How much is water worth?
The most important item to take with you when you leave the house for an outing in the desert or mountains is water. The second is more water and the third is even more water! You can survive in the desert without almost anything else but you must have water. The more the better. After all the years I’ve spent in the wilderness, I can count on one hand the number of times a fire was important for my survival but, I can’t remember one time that water was not.
There were many times when I participated in SAR searches and/ or rescues for someone that had run out of water. Some made it, some didn’t. Recently, we heard in the news about a group of fitness instructors from Kansas that went hiking in the Superstition Mountains near Phoenix in the middle of summer. They were overcome by heat after just a couple of hours of hiking. If they’d had plenty of water, they could’ve cooled themselves by dousing themselves with it. Instead, some of them had to be airlifted to medical help.
I always carry at least two water jugs. One to use on the hike out and one to get back to my vehicle. I think of the second jug like a reserve tank on a motorcycle. I use clear plastic liter or larger jugs that are able to withstand a strong blow. Don’t want the jug to burst if I should fall on it like the thin 16-ounce water bottles carried by many.
What I really dislike are the Camelback water bladders carried in backpacks. Too many hikers I rescued had used a Camelback water system without a second jug. Because the Camelback does not have a “fuel” gauge, they didn’t know how much water was left until they ran out and then they’re in trouble. Because I carry the jugs in my backpack, I have to take one out to get a drink and know exactly how much water I have left. This way I know when to turn back. Water is like fuel in the desert, without it, you won’t get far.
On several occasions when I tried to tell someone hiking in the desert that they needed plenty of water, they shrugged me off. They would say they were testing their endurance or they had hiked much further in their home state. The National Park Service, with the occasional help of Search & Rescue, were rescuing so many people that ran out of water on the trail to Arizona Hot Springs near Hoover Dam that they have to close the trail in summer. Even though there are big signs at the trail head alerting people to the need to take ample water, many still start hiking with only a single 16-ounce water bottle.
A trick I use on a hike that goes in and out on the same trail is to stash a gallon jug near the trail after an especially hard part. On the hikes I have made into Havasupai Falls, I stash a gallon of water per person at the bottom of the switchbacks, after approximately the first mile of hiking. On the way out, after hiking the flats and getting hot in the afternoon sun, that gallon comes in handy to splash water on our necks and take a big drink before starting the climb up the switchbacks.
I have seen bodies with bloodied hands from digging in the desert washes trying to get water and cannot think of a worse way to die. How much would you pay for a drink of water if you’re lost and dehydrated?
