BRUSH: 1" wide, bristle, straight edge. Any wider makes a big honker of a boogery blaze.

PAINT: latex has served well for years, and enjoys the obvious advantage of water solubility (a disadvantage only when a surprise rain makes your wet blazes run down the tree). For those committed to tree marking paint for its brilliant blue color and durability, ignore me on this point if that comes only in oil base. I have tried oil base and it lasts no longer than quality outdoor latex paint on the tree. Do not use latex below 50 degrees.

BRUSH-WASHING DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: if you use latex (water-based) paint, put the brush into a plastic baggie at the end of the day, after wrapping it in Saran or Handi-wrap AND dribbling a few drops of canteen water onto it before it is wrapped up. Take it home and freeze it. I have four blazing brushes in the freezer, yellow, blue, orange, and white, and each of those brushes has lasted for years and years through dozens of defrostings, long paint days, and refreezings. No need to wash the brush ever. Piggy, eh? Furthermore, if you need to stop painting for more than a few minutes on a breezy warm day, wrap the brush back up in its wet Handi-wrap and baggie with a drop of water and it will stay fine while you eat lunch, for instance.

PAINT CAN: buy a gallon and a quart. Keep refilling the quart can from the gallon and carry only the smaller one. It will last hours and well over a mile of blazing two directions, which is about as much patience as most humans can produce in one day. I LIKE blazing and have never used a whole quart at once. Keep the lid with you in order to place it gently on top when you stop painting for any amount of time. A drop of canteen water mixed in with the paint (if latex!!) will revive thickening gloop.

CLOSING THE PAINT CAN: clean the top lip and groove as well as you can with the brush, then tap lid on all the way around several times firmly but gently (don't bend the can!) with a RUBBER MALLET (rubber avoids ruination of the sealing portions of the can lid, important for a can you want to use many times). Put the can on the floor of your car trunk or truck bed or on a small piece of plywood on the ground before you start tapping the lid on, because grim experience has taught me several times (shallow learning curve, eh?) that the most benign-looking piece of turf invariably has a tiny sharp stone in it. I have pierced the bottom of several quart cans of paint, and you have only to imagine how good blaze orange paint looks on the beige carpet of my van.

THE PAINTING OUTFIT: tool belt with two or four large nail pockets. I carry a hatchet in the hammer loop, which is used to flake some kinds of bark off the tree (more on this later) AND to hammer in nails with the back of the hatchet head. The pockets hold the paint can lid, the brush baggie, aluminum nails or screws (plus a screwdriver if the latter), a real paint can opener, not a mere flat bladed screwdriver, mind you (VITAL!! I compulsively carry two, just in case), small signs to be nailed or screwed along the way, hand clippers because there is ALWAYS one more little branch waving leaves in front of the spot that wants a blaze. My canteen hangs on the same belt, and if this is new blazing on ribbon-flagged trail, I stuff the torn-down ribbons into the pockets. The handle of the hatchet will bang on your knee and make a bruise if you're 5'7" and wear the belt hanging off your butt, so a tool belt with a hammer loop on each side will enable you to spread the pain around.

BLAZE-PAINTING AXIOMS LEARNED THE HARD WAY, OVER YEARS:

