Finding Water in the Wild
survivorsupply.com
survivorsupply.com
Second, there are some places where "look for the green" can get you to water that you can't drink. In particular, in southern Utah, there are some springs that contain arsenic. Some plants will grow in that water, but there are no animal tracks leading to it. There aren't even insect larvae in it. Nice clean water isn't necessarily a good sign.
Also, I hike a ton, many miles up many mountains. 3 liters really isn't that much weight at all, many camelbak style products support that volume, and will get you through a pretty long and arduous day. In my experience 12-15 miles in hot climates.
You certainly can get by with less, but that's not the point.
A lot of people drink out of habit, also a lot of drinks make you thirsty.
I don't think most adults should need more than 3 liters of water for a day long hike if they are already properly hydrated. The idea is to hydrate for 24 hours before you exercise. Then during the exercise, you take small sips occasionally. After an hour, you may need to begin replacing lost electrolytes. You also want to drink more often at high elevation and in the cold.
You can actually check how much water you'll need during exercise. Weigh yourself, exercise for an hour, and weigh again. The lost weight is the water you lost and need to replenish.
In any case, you should be peeing every 2 to 4 hours. If the water is clear, you're hydrated. If the water is dark yellow, you're really not hydrated.
Maybe you just hike differently to what I assumed.
I do the occasional hike anywhere from 4-8 miles and I usually drink an extra 1-2L for the day - that's how I reckon I'd double my intake for a 12-15 mile hike. I don't piss like a race horse, the hikes are in 95-105 degree weather, and I go at pace. To each their own.
https://www.goarmy.com/soldier-life/fitness-and-nutrition/co...
Military suggests roughly 4 liters for an active person, for an entire day. Even adding another liter for strenuous and in dry climates, that's far less than 8 liters.
If you're awake for around 16 hours, not sure why drinking an average of 500ml of fluids every 2 hours seems excessive to you. Or why drinking 1L of fluids every 2 hours (when your agenda for the day includes doing a 15 mile hike in hot weather) is considered a lot.
If what I've described above would make you go to the bathroom every 30 mins, perhaps see a doctor.
I appreciate the feedback, but perhaps don't tell me what to do.
What I've found is I can pretty trivially go a full day without any food or water, even when doing physical activity. It's just important to not start out already dehydrated, and a last meal full of moisture with enough bulk to take some time to digest doesn't seem to hurt.
But what I've found is day hikes in general where I'm expected back in civilization before dark don't require anything, and are a whole lot more enjoyable that way.
Recently I was surprised by a pair of trail runners out in joshua tree national park who had appeared out of nowhere at the end of a ~4-mile spur. It was a young fit couple carrying nothing with them at all, not even water, and were turning right around to run straight back with the intention of running another 8-mile loop before dark, according to our brief conversation.
They had done what my group of slow midwesterners carrying piles of food and water were taking all day to do in probably ~1 hour, simply by being unburdened and running it.
Keep in mind it only takes around 30-40 minutes to run 4 miles, so they were looking at spending a little over an hour without water before getting back to their vehicle.
I regularly run a 4 mile loop near my property by JTNP, it's not that big a deal until summer arrives then I have to do it at or after dusk to not overheat.
It's much more dehydrating to go slow and spend all day out there, in my experience.
Are you living there full-time?
I think there's a ton of potential in the CA deserts. The low prices, relative proximity to LA, ability for people to work remotely, decreasing prices of solar - I'm predicting a boom out there in the next 2 decades. The 1950s homesteaders fled because it was too inhospitable, but technology seems to have changed that.
I agree for the most part with everything you've said about the area's potential future. There's too much property crime out there currently though, and things could easily get a lot worse as the population grows. Wonder Valley is a pretty fragile society currently. Much of the harmless residents are elderly and unless more people like us fill in the vacuum they'll leave behind it will probably go down the crapper quite fast. Personally I'm hoping the nascent artist community takes over, but it's going to take some serious luck and effort for a sustainable economy to emerge.
In some climates that means having some form of basic shelter (wind sack, sleeping bag) so you won't die from exposure during the night, or due to a shift in the weather.
Any food you put in your body requires water to digest. If you can’t convert calories, your body will struggle to regulate core temp, so this is a danger in cold temps, not just heat.
