I just listened to a guy who thru-hiked the PCT & said he usually carried 6 liters of water a day. Is this about right? I never carried much over 2 liters a day on the AT. I understand with Desert Hiking I will need more water. Just trying to get an idea how much water I’ll need to carry. Any info will be greatly appreciated.
Scott
We carried between a gallon and a gallon and a half each for a large part of the trail. You won’t need to carry a lot in the Sierras and Washington, but the rest of the trail is likely to be hot and fairly dry. Remember, in the desert it’s not only hot, it’s also exposed with very little shade. A lot of hikers will rest during the hottest parts of the day (bring a book), but it still takes a lot more water than on the cooler and shadier AT.
Ginny
I typically carried 4-5 liters per day though the desert. Most days I had a bunch leftover but 2005 was a wet and cool year in SoCal. There were a couple of days when I was very glad to have that much water, regardless of the added weight. Through the Sierras you’ll never need to carry more than 2 liters at a time. There’s another long dry stretch along the Hat Creek Rim in NorCal (don’t let the creek in the name fool you). Then there are a few more 20+ mile waterless stretches in Southern and Central Oregon. We’ve been having a lot of late winter rains here in CA so that’s good news for the water supply in the desert. At the kickoff Meadow Ed gives a water report every year. You can even get a printed out copy with the latest info on SoCal water sources. And the desert isn’t always necessarily hot. I only experienced a handful of hot days and some of the coldest nights I had on the trail were in SoCal, but every year is different.
ducky
That’s about right for starting out on the PCT. If you’re new to desert hiking, a good rule of thumb is 1L per 5 miles, then add 1.5L for each camp. As you get more experience with how you handle dry conditions and heat, you may be able to decrease that. I know that I can stretch it to 10 miles per liter if I have to, though it’s not comfortable.
Garlic
Scott - How much you end up carrying will depend on a bunch of factors. Here are just a few:
(1) How ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ & ‘hot’ California is the year you hike.
(2) How much you sweat on any given day. (keeping cool is key)
(3) How ‘fit’ you are: the better shape your in, the less water you will need.
(4) How good your water source info is. (But even with ‘good’ info, you might be unpleasantly surprised at times… so you can never totally rely on water cache info)
In '97 I carried more than 2 liters only once: the area near near Kelso Valley Road (Data Book mile 616). This was before a trail angel named Mary started putting caches through this section.
In '05 I never carried more than 1 liter. '05 was an exceptionally wet year for SoCal (an alltime record south of L.A.) and there was quite a bit of water even in the ‘desert’ sections. Billy Goat counted 17 water sources between Campo and Lake Morena just before the Kickoff!
I hate carrying water since its obviously so heavy. And I know my ‘comfort limits’ - I can comfortably walk 10 miles on a liter of water in the desert in hot conditions. When I ‘camel up’ at a water source, I normally don’t need to dip into my 1 liter reserve until I have walked around 10 miles. This gives me a 20 mile range on 1 liter (comfortably - of course I could go much further if I had to). In '05 I didn’t run into a single gap that was greater than 20 miles.
Of course I was gambling with this strategy (not with safety, but rather comfort) In '05 the gamble paid off - I didn’t lug around extra pounds in my pack.
In '97 I got burned once - a listed spring had been recently vandalized (blown up with dynamite). I ended up walking in 90 degree heat much of a day & spending that night without water… Not at all pleasant, but I was physically fine & I’ll never forget how wonderful the cold spring water tasted when I finally found water the following afternoon.
In Ray Jardine’s PCT Handbook (before he wrote “Beyond Backpacking”) he had a chapter called “The Psychology of Thirst.” In this chapter he mentioned some incredible examples of individuals (like the French Legion) crossing hard core desert regions (Sahara, etc.- over one hundred miles) without water.
You’ll eventually find what’s the ‘right’ amount for you personally. I certainly wouldn’t recommend carrying just one liter - I did this in an exceptionally wet year & I know how much water I generally need from former experiences.
As you gain experience in the desert, you’ll figure out what’s the best amount to carry for any given mileage & temp.
Some hikers find that carrying extra water in their hand in a water bag alleviates the burden of carrying the extra weight on their back.
Here’s the current PCT water info for SoCal (updated frequently):
Have a great hike!
freebird
I sure hope we’re talking about 6 liters total for the day, and not 6 liters all the time.
I never carried more than 5 at a time, and that only 2 or 3 times the whole trail. 2 or 3 liters were common, and in the Sierra never ever ever more than 1 liter. The water reports are so thorough these days that with a little planning, there’s no need for these epic water carries i always heard about. Just know the difference between a SURE water source (streams and springs that have never ever been reported dry) and a POSSIBLE water source (caches, perennials). If you get super up-to-date info, like for instance from a southbounder you deem trustworthy, some usually “possible” sources can be treated as “sure” water sources.
