water melting on the go?

I need about 2 litres of water on a day trip. It would be nice not to have
to carry all that weight, especially when you consider you are surrounded by
water (sort of) and walking on the stuff all day. It would be good if you
could scoop up a cupful of snow and have it melt in a while for you to
drink. That way you would only have to carry a little water.

Has anyone worked out a good way of doing this?

Andrew Nairn wrote:

I need about 2 litres of water on a day trip. It would be nice not to have
to carry all that weight, especially when you consider you are surrounded by
water (sort of) and walking on the stuff all day. It would be good if you
could scoop up a cupful of snow and have it melt in a while for you to
drink. That way you would only have to carry a little water.

Has anyone worked out a good way of doing this?

I considered using a Platypus with a zip-open end for this purpose
on a fast all-day Sierra crossing, but I never did it. Open up the
Playtypus, fill it with snow, close it up and store it in an inside
jacket pocket. I don't see why it wouldn't work, there's plenty of
body heat to melt the snow.

Then again, if all you need is 2 liters, that's only 2 kg.
--
terry

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In article ,
Terry Morse wrote:
Andrew Nairn wrote:

I need about 2 litres of water on a day trip. It would be nice not to have
to carry all that weight, especially when you consider you are surrounded by
water (sort of) and walking on the stuff all day. It would be good if you
could scoop up a cupful of snow and have it melt in a while for you to
drink. That way you would only have to carry a little water.

Has anyone worked out a good way of doing this?

I considered using a Platypus with a zip-open end for this purpose
on a fast all-day Sierra crossing, but I never did it. Open up the
Playtypus, fill it with snow, close it up and store it in an inside
jacket pocket. I don't see why it wouldn't work, there's plenty of
body heat to melt the snow.

_ I've done this and it kind of works if you have some water in
the zip to start with and it's warm out. You need a really big
zip to do this, at least 3 liters if you want to get a drinkable
amount of water. It's kind of amazing to see the amount of dirt and junk
even in "clean snow" after it melts. You don't really save that
much weight over just carrying the water, since you're
carrying a roughly constant amount of water vs. a declining
amount of water. I was never able to get enough water for what
I need with this method.

_ I drink way more than two liters in a day, I try for 1/2
liter per hour of effort. I carry 1.5 liters and stop every three
hours to melt snow with a stove. At one person per stove this is
pretty quick, and also is just about the right time to take a 20
minute break. For me this works out well as I tend to go out a
little too fast and bonk after 4 or 5 hours.

_ Booker C. Bense

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I usually fill a 1 L wide mouth Nalgene water bottle with hot water.
After every drink I add snow to fill it up again. At some point the
water gets too cold to melt the snow fully, but by that time,
depending on air temperature and how hot the water was in the morning,
I have drunk around 2 L of water.

This method works well in the spring although I use it throughout
winter as well with a varying degree of success. One reason I have
been doing this for long time is that you get warm drink in the
morning when the air temperature is low and progressively colder drink
throughout the day as air temperature rises. One drawback is the taste
of hot water. I don't mind, many do. In that case try adding powder
Gatorade or some other flavored powder.

Hope this helps. See you in the mountains.
Martin Naroznik