Saturday, April 19, 2014

Ultralight Backpacking Spoon (and it's free)

I knew the sickness had taken hold when a week after ordering an expensive 14 gram titanium spoon, I promptly ordered another singularly because it was only 9 grams.  That's right, an "extra" 5 grams was simply too much for me to lug around a moment longer.

And shortly thereafter following months of evasive therapy, I learned that these kinds of little things didn't really matter, that much, most of the time, to some people.

That was several years ago and I'm feeling better now.

So today I decided to find an alternative to the 9 gram spoon.  A lighter alternative.  Using a readily available plastic bottle, I cut a spoon-pattern incorporating the ridge at the bottom.  The result - a surprisingly functional spoon.

Cost - $0 (not my bottle)

Weight - 0 (or at least it wouldn't register on my scale)

Easy of DIY - plenty easy as long as a pair of scissors are within reach

Functional - To a degree.  Using a bottle with thicker sides actually works nicely to strengthen the handle portion.  By design, the bottom of a bottle is already more dense, so the "spoon" part is plenty.  The spoon part is actually deeper than a standard spoon and works well as a scoop.