the second, larger knife will earn its weight over the days. For some hikers it will not. For Lendvai, on this particular trip, it did, three times, in ways he had not anticipated.
