Track notes:

As an addition to the following video

Track notes regarding hiking in the snow away from any main trails.

The Plan is to have a BBQ in the snow! plus be prepared** if that can not happen.

**We have also taken lots of biscuits, dark (70% cocoa) chocolate (2 packets), water bottles 3L, A small billy to melt snow, white spirit (for a Zippo catalytic hand warmer) and one orange. We are no more than 7km from a road at our furthest point in our journey. Vehicle access limited to experienced 4WDers only and or a 6 wheel drive truck (the latter service a distant mountain hut). We also have a charging bank and two reliable head lamps, plus the usual clothing to enable us to stay overnight if we had to.

Plan only to take one knife, no saw, no hatchet, a few matches and 2 cigarette lighters. matches were carried in a totally waterproof container; cigarette lighters were carried in my pants pocket under waterproof over pants.

The only totally dry wood in all of that snow was to be found on wild plums and apple trees growing in the area, plus of course dead pine stubs up the trunks of old pine trees in the forest you can see in some background shots. I knew this of course before setting out there and know where those trees are to be found. Even in deep snow I would still be able to find them.

The dead pine stubs may be some metres off the ground and if one has to climb trees then this increases the risks of an injury (no matter how good one is at climbing). For example, that day, we saw only one other person the entire day and they were heading off the mountain around 10am. In other words, no good thinking you can rely upon the help of someone else if there isn't a "someone else" around. Dead pine stubs however can in fact be fat wood and thus will burn very well. In order to extract these one must have a saw at hand or only be limited to taking smaller stubs and or side-splitting bigger ones with a big knife or hatchet, a difficult task if they are not at ground level.

Hiking in the snow you must know where to find dry wood before setting out. Of course, you can take a multi-fuel stove but it isn't a challenge, is it? You will never "just find" dry wood under all of that snow, unless already stashed there. You will not find dry wood on any living birch trees as they generally do not grow like that. They will rot as an entire tree once infected with a parasitic fungus such as the Sheep foot fungus (a polypore fungus). 

Young pines there will be no substantial dead wood present, only the dry stubs remaining on older pine trees. Sure, the green pine needles are flammable but you need a decent fire to get them going.

Conifer wood, if present will be under the snow but can be burnt if enough heat due to the presence of flammable resins. obviously to find where the conifer wood is, the snow can't be deeper than say 6ft, otherwise these low bushes will stay safely buried during winter snowfall.

 I purposefully didn't take a saw or a hatchet because firstly with the saw you still need to bust up the branches you cut but the earth under the snow is really wet and soggy, so you need to find a rock on which to place your wood so it doesn't sink into the wet ground when struck. Ok, plenty of rocks but I didn't want to spend ages digging around under the snow for rocks. 

There are these big depressions with lots of scree under the snow but a good place to twist an ankle too lol because you can't see those holes anymore under the snow of course. What I like to do is to find old dead branches and just use a knife to lever off small bits of that hardwood, it's too strong to bust with your finger plus the splinters are a killer if you get unlucky LOL! I use this for my kindling, because it's bone dry and burns well once caught, same for the apple really. The branches I know about are all a bit high to swing a hatchet safety I think (but that's just me)- a taller person no problem I guess). For this, I need to take with me a very strong tough blade that I can really beat on. Also, where you see me uncover the timber by the fire place, it's all icy and wet just below the ice so all of that had to come off and it's covered in dirt, moss, lichen etc. I want to be able to quickly hack all of that off the wood to get it to burn. 

Some tough but not very big juniper, I also cut out of the snow, a little damp but burns ok due to the flammable sap. A thinner blade but bigger knife (to keep up the weight) would have done better job at making that little carving and cutting board as it would have bit into the wood better at a shallower angle due to less thickness but I didn't take such a knife (eg. I could have taken my WTG Lanzeta) but it is too flexible (that's a good thing though in most situations) to bust the hard wood out of the tree branches. I also should say that I like this method because the tree itself is the one "holding onto the branch" and is basically immovable and thus allows one to apply a lot of force. However, if I had I cut these branches off, then nothing to hold them or as I said earlier on, just soggy ground when trying to reduce them to tinder. I also went out after lunch and tried to get some birch sap but it was still too early and a bit bitter, that tip of this knife is perfect to ram into the trunk of a tree just due to its shape without having to bash it with anything. I might show that video "fail" later on.

Note:

I use a technique with my knife to sharpen sticks, not by striking the branches with a moving blade nor by holding the knife static to my body and dragging the branch but rather by planting firmly the knife tip into a tree log, blade facing away from me and then bracing the knife in my left hand, carefully drawing the branches across the blade. I do it like this because I want to reduce my body motion in order to reduce the risk of slipping in the snow and having a possible accident with the knife. This technique works best with knives with very pointed tips such as the one i decided to take with me. if done correctly, the tip will stay planted in the wooden base.

Here is the actual video