Hot answers tagged water
22
Assuming you don't have a genitourinary tract infection, fresh urine should be sterile, the problem is that it is a waste product which, apart from making it not taste very nice, means that consuming it will increase the concentration of waste in your body which will require an increased volume of water to absorb and subsequently excrete, resulting in you ...
18
Another option is to keep your water bottle inside your jacket and use your body heat to prevent the water from freezing. Many mountaineering jackets have internal elasticated mesh pockets for this purpose. Alternatively, I find I can just put the water bottle inside my jacket and use the waist belt of my rucksack to prevent the bottle from falling down ...
17
Via WebMD
Large amounts or long-term use of iodine are possibly unsafe. Adults should avoid prolonged use of doses higher than 1100 mcg per day (the upper tolerable limit, UL) without proper medical supervision.
However I seriously question that 1100 mcg number because people in Northern Japan have been found to consume over 80,000 mcg per day due to a ...
16
Copy and paste from the answer here: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1540/is-it-a-good-idea-to-drink-your-own-urine-in-a-survival-situation
Summary: You can do it, as a last resort, but it's dicey.
The US Army doesn't think it's a good idea and lists it on its "Do NOT drink" list, stating in its Field Manual that it "contains harmful body ...
16
Urine is normally sterile (barring urinary tract infections) - so, from bacteriological stance, fresh urine isn't going to hurt.
The problem is - urine is a waste product, and so is full of stuff that your body wants to be rid of. Worse, as you get more dehydrated, your body produces more concentrated urine. That said - as a short term measure to keep ...
14
I led extended backpacking trips in Grand Canyon country for several years, and we required everyone carry at MINIMUM a gallon (almost 4 litre) per person per day -- which adds up. (Though rarely did we plan trips that did not have dependable water sources within a day's walk, meaning we would start and end the day with bellies full of water.)
Different ...
14
Should I understand a water source to mean a spring/well, or any place
where hikers may collect water (streams, lakes, etc.)?
Yes. Any source of water - no matter how large or small - should be avoided when choosing a camp site. 100 meters is just a guideline, 200 meters is better. 200 meters and out of sight is great.
The reasons are several-fold:
...
13
The rule is 3 liters per person per day. You may get away with 2 liters if it's not too hot and you stay moderate. Keep into account that your "normal day" intake is skewed by the contribute brought from food. If you eat food with less water in it, which is likely during a hike, your need for actual water is higher than the one you experience in your daily ...
11
In dry climates you can take advantage of evaporative cooling - especially on a bike. In hot and humid places you are stuck with insulation and pre-cooled water and/or ice.
Have you experimented to see if a cloth wrapper around your bottles is enough to cool things when damp? Of course, you're not going to get highly chilled water, but it can be ...
11
You always look at places where water could accumulate (here are some not so obvious choices):
Extra green vegetation like sycamore tree is good indicator of water source. You can utilize the plants transpiration via plastic bag or bottle. And just leave it out in the sun. With big enough plastic bag over bush you can collect quite a bit of water.
Bellow ...
11
Hiking in the desert? As much as you can carry! I tend to prefer packing more water than less, and especially in a desert area where if something goes wrong, your access to resupply is very limited.
You can lose up to two quarts (almost 2 litre) of water per hour hiking in the desert in middle of the day, but you can only absorb around one quart (almost one ...
10
As Cryptosporidium is passed in the faeces of animals, the more heavily the land is used by animals, the greater the risk of Cryptosporidium contamination in water sourced from that land.
This article suggests some ways (quoted below) to avoid Giardia (which has a similar lifecycle to Cryptosporidium), conversely, if you are unable to source water following ...
9
You need to distill it - I'm assuming that freezing is not an option (unless you're camping in the extreme latitudes). This is easiest, as the ice on top is almost pure water.
Where you don't have a freezer available - boiling the water, capturing the steam and condensing it back to water will provide pure water.
9
CamelBak have a great Care & Tips section on their website. Summarising their recommendations:
Keep it clean and dry when not in use. If mould develops:
Use hot water and two tablespoons of baking soda or bleach
Leave for about 30 minutes
Wash with hot water and mild soap
Air dry
8
Sounds obvious, but if you've got enough fuel and it's snowy, gather some to melt. Bear in mind though that you'll get vastly less water than you might expect, so be prepared to grab lots of it. Stay away from coloured snow as well, not just for the obvious reason but because very nasty bacteria can also cause coloured snow (pinkish as well as yellow.)
