Keep your Stuff Dry.

When it begins to rain, and the rain begins to soak through your pack, the water in the rain starts to get everything in the pack wet.  Remember, water weighs a bit over 8 lbs per gallon, so your pack can quickly turn into a lead weight if you're not careful. 

One solution to this is to buy a raincoat for your pack.  Called pack covers, they usually have drawstrings to cover your pack so that it doesn't get wet.  Allen & Mike, however, have a better idea.  Use a heavy duty garbage bag and put it inside the pack.  It will save on weight and on the pocket book. 

The downside is that the pack itself will get wet in the face of a rainstorm.  The upside is that if needed, the bag can be used for many other things.  One rule of backpacking is to bring as many multi-use items as possible. 

Gear: Not an Emergency Poncho

Water on the inside of your body is vital to health and well being.  Water on the outside can be annoying, heavy or at worst, dangerous.  Being cold and wet while hiking all day isn't really my idea of fun.

Mount Rainer sits on the windward side of the Cascade Mountain Range, and as such, forces moist air upward over the range as it moves inland.  As air moves upward, it gets colder and as it get colder, it gets drier.  Thus producing precipitation, hopefully rain.

We have to be prepared for all types of weather conditions on the mountain, including rain.  So rain gear is an essential when those summer squalls hit.  If just taking a day hike, one can easily just pack an emergency poncho, little more than a plastic bag to wear over you to keep out the majority of the water.  However, this poncho is frail, easily ripped, and traps moisture inside as effectively as it traps it outside.  What we really need is some good rain gear.  Although I own about 6 rain coats (I do live in a rain forest, you know), I'm not certain what I'm going to bring yet.

So, I'll keep my Emergency Poncho in my fanny pack (for those day trips) and figure out something else to take along before I head out. 

Gear: Water Filter

Another way to get potable water from a stream is to use a water filtration device.  The one I use is a a Katadyn Hiker model.  When assembled, you pump the water through a prefilter in a water source (which gets out all the big stuff), then through a 0.3 micron glassfiber (no cleaning needed) Activated carbon granulate filter which strains out all the bad stuff.  (Can you tell what part of that sentence is marketing buzzmumble?) 

The capacity of this model is approximately 1 quart per minute, so generally it takes longer to set up than to fill a bottle.   Over the life of the product, the filter is rated for 200 gallons.  Shouldn't need another one for this trip. 

Neither the chemical method or the filter method is foolproof, so the experts recommend using both.

Unfortunately, this filter weighs about a pound.  However, if it provides quick and easy water source, and keeps me on the trail and out of the hospital, I'll gladly carry it.

Gear: Water Treatment

The water you're going to get on a hike isn't from a tap, doesn't come from a treatment plant, and doesn't come in a cute plastic bottle that you can get by the case at Costco.  It comes from nature.  By nature, that could mean glacier runoff, rainfall, snow melt, or underground spring.  Needless to say, it's full of contaminants from air pollution and whatever interesting chemicals it runs across as it finds its way downhill.  (Remember, Mount Rainier is a volcano, and volcanoes are the largest sulfur dioxide polluters in Washington.)   

Although the water may have chemicals, the larger issue is the bacteria that lives in the water.  Water contaminated with chemicals tastes really bad, but it generally will keep you alive.  Water contaminated with bacteria will make you really mad in a few hours while you're emptying your digestive system any way possible.

The classic response to this is to boil the water.  In the field, though, this presents some problems with the amount of time it takes (up to an hour), the fuel it uses (which you're carrying on your back), and the non-transportable nature of the process.  It's hard to carry something when it's on fire.

So part of any backpacker's kit is more chemicals to kill off all those pesky bacteria.  The bottle with the white cap contains Tetraglycine Hydroperiodide which you add to the water and let dissolve for 30 minutes.  You then follow it with a pill from the bottle with the yellow cap that precipitates the iodine and other chemicals out of the solution.  It is then mostly safe to drink.  You can stop, fill up your bottle, pop the pill in it and be on the trail in a matter of minutes.

God's Little Tricks, or Water.

Hiking up and down hills takes a lot of energy.  With that as well, the human body uses quite a bit of water via persperation, or old fashion sweat.  According to Allen & Mike, you will need 3-4 quarts of water per day.  That translates into 8.35 lbs of water that you'll either need to carry with you or find along the way.

Of course, you will need to carry the water in something.  We have a cute little stainless steel water bottle that we picked up at a store somewhere on sale.  It looks to hold about 16 fl oz. and weighs about 5 oz.  However, according to Allen & Mike, carrying the fancy water bottle is just a waste.  They suggest that you take an old plastic Coke bottle, clean it out, and use it for your water supply.  The plastic bottle weighs only about 1 oz. and you won't be using it long enough for nasty chemicals to leach out too much.

I'll probably end up with the Coke bottle method, since I regularly do what you're not supposed to do and refill plastic water bottles from the tap.  I also save quite a bit of money not buying a skid of water every week.

The unfortunate part about finding water on the trail, though, is that it's usually at the bottom of the hill.  The trail usually crosses a stream, then goes up to the top of a ridge, where it's barren.  I guess I'll just have to figure on carrying that 8.35 lbs of water up the hill with me on a daily basis.

Thanks, God.  Gravity is fine most of the time, but sometimes it's just a bit inconvenient.

Water Week.

This week I'll be blogging about Water, one of the four ancient elements.  Air is very important while hiking, though there's not much to say about it.  Fire is forbidden in the back country, visions of Yellowstone going up in flames is enough to make any ranger cry.  Earth, well that's important too, but other than walking on it, it's just kind of dirt. 

Water, on the other hand, is something special.  Hikers have to plan water stops.  Without water, a hiker cannot last long.  Water's heavy and it's vital.  So during hiking, you have to plan to take water. 

An average hiker will require between 3 and 4 quarts of water in a day.  Of course, that varies depending on temperature, the exertion level, and a number of other factors.  Needless to say, good trail guides will denote where a water stop is.  And usually when they talk about water stops, they aren't talking about a faucet in the middle of nowhere.  It's a source of water.  What you do with it is, well, that's the trick.