As I prepare for my 1st AT thru hike I keep hearing about various trail tips that have saved time, space, etc. Ex. wrapping duct tape around your nalgene bottle.
Any trail tips/quick fixes that anyone can think of will be a great help.
Thanks!
JimmyP
The Gatorade bottles are far lighter than Nalgenes however I might add to the above that one should screw the cap on correctly , not cross threaded after a 23 mile day, before chucking it into your sleeping bag when full of hot chocolate. Also leave the lables on, the left over glue melts with hot liquids and makes for a rather sticky grab…if you use Gatorade bottles.
Bushwhack
Sorry Nullie, I was just typing that. They’re alright. We used them in '01 and have some cool memories with them, great for bottle stickers. They also weight a 1/4 pound. Not that I’m a gram freak or anything. I actually wore mine out.
Bushwhack
I found that I kept losing bottle caps and ended up duct taping the top which worked poorly. Nalgenes work well and seal tight. Cross threading and leaking of bottles was a hastle but I guess it can happen with nalgenes too although it never did. The gator and coke bottles just aren’t very durable. The wide nalgene top is also user friendly.
bamboo bob
Soda bottles aren’t as durable, but you never have to wash them when they get funky. Just buy a wide-mouth Mountain Dew, drink it and rinse it when you need a new one.
However, Nalgenes are better for pee bottles…I couldn’t imagine trying to hit a soda bottle’s mouth inside my bag!
Jeff
Soda bottles are actually incredibly durable (see “The Complete Hiker IV” for test results) and easy to replace if they do break. I carried one Nalgene to screw onto my filter and one soda bottle to save some weight.
Disco
I’m in favor of 1 liter gatorade bottles. unless winter backpacking in which case I use 1 nalgene incase I freeze to death (add hot water). The other 3 seasons I find plastic bottles better. Sure they get nasty, but if you switch out to new ones every couple weeks they stay fine. And durable…c’mon do you people throw them against rocks or something? Never had one break, leak, tear in 3000 miles of backpacking. Plus they come with a free drink too 
A-Train
Have the people that said Gatorade bottles are not durable ever actually used them when hiking??? Both bottles I started with lasted over 1000 miles and I only got rid of them because they started to get moldy, not because they’d worn down.
Jimmy P…in response to your original question…duct tape around bottles is good.
Tell it like it is
Bring some dental floss and a needle.A broken pack or blownout footwear is like having a flat tire.Those Campheed heel patches were good to have as well.Also “second skin”. A little green scrubby for your pot( cooking that is)I carried an extra pack buckle. Youll see what I mean if yours breaks. Plastic bottle of " Jim Beam" you can make a friend for life with that stuff in the woods.
Virginian
LOL. I have to say, that nalgene bunny restraint animal testing thing is one of the funniest things i have seen all week. I was going to just use a mountain dew bottle but now i have to get a nalgene. The mental picture will cheer me up considerably on rainy trial days.
West Virginian
All that germ crap with Nalgenes is just a bunch of bull. Seriously, when was the last time you got sick drinking from a nalegen bottle as opposed to a gatorade bottle? Heck, I didn’t even carry water bottles. Use PLATYPUS bladders. They’re lighter! They hold way more water! Take up infinetly less space! Way less bulky! Cost the same as a Nalgene.
Rowboat
Thanks for all the info on the Nalgene vs Soda bottle debate. I will probably bring a Nalgene for my filter and a soda bottle.
Virginian - thanks for the other tips.
Any other ideas out there?
Thanks again!
JimmyP
Duct tape on a hiking pole.
Pouring your dehydrated meals into ziplocs in town then eating out of them at camp, saves on washing up, i hate washing up, especially on a cold night. Just pour in boiling water and let it sit for about 10 minutes, it’s worked wonders for me on Lipton dinners and ramen. You can also throw in some other stuff to spice it up like…beef jerky or dried beans, whatever you can get your hands on. And no, the Ziploc never split on me.
You said you use a filter…it’s great to be able to filter directly into your hydration bladder, just take off the bite valve and pop the tube on your filter, that’s saved me alot of messing around and spilling of nalgene/gator bottles. Filtering can be a fiddly job sometimes. (Sorry, I’m just assuming you have a Pur filter).
Cheers
A-train wrote: "And durable…c’mon do you people throw them against rocks or something? "
A-train:
Funny you should mention… I did exactly that in 2003 at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. We were traversing (actually more like bouldering) a hot, dry 9000 foot ridge known as Tooth Ridge when my last liter of water (a full Nalgene) fell out of the pack’s side pocket and literally bounced down the mountainside, bouncing from rock to rock, making a funny thudding sound each time. It was the end of a very long hot day and we were schedulded to overnight on the dry mountain before descending to the next water source at base camp the next morning. I was totally parched and could have drunk gallons but had to ration water for the last 24 hours of our 10 day trip. I couldn’t believe I dropped it, what an idiot!
As I watched it fall in slow motion, I grimaced at each bounce of the Nalgene and its precious water on the sharp rocks, but after 6-10 bounces over a 75 yard fall it survived without even a scratch. Next day I hiked into base camp dry as a bone but the nalgene was intact.
I know Nalgenes weigh 4 oz empty but the toughness of these things is amazing. In fact I still use that exact same bottle as my primary container today, but also use a bladder for bulk storage.
RockyTrail
Jimmy P.: item #2: don’t bring a filter! There’s probably already numerous discussions of this so do a search, but a lot of the light-weighters either use chlorine dioxide (just look at your outfitter for it)or learn about what is a good source and drink straight from it with no treatment (I did it for 1500 miles will no ill effects).
tell it like it is
Careful with hot liquids in some of those soda bottles. We made the mistake of pouring really hot water into a 1 liter Pepsi bottle, and it SHRANK/melted. We ended up with a bottle that was closer to 16 ounces than 32.
We tried a bunch of different drink bottles after that, but we could never predict which bottles could take the heat and which could not. Sometimes one brand would be OK, and then the next bottle, same soda, treated to the same hot water would shrivel up. We just had to stop making hot drinks. Nalgenes work great for hot stuff.
Chipper & Jeff
Pouring really hot water into plastic (Nalgene, coke, pepsi) and then drinking it is a great way to test the any one of almost 100 chemicals on yourself. Different temps different chemicals, what fun. Most people have no reaction whatsoever, a few get cancer. Bottle roulette just another way to make hiking interesting.
Blue Jay