If ...
8
If you're hiking in dry, hot weather places, and you have a whole backpacking setup your best bet is to store your water deep in your pack. The sun is your only real enemy here.
In the desert, I've had success with packing my bag so that my water is "wrapped" in my insulated gear - jacket and sleeping bag. Since I don't actually want to expose my sleeping ...
8
nope
yep (actually, yellow, not purple, thanks Clare)
Not in my experience, but I use clarifiers which remove the flavor in the water.
Also to clarify from comments, we did this for years before we started carrying a filter and it never damaged our containers. The plastic probably gets more damage from the sunlight caught during hiking than from the ...
8
The key is to always have a trash bag. Your most reliable backwoods method for clean water is condensation, either through natural action, or via a still of some kind. The primary component of this is having large enough suitable material to make said still. If you are depending on natural action, then surface area is still key. Assuming you left your ...
7
This doesn't directly answer your question and might not be to your liking, but it's what I do.
Basically, I don't bother trying to keep it cold. However, I do add flavoring. I find that flavoring helps a great deal in making it feel a lot more OK to drink warm liquid. Think of it sortof like tea if that helps. Actually I don't add the flavoring for ...
6
Outdoors you can dig a hole and build SOLAR STILL. It is quick and dirty but works very well and it is time tested.
If you have the bucks you could get a portable Reverse osmosis filter.
Electrolysis turns the salt water into oxygen and hydrogen then recombine them and the result is pure water.
6
Well it's been banned for sale in Europe for use in purifying water. (http://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2009/08/13/eu-ban-will-end-walkers-use-of-iodine) As that webpage mentions Chlorine is an alternative, but leaves a nasty taste (although I believe you can add another chemical to neutralise the taste)
Alternatives are a water filter, or UV light ...
6
If you run out half-way, perhaps you should bring twice as much? That being said...
One option for day hikes is to hydrate well before hitting the trail. Also, have readily available water for your return. e.g. leave a water bottle in your car.
An other option is refilling from natural water sources during the trip would allow you to consume an adequate ...
5
Mix the water in with lots of crushed ice - or even just use crushed ice to start with rather than water. I prefer this approach over just freezing the bottle outright because I find it easier to get the water out when I want to.
Other than that, I'd try wrapping cloth and then foil round the bottle (shiny side on the outside) which should help to keep at ...
5
10 inches of snow will give you 1 inch of water. Lets say you need to fill your container half way full to get a cup of water, well that means you're going to have to fill it full 5 times to get that cup, melting it each time. I usually budget about 4-5 times the fuel in the winter than I use in the summer.
You can speed things up by pouring a bit of ...
5
I've heard from numerable places that when climbing Denali, plan on a cup (About .25 L) of white gas per person per day. I would say that this should be a good rule of thumb for your trip as well. You might be able to get away with a bit less, but this is at least a good rule of thumb.
You probably won't need this much, but it's a good rule of thumb still. ...
5
I'll give this a stab, but there aren't any authoritative sources that I've managed to find on the subject!
The most I could really find are examples such as this one where people have drank it and felt no ill effects, and I haven't found a documented case of anyone drinking it and it being harmful to them. From a biological point of view the vine will at ...
5
I look at soft plastic drinking bottles as a great but slightly risky way to trim weight. Soft plastic should always be lighter than hard plastic, even if the difference is minor. The same applies to thin metal bottles which have the same benefits as hard plastic.
The risk is in the ability of the soft plastic to either puncture or explode under pressure.
...
5
One of the big differentiators in the past between hard and soft bottles was that soft bottles would absorb some of the flavor from drinks.
I'm not sure how much that affects soft bottles on the market today.
In contrast to what @JustinC said, I believe hard bottles are more likely to explode. Due to their rigidity they will hold their shape until the ...
4
For winter hiking, I prefer to wear a hydration bladder inside my coat and you can fill it with warm water if desired for an extra heat bonus when you start out.
When camping in the very cold, you can often find / treat water and just heat up enough for a day or half day and carry that water closer to your body. Also, a bottle inside a spare fleece, ...
4
I walked Hadrian's Wall recently carrying an 18kg backpack. It was hot, sunny weather for six of the seven days. I had a 2 litre bladder of water and by the end of each day I had ran out of water. That was not a nice feeling walking the last couple of miles without water. I have now upgraded to a three litre bladder.
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