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Posted by Bill S on January 28, 2008 at 7:19:09 pm EST
In reply to What's the most water you have lugged around? posted by MTB416 on January 28, 2008 at 5:51:55 pm EST

In principle, a gallon of water is 8 pounds (remember the old rule - "A pint's a pound, the world around"?). A gallon is 4 quarts, with a quart being 2 pints, so 8 pints to the gallon, and thus 8 pounds (plus container, which can be a couple ounces for the foldable mylar type, or 3 or 4 pounds for some of the heavy duty jugs).

I have had to carry 2 to 3 gallons several times on desert trips that headed to a dry camp, with no known water sources on the way. Going into Grand Canyon to Tapeats, I have always carried at least 2 gallons (per person), since there is only one spring (sometimes dry) on the way down to the river (and you need filtration at the river, unless you like boiled mud to drink on the way out, so carry a filter). Most I have carried is 4 gallons on a multi-day trip in Death Valley in summer (and each person carried this much - but luckily, we didn't need sleeping bags, we used tarps for shade during the hot part of the day, and we did most of the travel at night).

Before you start out on a trip where you need a lot of water, I strongly advise you do a series of similar, much shorter trips to see if you can really deal with it. Count on getting dehydrated, and have an evacuation plan with a crew standing by until you can thoroughly check out everything. We worked up to the Death Valley trek in half-day increments, and were all very fit before we even began that.

I am assuming you intend this in summer and desert conditions, or along some coastline where you have only salt water available, since in winter you will have problems with melting frozen water (either snow or ice, and your water bottles will freeze), and virtually anywhere else you can purify water from various sources (some of which are pretty gross, but usable).

Where is it you are going on foot that you won't have water available for multiple days, anyway?

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