Lightweight, food utensil, finger splint, fire tinder, back scratcher. Prop your shoes open at night to dry out. clean out your muddy treads. Stirrer for coffee. bathroom trail marker.

> Prop your shoes open at night to dry out. clean out your muddy treads. Stirrer for coffee.
Er - the same chopstick digging scats out of the treads and stirring my coffee?

Cheers

That was my reaction too. Maybe with metal put into boiling water but then they are slick and not as useful. We use wooden ones , some lacquered daily at home, but for food only, lots of dish soap or on the rough wood ones abrasion and soap . If I was doing what your doing then carrying bleach. But then again my Kimchee also kills what might try to infect it.

You don't need to bring chopsticks. Just whittle them out of sticks along the way.

I'd say that's OK if you know how to I.D. plants and avoid certain disasters but I'm a bit surprised you would do this in Japan given your remarks on pressure on nature from tourism. I have not seen it as you have but have seen Chinese tourism which seems relentless . I can think in many situations it might be a very good thing.But otherwise I remember Gerard Manley Hopkins saying the following:
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

19. Binsey Poplars


felled 1879


MY aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one 5
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew— 10
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a pr**ck will make no eye at all, 15
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve 20
Strokes of havoc únselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

I'd say that's OK if you know how to I.D. plants and avoid certain disasters but I'm a bit surprised you would do this in Japan given your remarks on pressure on nature from tourism. I have not seen it as you have but have seen Chinese tourism which seems relentless

?

Just pick up two fallen dry sticks.

I'm not advocating cutting live plants.

Fair enough. But I hope not sting nettles etc. John

Young stinging nettle, when the leaves are still light green and tender, tastes delicious as a salad. (I'm serious)

You know your stuff alright.The stage is critical. I'm thinking even more of that crazy poodle bush in the Sierras off our radar in Oregon so far.And then such basics as Rhododendrons and their honey.Plants need poisons sometimes.

I feel out of the loop...what is happening?

i think they are saying that certain plants, at a certain stage in age, are poisonous and not the best to make chopsticks out of. personally i don't know my plants well enough to know which are good. it'd be like eating random mushrooms off the trail. =P

I think worrying too much about poisonous sticks is getting a little paranoid. Just stay with your basic conifers (pines, spruces, firs, larches, cedars, cypresses...), maples, beeches, birches.... break off 2 chopstick length dry dead twigs from lower branches or on the ground around the trees and you have safe sticks to use. It isn't hard and you don't have to learn about a million different plants. You can use the same pair of chopsticks for the entire trip, if you want, though if you're a real gram weenie making a new pair every evening only takes a minute or two.

Yeah, don't use rose, or any other thorny sticks either FWIW. ;P

Here in the PNW Rhododendron fits this bill . Even it's honey has toxins.But I'll go further. Chopsticks in China are a total waste of wood in a country where there isn't much wood left after centuries of cultivation up to most mountain tops. I suspect Japan is no better. Nandina Domestica{ for the home) has been used for match sticks.The whole attitude is Use.In the Cascades all the trees in established campgrounds are whacked and debarked and are infested with bark beetles. The whole ecosystem is rapidly changing to Something Else.I'm trained in Horticulture and plant taxonomy for the last 25 years.My attitude is leave it alone and try to discourage abuse. Ten years ago somebody who was running a huge fire in the midst of a total ban on fires practically spit at me when I mentioned the ban.But I've seen this country I love degrade every year and it is sad. And for what it's worth the very worst human impact is continuous soil impact decreasing O2 levels. That favorite site-you are killing it .

Edited by Meander on 04/23/2012 19:26:14 MDT.

John, um, okay.

I'll say it again... use a few dead sticks no wider than your pinky. Two of them the length of chopsticks is far less wood than you would use if you are using a Bushbuddy. When you're done with the chopsticks you can either burn them in your Bushbuddy, or just lay them under a tree to decompose, no?

Just as an aside... I'm trained in ecology and worked for many years as an architect in green design and sustainable communities. So it's not like I'm not aware of what you're getting so worked up about (a feeling I very much understand, but which I feel is going a bit overboard when talking about making chopsticks for a UL trip. Who's talking about starting a chopstick business in China or Japan?)

Edited by butuki on 04/24/2012 01:49:30 MDT.

John, why are the trees debarked? Are people just randomly hacking at them?

Only on BPL....

some very fine trolling by John.

REALLY!?!?!?!?!?!?

Chopsticks are cheap. Easy to get and easy to use. But I am regretting I posted the idea b/c this whole thread is full of stupid comments about poison from wild woods, to how you want to eat with the same pair you used to clean out you shoes. HOW ABOUT CLEAN YOUR SHOES AT YOUR CAR after your hike!!!!!!!!!!!! I will never post again on this site.

Edited by adb0406 on 05/03/2012 22:11:53 MDT.

Andrew, yeah, sometimes it gets a bit weird here... but actually most of the time people here are really great, and usually the advice is talked about in a very helpful manner. Not sure why it got all kooky this time. I was trying to offer a simple, UL solution to carrying chopsticks, since they're just about as simple a style of utensil as you can come up with, and very versatile, if you know how to use them (besides just how to hold and manipulate them).