Helinox DirtSaw Deuce Review

Overview

The Helinox DirtSaw Deuce is a featherweight cathole trowel built from DAC’s 7075-T6 aluminum — the same alloy family DAC uses in its tent poles. It’s actually a rebadge/collaboration of TheTentLab’s well-known “Deuce of Spades” #2, now sold under the Helinox name and made by DAC. If you’re the type who weighs your toilet paper and counts grams on everything in your pack, this is the trowel built for you.

Key Specs

Spec	Value
Weight	17.0 g (0.6 oz)
Length	173 mm
Width	65 mm
Depth (packed)	18 mm
Material	DAC Aluminium (7075-T6)
Design	Double-ended (wide scoop + narrow “DirtSaw” handle end)
Warranty	5 years (Helinox)

Performance

At 17 grams, this thing barely registers on a pack scale — it’s the kind of item you toss in a hip belt pocket and forget about until you actually need it. The flat, thin profile (just 18mm packed depth) means it slides into a ziplock bag with your TP and hand sanitizer without adding any real bulk.

What sets the Deuce apart from a basic aluminum scoop is the double-ended digging system. It is the only trowel that can be used upside down - you can dig with either the wide end or narrow (handle) end. The narrow end features the “DirtSaw” serrations, which are useful for chewing through duff and small roots without having to swap tools or reposition your grip in an awkward, half-dug hole. TheTentLab’s own site describes this as letting you exert more force by pushing on both the shoulders and top of the trowel at once, and using the sawing feature deep in a hole where longer-handled trowels run out of room. It not only allows user to exert more force by pushing on the shoulders and top of the trowel at the same time, it has vastly better dexterity in deeper holes than longer handled trowels — it’s what lets you actually use the DirtSaw feature deep in your hole where longer tools succumb to ever-narrowing hole syndrome.

Durability seems to be a genuine strong point. One long-term Trailspace reviewer who’s put three different generations of this trowel through years of use on trips including an eight-person JMT thru-hike reported that their original Deuce had survived a lot of hacking and prying without bending or any other compromise. For a tool this thin, that’s a meaningful data point — it’s not just light, it’s been proven to hold up.

The catch, and it’s a real one: comfort. The same reviewer who praised its toughness was blunt about the ergonomics, noting the thin metal edge tends to dig into the palm of the hand when digging or chopping in hard rocky ground or through roots. They ultimately docked the trowel a star for this reason, despite otherwise liking it, and mentioned they’d personally lean toward TheTentLab’s larger, heavier #3 model for the extra leverage and depth. They said they’d go for the slightly longer and beefier but heavier #3 model, not just because of big hands, but because other users, like a small-handed partner, could also benefit from some extra leverage and depth. If you’ve got soft palms or plan on doing a lot of digging in rocky, root-choked soil, that’s worth knowing before you buy.

It’s also worth setting expectations relative to bigger trowels. As the same long-term reviewer summarized, Deuce-style trowels are ultralight as advertised and reasonably effective at digging catholes, but not as user-friendly as their longer and much heavier cousins like the U-Dig-It Pro — a worthy trade-off for anyone needing to save weight. This isn’t a tool that makes hole-digging effortless; it’s a tool that makes hole-digging possible at essentially zero weight penalty. Those are different value propositions, and it’s important to know which one you’re buying.

On the practical side, a few small design touches show up in reviews of the DirtSaw-generation Deuce: it comes in bright colors that make it hard to lose in the dirt, and there’s a hole near the top of the handle that you can enter a stick for leverage, and it’s also in a great position to tie a guyline to use it as a tent stake or a deadman anchor. That handle hole is a nice bit of multi-use thinking for a tool that otherwise does one job.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Genuinely disappears in your pack — 17g is about as light as a functional trowel gets
• Double-ended design means you’re never stuck without a sharp edge, even deep in a hole
• 7075-T6 aluminum construction has proven durable over years of real use, including on group thru-hikes
• Bright color options make it easy to spot if dropped
• Handle hole doubles as a stick-leverage point or guyline attachment

Cons

• Thin edge can dig into your palm during hard digging, especially in rocky or rooty soil
• Less effective per-stroke than heavier, longer trowels — you’ll work harder for the same hole depth
• No handle bumper or ergonomic grip by design, which trades comfort for versatility
• Small size may frustrate hikers with larger hands

Who Should Buy This

This is the right call for thru-hikers and ultralight backpackers who dig mostly in average-to-soft trail dirt and are optimizing every gram in their kit. If you’re chasing a sub-10-pound base weight and view a trowel as a necessary evil rather than a tool worth spending grip-comfort or leverage on, the DirtSaw Deuce earns its spot. If you regularly camp in rocky alpine terrain, have larger hands, or just don’t want a thin metal edge biting into your palm, it’s worth looking at TheTentLab’s beefier #3 model or a titanium trowel with a more ergonomic handle instead.

Verdict

The Helinox DirtSaw Deuce does exactly what it promises: it turns cathole digging into a near-zero-weight task without sacrificing durability. The trade-off is comfort — this is a trowel for people who’ve made peace with a little palm discomfort in exchange for carrying essentially nothing. For dedicated ultralight hikers, that’s an easy trade. I’d put this at a 7.5/10 — excellent at its core job, held back half a point by ergonomics that clearly weren’t the design priority.