Water carrying capacity

[David Y]

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 very 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 pass through at a camp with a good water source and Camp Sump and to eat a Lunch at supper time 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.

On many of our treks where we come in over the Tooth of Time and pass through (often dry) Shafers Pass at lunch time and our last night is at (always dry) Tooth Ridge Camp we modify our menus days before to eat some Suppers at lunch time so we have a couple of Lunches for Shafers Pass and Tooth Ridge Camps.

[David Thomas]

When I went SUL (Stupid UltraLight) in the Sierra in the 1980s (no stove, no tent, no sleeping bag), one downside was my dinners looked an awful lot like my lunches and that got tiring after the first week.  Still, it’s a handy trick to save weight and time, or in this case, to avoid the pound-miles of hauling water.

Does anyone factor in that you need less water to hike a stretch with a 10-pound base weight than with a >30-pound base weight?  That’s very true for me.  And the previous post about starting early to avoid the heat of the day is very true and worth at least a quart of water.

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