Then, if you’re heading towards a sure water source, walk DRY for a few miles. It’s so silly to be guzzling water that you’ve carried all day when you’re standing 20 minutes from a flowing stream or a spigot. Yet i swear that was the norm out there, at least in the year i hiked. People really were afraid to drink that last half-liter.
Caution: i don’t recommend this approach in remote areas, where you don’t expect to see other hikers, etc. Fact is, with my advice, occasionally you mis-plan and run out a few miles early. If in that situation you turn an ankle or something, and you’re in a remote place (not the PCT during thru season), you’re screwed.
markv
We always had the capacity to carry 7 liters each. I’m not saying we carried that much very often, because it’s pretty painful to do so, but if we needed to, we could. There’s one stretch that’s something like 32 miles without any real water sources. If you’re in the thick of the thruhiker crush, counting on a water cache can be a big mistake. We got burned once with that game and it made for a pretty unhappy half day and night with limited water in 100+ degree heat. Not fun. When a thruhiker doesn’t want to eat dinner, there’s something amiss - dehydration, in that case.
You will get a feel for how much water you’ll need as you go along. Freebird’s absolutely right. It all depends on the temperature, wind, your own water needs, and your estimation of water availability. Our year was pretty hot. Since we never let ourselves depend on a cache after that one episode, we often carried 6 liters each out of a water source. We treated a cache as a bonus opportunity to make a liter of Crystal Light or something and downed it on the spot.
We did make an effort to avoid carrying extra, just as we aimed not to carry food into town On the other hand, a little cushion can be a good insurance policy. Things happen out there, and you can’t expect that someone will always be there to bail you out.
Chipper & Jeff
Thanks for the information everyone. I usually start a hiking day with a 2-liter MSR Dromedary bag. On the AT, I usually never used that much water & had some left over to cook with at the end of the day. I found I could get by with less water than most of my fellow hikers. Although I hate to carry that much extra weight, I think I’ll have to add to my water carrying capacity for the PCT. Thanks again.
Scott
Carry a container that probably won’t leak also like a 2 ltr soda bottle with water for the long stretches. When your bags disasterously leak one day while hiking or sleeping. At least the 2 ltr bottle will be full. I use a platypus bag with a hose, and these leak all the time. Get an on off valve to. One night I slept on my hose and woke with 2 ltrs in my tent just past Mojave.
As far as capacity Hydro and I carried sometimes 8 ltrs a piece in the desert. Dehydration sucks. We ran out twice; once at mile 18(we camped at mile 5, and once on Death Canyon Day mile 730’ish. Very few natural sources in 07
Guino
I hiked the first 150 miles last year. My carrying capacity was 7 liters. I carried 1 liter per 3 miles of trail to the next reliable water source, plus an additional liter for a dry camp. I drank it all, and it still wasn’t enough. I was hiking in temps over 100 degrees, and I sweat heavily.
7 liters is a lot of weight, but if you drink it like I did, the weight goes down fast.
Scott Bryce
The most I ever carried was about 5 or 5.5 liters. I never needed that much. I’m hiking again this year and I plan not to carry more than 3 at any time. I don’t think I drink as much as some people do, though.
Water is a really personal thing, apparently. The good news is you can learn your requirements along the trail to some degree, although there’s a huge psychological component involved. I have to admit that much of my excessive water carrying was psychological more than addressing a real physical need.
Piper
I don’t ever remember carrying more than 2 liters the entire hike, but 2005 was indeed a very unusual year. LA got 50% more rain over the previous winter than Seattle! ALL the seasonal creeks were running. I remember the Angeles Crest Highway being particularly entertaining due to the utter destruction and intense erosion that had been caused by avalanche after avalanche over the winter.
Anyway, more on topic I think one thing to keep in mind about water is not to be overly afraid of what is in it. If you refrain from treating good sources of water and just chug you will tend to drink more at the source (we all hear that little tick-tick at stops) and need to carry less on average. Almost all of the water sources on the PCT are infinitely better than what comes out of the tap in town. Camel up on the elixir!
Naturally this seems unwise our over-cautious world but I think we probably treated water less than a dozen times on the entire trail and never had any hint of illness. I remember some lakes tasting a bit warm for total mental comfort, but we really only used any treatment when livestock was around. Southern OR comes to mind. Check on the maps where the water is coming from. Because it is the Pacific CREST Trail, water has usually not flowed through much.
My belief is our bodies should really naturally be able to handle the small amount of pathogens present in mountain ecosystems and my trail experience supported this. I think a little exposure to these natural agents is probably even healthy. Drink in the views and drink up the water! You are on a ride through the real world after all.
Worth noting again: our experience in Southern Cali was fast and clear streams.
Hans Berg