Water

[Itchy_Ivy]

I was wondering if you have ever ran out of water while camping. Do you bring bottled water camping or do you use whatever you find a the campsite? If you bring water, how much do you bring?

[dinosaur]

Well, you carry what you can but water is pretty heavy. I'm sure the bushape, refrigerator, or IndianaHiker could tell you exactly what it weighs. I tend to be more practical than scientific. I'm not above boiling the water I find. Your water needs are going to be based on how fast you lose it. This in turn is a function of weather conditions and how hard you are working in its' midst. Pace yourself.

[Jade]

Hey dinosaur: water weighs about 10 lbs/gallon.

We always take water purification tablets with us: they're an iodine-base that doesn't leave the water tasting ookie, so you can collect water from lakes or dew or rainfall and still make it potable without resorting to boiling it.

[Seven]

It depends on how long my trip is going to be. If it is just a couple days i take 2 gallons of water. If hiking I take my liter bottle plus a 20oz and usually have enough to last the hike.

[le Metis]

First, water weighs about 8 pounds to the gallon. In desert backpacking the rule of life is to always be walking towards water. Sometimes for these dry and arid sections it's best to prestage both supplies and water such as backpacking the El Camino Diablo, or sections of the Mojave. Doves fly toward water in the early morning, and cotton wood trees are sometimes an indicator of water at the surface, or a short distance below ground, and 7.5 topos can reveal possible places based on contour lines where water can be found.

In other areas such as those found on the East coast, dew can be sopped up with a sponge, and rain can be collected.

[Jade]

It just dawned on me why le Metis and I gave a different weight for a gallon of water: we aren't talking about the same size gallon!!!

I'm Canuck- and an imperial gallon is bigger than a U.S. gallon, and weighs about 10 lbs; the U.S. gallon does weigh about 8 lbs..

Sea-water can be boiled and the 'steam' collected from it, that's another source of clean drinking water, if you are on a coast.

[lbean]

We bring a small amount of water, we have the tablets, or we use what ever we happen to find. Unless we are camping near a natural drinkable spring. Then we bring empty jugs and fill up there.

[freds_shed1964]

great idea

[campershell]

We compute more or less how much drinking water we need for the duration of the camping trip and bring enough for everyone. We boil water from any source if it is not enough or we pack up and go home.

[hikinmike]

I carry a filter when packing. On day hikes i've used a straw-like filter that was issued to some NATO troops (getting hard to find). There are water bottles with fitted filters these-a-days. Gonna try one.