[pct-l] Water Usage

[CHUCK CHELIN]

Good morning,

 The mindset of most inexperienced desert hikers is, “How am I going to
cross hundreds of miles of hot, dry SoCal desert with just the water I can
carry.”  That question is very misleading.  When determining water needs,
individual water-to-water segments should be considered rather than the
whole passage; and each day can be different from the others.

Overall, I seem to use water at about the same rate my old pickup truck
uses gas:  About 10 miles per gallon.  That might indicate that a typical
20-mile day would require 8 liters of water, but I usually don’t have to
carry anywhere near that much.  Probably the hike that day wasn’t going to
be 20 miles between water stops– more likely it was only 15 miles.  That
reduces the necessary segment water to 6 liters.  I’ll drink one liter of
the 6 before I leave camp; that leaves 5 liters.  When I arrive at a water
resupply point later that day I’ll be thirsty so I’ll drink another liter
to re-hydrate.  That leaves 4 liters to carry, maximum. Sometimes it’s
necessary to camp for a night before reaching the next water point.  Foreseeing
that circumstance I carry a minimum of one – but preferably 1 ½ --
additional liters to provide for when I’m consuming water but not moving.

No-one should worry much about the first 10-15 miles past a water source; a
hiker can probably get that far even if they guess really wrong about what
to carry.  If there’s any risk it’ll be in the last 5-10 miles towards the
next water, or in the event a cache is empty.  So what are the odds of
running out of water under those circumstances and facing disaster?  Pretty
slim.  It’s easy to envision being prostrate in the sand, watching vultures
circling overhead, but we can all go further on a reduced water ration than
we think.  I don’t know of any PCT hiker who’s perished of thirst.  There
are also many other hikers on the same piece of several many times.  If
worse comes to worse, the PCT is still a trail through (loose) civilization:
It crosses roads, it passes within sight of dwellings and ranches with
stock water.  It’s aggravating, but a person in dire need of water can
usually walk or hitch a relatively short distance off-trail to find water
that isn’t listed on HalfMile’s Water Report.

The ideal situation is to leave a water point comfortably full, and then
arrive at the next point thirsty and with empty canteens.  I try to do
that, but most often I arrive with an approximate 1-liter margin,
particularly when the target point is a cache rather than a developed water
source.  That one liter may not be sufficient to get me to the next water
that I had planned upon so I re-examine the Water Report to find closer
options.

I don’t use every water point listed on the Water Report.  Going off-trail
to find some of the springs or other sources can be time-consuming and
laborious, so when I review the maps and the Report to plan my day I have
to decide:  Do I go light on water and plan to spend the time finding
springs, or do I carry some extra water weight and just hike on.  The
answer is seldom clear-cut, but I usually focus on certain high-probability
sources and ignore the others unless I must change plans and find them.

Most USGS quad maps – like those upon which HalfMile’s maps are based --
show a great many symbols denoting the believed presence of a spring – even
in the hardcore desert regions.  Sometimes there is just a note on the map
saying “Spring”, but usually a spring is denoted by a symbol made up of
tiny circle that has a sperm-like wriggle-tail extending in the probable
direction of flow.  I do not try to find those designated springs on the
ground, because they very likely don’t exist in a useable form.  Sometimes
the spring symbols are added based upon substantiated reports of usable
water, but the maps are largely created from aerial photos.  A photo
interpreter/map-maker seeing a bit of green vegetation near the head of a
canyon or other drainage is likely to assume there is water in that area,
and so note on the map.  Yes, there may be water – 20 feet underground
where only the tree roots can find it.

Departing a water point with 10-15 pounds of additional weight is certainly
noticeable, but it does give considerable satisfaction knowing that the
next miles are provided for.

Steel-Eye

-Hiking the Pct since before it was the PCT – 1965

http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye
http://www.trailjournals.com/SteelEye09/