1. Paint in only one direction at a time. Only if there is only ONE choice for a blaze spot from either direction should you dare paint a blaze on both sides of the tree. This is most important for new blazing, not AS critical for re- blazing. You cannot make good decisions about what tree, for instance, will be the most visible from each direction until you are walking that way yourself. If you try to paint both directions at once you'll make stupid mistakes and end up with too many blazes, some invisible until the last moment, others duplicating what's obvious.
2. Don't try to do trail work and blazing at the same time. Blazing involves too much concentration and other tools, not to mention a full open can of wet paint, for you to try other tasks at the same time. Blazing is my reward after all the clearing work is done. Of course, not everyone agrees. In fact, almost no one agrees with me on this! This is the kind of patient task that some people cannot abide, so perhaps trades could be worked out.
3. Don't blaze a dead or dying tree. Long before it falls its bark will pop off, along with your critical blaze.
4. Paint down, then up at least twice, with two or three brushfuls of paint. I said this is a job for patient people. Make them neat, tidy, and a joy to meet.
5. To put up signs or markers, use either aluminum siding nails (which can never be pulled out, because the soft heads fold over) or aluminum Phillips-head screws. They can be tapped with the back of the hatchet to start them, then screwed in with a small screwdriver. Best of all, they can be backed out a little each season as the tree tries to consume the screws and the sign with a summer's growth. For either fastening method, do NOT screw or nail all the way in. Leave the head out 3/8" to 1/2" to give room for growth. The tree will grow in girth, not height, at the place where your sign is, so don't smush the sign tight to the trunk if it's a big enough one to require nails on four corners. The tree will spread the sign, pulling the nails through the plastic (or whatever) sideways. Why aluminum? If ever this tree is harvested, the sawmill's blade can be ruined by or react dangerously to a steel nail, whereas it will barely "notice" an aluminum one. Besides, the quality of the timber is less compromised by the aluminum nail.
6. Think like a hiker when choosing blaze spots. This advice is almost impossible to give via the written word, because there is no doubt about the fact that many people who have hiked hundreds of miles still make goofy choices about blaze placement! Too frequent, or too seldom, or double blazes for a mere curve in the trail...these misperceptions by the blazer are so subtle but so annoying in the field to the hiker searching for the route that my compulsion to try explaining anyway remains. THINK about the route ahead of you, and think like someone who has never been there before. Try to make conscious choices when first blazing a section about the exact next necessary blaze to keep the walk a pleasure, not a puzzle.
7. If you reroute even a tiny spot with new blazes, PLEASE cancel the old ones. Black, dark gray, or brown spray paint works well. Hint: since paint cans once in a while have a malfunctioning plastic spray nozzle tip, carry a spare from an old dead can in your painting tool belt. Hint: when carrying spray paint in your pack, don't throw it down with any force, because sharp tools inside can puncture it. Did you ever wonder why my hammer is black?

TREE ADVICE: ironically I first learned trees by their bark and trunks, not by their leaves, and it was all due to blazing. Sometimes there is no choice about which tree to blaze, but whenever possible avoid the following:

• QUAKING ASPEN: young specimens of this fast-growing tree that takes advantage of sunny openings, including those up to about 10" diameter at breast height, have smooth bark that looks like it would be great for blazing. However, they grow so fast that one will pop its paint right off in one season, so they are a waste of paint. Option if that's all there is? I always carry a supply of plastic lids in my backpack, of the different colors I blaze trails in. Microwave lunches are expensive and dumb but they make a tasty trail lunch for masochists like me (especially sick when I have to "warm" one up to 40-odd degrees in my armpit so that the spoon will go into it) AND feature plastic lids in blue, orange, yellow, and white! Cake frosting lids come in red, white, and blue, too. It's hard to be caught alive recommending such overwhelming processed foods (yeah, Irene, pretend for me that you'd rather make frosting from scratch) but they do have great lids. Chef Boyardee red lids fade fastest.
• HEMLOCK: not only is bark rough, so requires gentle scraping flaking blows along the trunk with the hatchet to make a surface that won't require four quarts of paint to mark, but once it's scraped, hemlock soaks up the paint AND bleeds through reddish. Several coats are required for even a so-so satisfactory blaze.
• WHITE OAK: again, very flaky rough bark, but can have outer rough stuff cleaned off with hatchet. Dry inner surface soaks up paint like crazy, so multiple coats hours apart are advisable. Do not wang away at any tree's bark until moist inner layers are exposed!
• ASH: a terrifically successful tree in all sorts of places, so there's a lot of it to contend with. Young ones, say, up to 6" diameter, seem smooth and good for blazing. However, they quickly develop shallow close ridges and a roughness that defies good blazing. Nonetheless an ash can still make a good blaze tree with a moment's preparation. Glancing blows up and down the trunk with the hatchet can lay smooth a patch of bark for the blaze, down to a smoother underlying layer. This, too, sucks up a lot of paint, but nowhere near as badly as the white oak. And once you've established that smoother spot on the trunk, it will remain a viable blaze spot for years, with subsequent paint coats staying well.
• ANY BIRCH: their horizontal lenticels make them peel that way, in strips, so it's often futile to blaze a gray or yellow birch, not to mention truly gauche, while black birch does hold onto its own bark better, so is not as bad a choice.
• BLACK CHERRY: those chunky scabs of bark make for damned hard blazing. Don't come off well with the hatchet, either. Last resort, but when necessary, be comforted that the "scabs" do stay put for a long time so will hold fragments of a blaze for years.
• EASTERN HOPHORNBEAM: hard to blaze because of very flaky dry bark. can be scraped to a useable smooth level, best done with outer, non-cutting edge of hand clippers.
• ELM: too too flaky bark and just underneath is a layer ranging from moist to slimy, depending on the variety. Slippery elm is indeed just that. Don't bother.

