Hatchets are handy for many situations. Whether it’s for camping or survival, a hatchet saves the day in many instances. If you don’t know how to use them, then we’re here to help.
To make things easier for you, I’m going to describe a few situations where you can use your hatchet for camping and survival.
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Different Ways to Use a Hatchet
A hatchet is somewhat like a small axe that makes work easier and lighter compared to the big old axe. Unlike an axe, a hatchet can be used single-handedly and carried around for long journeys since it’s not that heavy.
Knowing the different ways, you can put your simple hatchet to good use. Below are a few different ways to use a hatchet:
1. Shelter
The first basic need when you’re out camping is making a shelter. The shelter is important. And to make your own while you’re out there in the wild, a hatchet is required.
The hatchet will help you get materials like wood or bamboo, which you can use to make your shelter. You can use it with one hand and cut off branches and tree trunks and make your shelter.
2. Defense
Even though you have your shelter guaranteed, there’s no certainty that you won’t be under attack by predatory animals. In this scenario, you can use your hatchet as protection.
Because it’s light, you can easily swing it to scare off these large animals. And if it was to attack back, the hatchet is hard and sharp enough to cause damage to your enemy.
3. Splitting Wood
Hatchets are perfect for splitting wood. As long as the blade side of your hatchet is sharp, then splitting wood should be easy. Another use for being able to split wood is to heal fractures during your camping trip. You can use your hatchet to split and chop wood into pieces and bind them to your broken limb to let it heal and stabilize.
4. Carving Tool
Sometimes you’ll find yourself needing small tools to help yourself survive. For example, you can cut down trees and carve out the wooden pieces into fishing poles to catch fish; or you could make spears, bows, and arrows as weapons to attack enemies.
5. Hammer
As you know, the hatchet isn’t just a thick blade part. The back of the blade is pretty thick and hard and can be used as a hammer.
You can use this backside to hammer in stakes into the ground to support your camping tent.
The same way you can drive stakes into trees to hold up a hammock if you ever want to nap or swing.
Other uses of this hammer feature are to fix dents in pots and pans or break open any kind of packaging that’s hard or made of metal.
6. Chop Trees
When you’re using a hatchet to chop trees, there are different angles to focus on to get the job done quickly, and by consuming less energy.
In a kneeling position, you can take your time if you want and do things slow and steady. When doing this, it’s best to chop up and down so that you can make a wedge into the tree trunk and then start on the other side.
As we know, most trees lean in one direction. What you need to do is get under that and chop into the tree with that same up and down motion repeatedly with your hatchet. Once you manage to make that wedge halfway, then you can push the rest of the tree, and it will fall.
7. Ice
If you’re camping during the winter season and it is snowing heavily and have frozen over in certain areas, the hatchet will help you overcome the difficulties with the ice.
8. Campfire
The hatchet helps you make your campfire by helping you chop up wood kindling from trees. You can make properly sized firewood and set up the place to have your campfire. And you can use your hatchet to make a fire by using your blade to make sparks to set the wood on the fire.
9. Reflect Light
The blade of a hatchet is very smooth and shiny. But that also depends on your hatchet’s age and how well you maintain and clean it. You can use this blade to reflect sunlight easily to send out SOS signals to nearby helicopters if you’re lost or in trouble in a forest.
signals to nearby helicopters if you’re lost or in trouble in a forest.
To call for help, all you need to do is clean your steel hatchet head till the metal os shiny. Angle the blade under the sunlight and move it around till it flashes repeatedly at the helicopter you’re trying to get attention from.
10. Hunting
Using a hatchet for hunting and fish is definitely a good idea. If you can use them to attack predatory animals, then you can use them for hunting other animals for food too.
And after your successful hunt, you can use your hatchet’s sharp blade to process your hunted livestock, game, or fish. You can easily chop the flesh into pieces so you can have your own little barbecue in the wild.
Final Words
Many campers have deemed the hatchet as a useful tool. It has the necessary functions with both blade and hammer features and can be used in different ways to help you out with different situations.
Given its versatility, there may be some people who would deny it being the most useful tool to carry around during camping trips or for survival in the wild.
But the above techniques should help you decide how helpful the hatchet could be to you. So, clearly, there are different ways to use a hatchet for camping and surviving, and hopefully, you’ll have one with you on your camping trips from now on.