Thirst and Backpacking

I recently went Backpacking in Shenendoah with my son and some friends. Before the trip started I had some trepidations, one of which was the large numbers of Timber Rattlesnakes that frequent this particular section of the Park. Not only is it one of the most isolated areas it also has a large population of these beautiful snakes.

I recently had read an article in Backpacker Magazine about phobias and a snake phobia article was included. It was very helpful, but many of the facts, I had already known, it was just reassuring. I believe the most common accident is falling, not necesarily from dizzying heights but many falls can paralyze or seriously injure a backpacker.

So, although I did walk right by a Timber Rattlesnake at night in my flip flops walking down the path to the stream, I had the most difficulty with thirst.
We started are trip hiking along a rocky ridge that was exposed to heat. My huge mistake was that I left one of my Nalgene back at the car. I discoved my mistake fairly soon but we were about a mile into the hike. When I discussed leaving the water bottle with the group, we decided that the first day would be hard for me, but that I could share other peoples water which would get me to camp without too much discomfort.

So, off we went. Me being the slowest in the group, I ended up by myself. After about 3 miles was down to 2 sips of water that I was hourding like gold. Finally I took the last sip and thought that one of the people in the party may wait for me. But no one in sight. I was thinking about watching Bear Grilis and Survivor Man (Les), and remember them talking about the dangers of drinking bad water. I remember watching their show's thinking "I would never drink that nasty stuff", or that I would not drink stream water unfiltered or treated. Well, I was starting to realize that it would be real hard, especially if you weren't well versed, to not drink bad water.

I was having all kinds of thoughts, like, wheter I would rather die of thirst or falling (Falling is actually a more common way to injure yourself in the woods "Backpacker Magazine"). I just started thinking about how far I had in me and how far there was to go, knowing that we had aprox. two more miles. I knew I could do this, however I wasn't happy about how thirsty I was, but I looked at it like a trial rite of passage.

My other thought was that if I didn't have a filter, that I would do like Les, and Bear, and dig a hole by the stream and let the water filter into the hole from the ground, naturally filtering the water. I also knew that I could make a still with the plastic I had and or tie the plasic around a pine branch like a big trash bag and collect the water at much later time. I definately didn't want to put forth that effort and as I looked up there was my son Dominic, with plenty of water! I was proud of my son for worrying about his old man. He has always come for me on the trail. It's funny how the simple things are the most gratifying.