USEFUL BLAZE TREES: red oak, sugar and red maple have nice blazing bark, at least before they become gnarly old trees. CAUTION about maples: young ones especially sprout twigs from the trunk and you'll be tempted to snip them before blazing. In the winter and spring use forethought: don't snip above the blaze spot because the sap will pour out of the cut spot and run down the trunk for days. (Maple syrup...get it?) I've had to use first aid supplies and the cuff of my shirt taped to a young tree above a blaze to keep it from getting diluted to death before it could dry...twice now. See? Slow learner.

American hornbeam (ironwood, musclewood are other names) is slender but holds a blaze well on smooth bark. Shad (serviceberry, shadblow) is a GREAT blaze tree at any age, except that some trunks of this frequently multiple tree die off periodically.

All species of hickory are good blaze trees, featuring hard smooth bark held tight to the trunk. Even shagbark hickory, which looks as it might peel off in mighty strips, keeps its bark for years.

MAPLE HINT: young maples seem so smooth but there is something dusty and grainy and moldy on their bark that prevents good adhesion. I have taken to carrying a dry rag tucked into my tool belt for wiping down young maples. You'll see the difference once you've given it a few scrubs.

WHAT IF THERE ARE NO TREES? What do we do when only bushes or weedy fields are to be crossed? A mowed path helps immensely to define the route, even in the winter until the snow gets deeper than the unmowed vegetation, but we can't get a mower in to every spot.

Stakes help. Metal fence stakes, locust posts...these last well, but are hard to schlep into the interior and are costly. We've tried oak stakes dipped in used motor oil at the ground end, but they last only a few years. Luck dropped dozens of pressure-treated stake-sized sticks in my lap a few years ago, leftover 1-1/2" to 2" wide x 5-7' long strips cut off 5/4 thick deck planking, and they can be VERY useful. Not only do they hold paint or nailed or wired plastic lids (see PLASTIC LID hints under quaking aspen entry in "bad tree" section), but they should last forever if one can get them hammered far enough into the ground. Depends on the soil and rocks. Use that hatchet to render the end pointier.

Cake frosting cans can save the day: here we go again with store-boughten foods, but most brands of ready-mixed frosting come in bright white plastic "cans" that will stand up well for 4-5 years in the sun. Cut a short X in the bottom with your trusty Girl Scout knife and slide one over a bush branch. The X will hold the can in place on the branch, and the white spots will be visible across an acre of bushy trail. The only drawback is that the bush branch has to be kept trimmed a couple of times in the spring and summer to keep the can from disappearing into greenery. When the can starts to crack, use that surgical tape you always have in your pack for emergencies like this. The tape, too, holds paint for years if you want to spruce up the bright white can with a splash of color, but my advice is not to paint the cans. Instead, use their visibility to full advantage.

EVERYDAY MAINTENANCE PACK ITEMS:

• PAINT PENS are a great invention. Found in art supply stores, they come in a dizzy variety of colors and felt tip sizes, but basic black in a size just under the big fat one is SO handy for sprucing up signs or painting emergency notes on any old piece of plywood. I've made many a basic sign blank out of pine (say, 1x6 or 1x8) when I'm painting something else at home, so that I have a supply of primed and white- painted blanks. (Yes, pine, not plywood, because the glue in plywood is very attractive to our woodland friends with large front teeth.) Then needed signs can be nicely lettered with paint pens; the lettering lasts for some years, and can always be spruced up when you pass by with your paint pen.
• RATCHET WRENCH, 3 SOCKETS (7/16", 1/2", 9/16"), 5" EXTENSION, AND 3 HAND WRENCHES (1 CLOSED, 1 OPEN END EACH) OF SAME SIZES: a good way to mount signs and trail register boxes is with so-called lag bolts, a hex-head bolt with a sharp end that can be screwed into a tree or post after a few taps on the head with your hatchet head's back end. The trouble is that these are much easier to drive in if you have a socket wrench, which hardware requires the assortment of tools above to cover most bolt sizes and common situations. The bigger trouble is that these bolts have to be backed out of trees periodically or tree growth will tear the back right out of a box or break a sign; hence, the constant assortment to cover a multitude of possibilities in the field. The hand wrenches will enable you to work harder on a truly stuck bolt (and many will break off in the tree rather than back out!), and the 5" extension will enable you to turn a bolt deep inside a register box. For all the same reasons I carry an assortment of 1/4" lag bolts (7/16" head), washers, and short 1/4" bolts with nuts in case of tool crash. Yes, the pack is heavy, but eating all those cake mixes that need frosting built this fabulous and capable body. It's my duty.