Water… Need Water

Let’s complete a brief water consumption exercise, shall we? Stop a moment and think about what you use water for on an average day, how often, and how much? Chances are if you’re reading this, you don’t have to think about this hardly ever. You can walk over to the tap in your kitchen or bathroom, grab a filtered pitcher out of your refrigerator or it comes filtered straight from a dispenser built-in to your refrigerator, and have an unlimited supply of clean, potable water.

Wake up, use the bathroom, flush the toilet, wash your hands. Wash your face, brush your teeth. Make a hot cup of coffee or tea, prepare breakfast, drink water, fill up your water bottle. Without even a shower in the morning, how many liters of water do you think you would have already utilized? How much water was used to clean your fresh clothes you put on? This is just within the first hour of waking up.

What if you had to filter or treat all of your water consumed or risk being sickened? What if you had to carry all of the water you will need for half a day or even an entire day? Or even longer? If you are a thru-hiker, then this will be one of the most important things you calculate each and every day.

Explore more water tips for on trail written by Daniel Gerken here.