Water bottles.

De-hydration is one of Philmont’s most common illnesses because of the very low humidity and high exertion. And it requires us drinking so much more than we are accustomed to.

By insisting our Scouts drink from one-quart water bottles we can see them drink and re-fill bottles and better monitor if Scouts are drinking enough water to stay well hydrated. If Scouts are drinking from hydration bladders we have no way of knowing how much water they drinking.  I’m sure NOT going to watch to see if they are “Clear and Copious”.

And by taking small sips from a hydration bladder and having a wet mouth some have been deluded into assuming they were staying hydrated.

“Philmont should be enjoyed, not endured.”

We made sure each crew member had at least 5 liters of carrying capacity.  We also had them put a sticker on the bottle they would use for drink mixes.  Drink mix bottles went into the bear bags, but only empty.

We also made sure everyone drank a bottle before we started hiking and had enough water to get to the next water source.  Some days, that meant we left camp with 2 or 3 bottles full, and other days, we were good leaving camp with only a small amount of water.  The key is to make sure you treat water the night before so that you are ready to go in the morning.

My plan is to have them bring a labeled, empty Gatorade bottle that would be the only one of the crew member’s bottles used for the drink mix. In theory, that should make it easy to know which bottle is used for drink mix and goes up in the bear bag.

I’m also banning hydration sleeves with tubes. The crew member doesn’t know how much water he has left and we can’t see if he’s been drinking enough.

The idea of making them finish water at the refill spot is good.  I’m going to make sure our crew leader knows to regularly check the crew’s bottles to be sure they’re drinking.

Thanks for starting this thread, it was on my to-do list…

Here’s my going in idea on water containers…

1.  Inspect what Scouts have & survey what they want.  Demonstrate and strongly recommend two, clear, 1L, Smartwater / pop bottles for weight, cost, proper treatment, and observing hydration.  Some love their heavy Nalgenes so OK; discourage bladders.
2. See how many other suitable bags/bottles we have within each crew, such as the Troop’s Gravityworks filter (8L), personal Platypus’s, etc.
3. As needed, buy each person a fold-flat, ~1 gallon jug for dry camps / stretches. Far lower cost but thinner than Platypus so expect some to break.  A four-pack for $11 of https://smile.amazon.com/Juvale-Collapsible-Water-Container-Foldable/dp/B075RYBR84/   or a 20 pack for $42 of  https://www.sorbentsystems.com/spoutpak.html#spoutbags
4. Teach, train, and apply the ideas above (e.g. drink lots, inspect often, fill belly then bottle, mix vs clean bottles, etc.)
5. Go to Philmont with each person packing 2x 1L bottles + ~1 gallon fold-flat bag.
6. Adjust actual gallon container numbers at base camp per who has what, who can carry what, actual itinerary assigned, water & weather conditions, Ranger guidance, etc.
7. At Philmont, purify with tablets.  Have one Gravityworks per crew as an option to take from camp depending if there will be times one can’t wait for full treatment (up to 4 hours) to finish, has particulates, etc.  (Filtered water + tablet = just few minutes wait time)

Advice appreciated.

Kevin, a lot of your text was jumbled???

So we couldn’t read it or get your point. Please clarify for us.

But the part about your Gravitywiorks,

“Have one Gravityworks as option to take from camp depending if there will be times one can’t wait for treatment to finish…”

Philmont Guidebook to Adventure 2018, page 40

“Philmont provides Micropur tablets that… that is effective at killing waterborne bacteria and viruses…(… -filters do not remove viruses.) If using a filter, you must also use additives, or boiling to kill all viruses.”

“Philmont should be enjoyed, not endured.”

If you “expect some to break”. You need to carry water bottles tried and tested that won’t break because you can’t afford to carry water containers you “expect to break”.

We once took some Scouts from another local troop whose culture was to only carry Platypus or Camelbak hydration bladders. No changing their long held beliefs. On day three one ruptured and he had no other means of carrying water. God was with him because I found an abandoned Nalgene bottle at the spring.

Well, that was an annoying copy-paste fail.  Hopefully, my edit works.

So Philmont has a bigger concern with viruses than Cryptosporidium & particulates?  Odd since viruses are not a major concern in US wilderness — https://thesummitregister.com/water-treatment-101-viruses/.   Crypto & Giardia is pretty much everywhere and tablets don’t work well (i.e. crypto ~4-hour wait, Giardia ~30 min) but modern filters do – https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/travel/backcountry_water_treatment.html

Maybe tablets fall into the cheap, easy, meh-good-enough category…..  like Polar Pur does at Northern Tier – its weak (iodine) but since lakes are clean, Pur is cheap enmass, and weight matters little its ‘best’ for crews.

I always expect some gear failures.  Balancing weight, redundency, and cost amoung a group of 12 is, ummm, fun.

Kevin,

I re-read your corrected post and it all sounds good. Thank you.

Philmont is all about CYA. If you use a water filter they also want you to use purification tablets “claimed” to destroy viruses.

They did use Polar Pure iodine. Now they use Katadyn Micropur tablets because it claims to “Destroy viruses and bacteria in 15 min., Giardia in 30 min. and Cryptosporidium in 4 hrs.”

Water carrying capacity. Every Philmont trek has one Dry Camp.  So we have (insist) every crew member have water carrying capacity for 4+ quarts of water, 2 on a daily basis and 2 more for Dry Camps.

Water is very heavy. So Rangers suggest you NOT cook & clean-up a Supper at Dry Camps because the amount of heavy water needed for that is too much to carry far with a full pack. But rather to swap and cook & clean-up a Supper at lunch time when you are at a good water source and to eat a Lunch that night at the Dry Camp.

So for Dry Camps you only need to carry enough drinking water to get you from your last water source to your next one, at least 4 quarts each.

Good advice here.

• When I went in ’17, all boys had 5 liters capacity, though certainly didn’t use it all daily.  Combination of bladders, Nalgenes, Platypus, Smartwater.  Most of our crew carried 2-liter Platypus containers as their extra water capacity…rolled up when not needed.
• I used a 3-liter bladder, one Nalgene, and a couple of 1 liter Platypus soft collapsable bottles.
• It was handy having the Nalgene for scooping water from creeks (much harder in a soft-sided container)
• Considering leaving the bladder at home in 2020 and adding a couple of Smartwater bottles…not sure yet.  I like it and drink plenty…boy’s don’t always drink enough, though, especially from a bladder.
• +1 on purifying your water at night.  Purify an extra liter so you can drink it first thing in the morning and not have to worry about refilling and retreating before hiking out.
• +1 use the Micropur.  You’re not going to filter 20-40 quarts a day for your crew.  You’re just not.  Even the advisor that brought his filter converted to Micropur by day two.  Out trek passed a lot of camps with potable water along the way.  May be more challenging on certain itineraries.
• Not all itineraries have dry camps.  Ours (29) did not.
• Most of us just took new Vitamin water bottles and used them for out drink mixes throughout the trek.

We handled the water by each scout leaving camp with 4 liters of water.  Some days we pulled into camp with all the water used.   Each scout carried two hard 1 liter bottles , mostly smart water and gator aid bottles. They also each carried an additional two liters in soft bottles.  Each scout also carried an additional empty 2 liter bottle for dry camps. We also would swap dinners for lunch to deal with dry camps.