[pct-l] Water Usage

[Tracy Fisher]

Nice comments Chuck! Thank you.

> Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 06:23:56 -0800
> From: steeleye at wildblue.net
> To: pct-l at backcountry.net
> Subject: [pct-l] Water Usage
> 
> 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/
> _______________________________________________