Dehydration can impair judgement. If you get injured or lost with no way to get more water or food, you run a serious risk of dying, or at best requiring a very expensive rescue.
Experienced hikers have died mere hundreds of feet off trail [0], and that’s starting with food/water/gear/etc. If you are comfortable going an entire day without water, that is your prerogative, but to anyone looking to dabble in outdoor adventure, DO NOT attempt any hike without some kind of survival supplies. The cost/impact ratio is just ludicrous and should be a no-brainer.
[0]: https://m.ranker.com/list/lost-hikers-near-civilization/jaco...
Back in the 50's and 60's, the top Tour de France contenders would tell people not to eat or drink anything before or during a race, for fear that their stomach would start digestion and rob them of power. Several of them died on the tour essentially of exertion and dehydration.
Your body will not tell you when you are dehydrated until it is too late. Your mind can get clouded, you can get delusional, and then lost. You might try to wander around and an accident will happen. Or you might get really tired and decide to sit down and wait for someone to come by you. It's just stupid to go out for multi-hour hikes or runs in the wilderness without the essentials (such as water).
In case anyone was curious, four cyclists have died during the Tour de France. One drowned during a rest day (in 1910) and two crashed in different ways (in 1935 and 1995). The remaining cyclist died of heart failure on a hot day (in 1967), after mixing alcohol and amphetamines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Tom_Simpson
What I tend to see is people often preparing as if we're going backpacking for days just to hike 12 miles in a day, usually climbing up to some ridge from a beach then back down to the coast here around the SF bay area.
I'm not advising people stop preparing appropriately for the situation at hand, but it's worth noting that people tend to overpack and actually make it unnecessarily harder on themselves in the process. Increasing the likelihood of injury with the added load and altered center of gravity.
I used to carry way too much crap on the most trivial of hikes, because it was all crazy nature outdoorsy stuff. After getting more experienced, my actual requirements are much better calibrated to the task at hand.
The only advice I'd actually give newbies to the outdoors is to go with someone experienced and listen to what they recommend bringing.
At the end of the day I’m not even saying you’re wrong. We take calculated risks like not carrying water on a trail run, but they are still risks. Your original post came off like someone declaring a position of authority and ended stating an all day hike can be done without water. I just wanted to make sure people who saw that and might not know better saw another perspective.
Happy trails!
Not always - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin
Hmmm, I'd say oxygen supply in the blood is probably #2.
Maintaining core temperature is something you must actively manage, just as water intake is actively managed.
You can survive approximately: 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 hours of exposure (core temperature), 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food
Supposedly the special forces add to this "3 seconds after a bad decision."
New Orleans, Death Valley, and a lot of other places would like to have a word with you.
All things considered, those places are very rare. Surely you're not saying people should disregard advice that's accurate 99.99% of the time because of a handful of counterexamples?
New Orleans and Death Valley are particularly silly examples because New Orleans is not wild in the sense of the article, and a person will almost certainly know when they're in Death Valley and be aware of its unique situation.
The only reason to have a guide on how to find water is if a) you need a guide on how to find potable water (which this dismisses by saying "eh, you'll be filtering everything so any water is good enough" [1]), or b) you are in an arid or other similar environment where water is hard to find. In the later situation, endorheic basins are going to be substantially more common, and the problems with endorheic lakes as water sources are definitely worth mentioning.
[1] As others have noted, this isn't true. Water sources, particularly in endorheic basins, can be unacceptably concentrated in poisons such as agricultural runoff or arsenic, or too salty to drink.
And it's good practice to filter all water from natural sources because parasites like giardia can be deadly.
What? I used to live in Bergen - and even there we'd see a full week without precipitation parts of the year. If you're out of water, I can't imagine there are many places in the world where "waiting rain" is the surest way to ensure hydration within the next 72 hours? Especially if you go hiking in periods of "good" weather.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorheic_basin#/media/File:Oc...
Everything in gray is an area where simply following the current gradient of the land downwards will not lead you to the ocean. As you can see, this is a sizable chunk of the world.
I place things like that just below "I'm a programmer but I'm going to treat this tech talk like I'm a stand up comedian, which means it'll be neither funny or informative."
I don't know if this is the best blog to learn to survive from.