Gerber Epic Knife

If you’re stuck carrying just one knife on your next outdoorsy adventure, the Gerber Epic Knife ($30) wouldn’t be a bad choice. This versatile chrome-molybdenum stainless steel blade features a textured nylon handle, a serrated edge, a blunt tip, an integrated bottle opener, and a locking sheath that also sports a reversible pocket clip so you can carry it on right or left side — which is really handy if your other hand is busy holding a beer or fighting off a hungry grizzly bear.

Gerber Venture Knife

Knives don’t need to do a bunch of different things to be useful — they just need to do one thing really well. The Gerber Venture Knife ($75) adheres to this mantra by limiting its design to a polished titanium handle and a three and a half inch serrated blade that’s ready when you need it thanks to the Venture’s FAST spring-assisted opening mechanism.

Gerber Crucial tool (Minimalist Multi-Tool)

A butterfly-opening multi-tool in Gerber’s line, the Crucial is built for the outdoorsperson who wants basic features and nothing more. Weighs just 5 ounces and includes a pliers/wire-cutter, a blade, and little else.

Its straight and serrated locking blade easily opens using one hand and your thumb. There’s a flat-head and Phillips screw driver. The tool includes a carabiner clip that doubles as a bottle opener.

Attach the tool to the exterior of a pack or a belt loop with the clip. Or, the Crucial also has a belt clip. Eliminating one or the other could save more weight. But on my scale the tool was true to Gerber’s spec at 5 ounces.

The Crucial comes in a stainless steel/black look or stainless steel/green.

Gerber Bear Grylls Ultimate Kit

When it comes to wilderness survival Bear Grylls is our idol. He knows the tricks, the tools and the MacGyver moves needed to live through commercial breaks and long production days. In his pocket-sized 15-piece survival kit from Gerber you get: knives, a bottle opener, screwdrivers, a signal mirror, snare wire, a fishing kit, fire tinder and more. Basically everything you need to stay cool until the camera crew shows up the next morning in the helicopter with your latté.

Gerber Epic Knife

Woods Monkey has a helpful review up of Gerber’s Epic; despite the name, it’s actually a compact (yet sturdy) knife with a semi-serrated 3.4″ blade, larger finger choil, and bottle opener.

Gerber Shard

While we might not know exactly what seven functions the sleek Gerber Shard ($8) will provide, we know enough to know we’ll be on the pre-order list as soon as it’s available. The lightweight, airline-safe keychain tool offers at the minimum a bottle opener, screwdriver, and nail puller, with a titanium nitride coating for corrosion resistance.

Gerber FIT Multi-tool

Does this Gerber multi-tool look like a train to you? Look closely. No? Okay, but it does blast a bright beam of LED light and slim as it is, houses nine other tools like screwdrivers, scissors, a bottle opener and a two-edged blade. The housing is made of anodized aluminum. The Fit will be available February 2011.