[pct-l] Water Consumption - desert

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

I was pretty nervous at the start of my 2008 hike where I started in  
Campo. All this talk about the desert. I thought I should carry 5.5  
liters capacity and a 750ml wine bag for those really long waterless  
stretches. I threw out that wine bag early on when I realized the  
reality wasn't quite so brutal.

Let me put some of your minds at ease, if possible.

1) It's not all desert! You'll be walking through plenty of forest in  
Southern California.
2) It's not always hot. Sometimes it's downright cold. Often it's  
really very comfortable. It's also very dry so you're not pouring  
buckets of sweat streaming down your entire body. Not most people  
anyway.
3) You won't have to carry every drop you need to drink each day.  
Cook your water-hogging meal at the water source. Drink a liter at  
the source. Some kind of flavored drink helps it go down. Don't worry  
you'll pee it all out. You won't. If you do, it's because you are  
carrying and drinking too much water.
4) It really is okay to be a little bit thirsty. There's a difference  
between thirst and dehydration. A little mild dehydration won't kill  
you. If it did, I wouldn't have survived my high school years laying  
out in the sun all day at the local swimming hole without anything to  
drink all day.

Yesterday on a 16 mile strenuous hike (brutal compared to the gentle  
PCT) in Ventura County, I drank one liter plus 16 ounces. But the day  
was a bit cloudy and parts of the hike were shady. If it had been  
really hot, I probably would have drunk 3 liters and been a little  
dehydrated when I got home (reached my next water source) where I  
would have fixed myself a cold, tasty drink and some salty corn chips.