My very first day of hiking on the PCT will be in an arid desert. There is water creek at mile 4.4 and possible water at mile 6.0. After that, there is no water until after a huge climb into Lake Merino at mile 21. Water is something I will have to prepare before I can drink it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the different Facebook pages for the 2018 hikers, there have been a number of discussion on which tool to use. I chose the best in class Sawyer Squeeze<\/a>. I ordered my before I did my first training hike on the IAT in Taylor County. When it first arrived, I gathered some Milwaukee River water and ran it through it. It worked great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, I discovered a major limitation on my first shakedown. At my very first water stop, the source I found had quite a bit of stuff floating in it. To save weight, I did not bring anything to screen the water, nor the method to flush it. My Sawyer was degraded almost immediately. It took nearly 15 minutes to filter a liter. My initial attempts to flush it were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On my second hike, I had the means of properly flushing it and it worked great. I’ve seen some videos on using the sport cap from a Smart Water Bottle to flush the filter, but for now, I’ll bring the syringe. I also designed a simple contraption to filter the bigger chunks before I start filtering. I cut the top off a water bottle and using a bandana, I can significantly reduce the larger solid deposits in the water. The bandana ties to my backpack. The water bottle is slightly larger than a smart water bottle, to it takes no room in my pack and the extra weight is essentially nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The big decision I have been mulling over is whether to take a backup method of purifying water. The most likely way my Squeeze would fail is if it freezes. I’ve slept with it in my pocket on freezing nights. I have Aqua Mira drops as a backup. However, they weigh three ounces. As of now, I’ve decided to not take a backup. Three ounces is three ounces. In a worst case scenario, I would just drink the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My very first day of hiking on the PCT will be in an arid desert. There is water creek at mile 4.4 and possible water at mile 6.0. After that, there is no water until after a huge climb into Lake Merino at mile 21. Water is something I will have to prepare before I … Continue reading Some Thoughts on Water<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pct2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2123"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2952,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2123\/revisions\/2952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}