View Full Version : Drinking water tempetature
randy.shopher
05-20-2018, 22:47
How hard is it to get used to drinking tepid water on the trail. Does ice in your water become a delicacy? I know much comes from cool sources but after toting it a mile or two it has to warm up.
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Odd Man Out
05-20-2018, 23:23
Never been a problem for me. I have found that backpacking has the life-changing benefit of learning to not making yourself miserable by wanting unnecessary things you can't have. You can be happy or miserable. It's your choice.
Siestita
05-20-2018, 23:36
Perhaps a thread on this subject could enliven White Blaze's 'Humor Forum'.
For me backpacking, or for that matter simply doing low mileage back country camping, is very enjoyable. That's because I have never tried to replicate the "comforts of home" out in the woods.
Not having iced beverages to drink during warm days is the least of the attitude adjustments that backpackers continually make. Even during my very first backpacking trips, made back during the Paleolithic Era, I did not even notice the temperature of the water that I drank. I was instead preoccupied instead with learning how to **** in the woods, feel comfortable walking alone there, and getting sleep at night lying on the ground in an initially unfamiliar environment.
I asked the same question:
https://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php/126646-Keeping-water-bottle-cool-good-idea-or-waste?highlight=
garlic08
05-21-2018, 07:42
I never give it a second thought. Water is water. But it bothers my one of my desert hiking partners. He says he can never feel refreshed after drinking warm water. But he sucks it up and goes hiking anyway.
I chemically treat with chlorine dioxide rather than filter so I have to wait a bit to drink my water on trail rather than drink it fresh from the source when it's at its coldest. This has never bothered me much. But it's also true that I avoid hiking during times of year when it's really hot. I discovered on my last section hike that this makes a difference. It turned unseasonably hot on the last four days of that early May hike. Temps in the high 80s or hotter. And by the third day I found myself fantasizing about COLD drinks. You know, the way long distance hikers start obsessing and talking about certain foods. Well, that was me, only my hankering was for something as simple as cold water.
So when I came to the first road crossing after Dragon's Tooth and unexpectedly found a cooler of ice cold drinks in the back of a pick-up with a sign telling hikers to help themselves, it's difficult to describe the pleasure I experienced at downing a half-liter bottle of ice cold Aquafina. It was perhaps the single happiest moment I experienced on that particular hike. So I now empathize with those with a yen for cold water in a way I wouldn't have a month ago.
Water temp doesn't bother me. I have been known to drink water that has been sitting in a car in direct sunlight all day. Only time I have ice in anything is at a restaurant. All about what you are used to.
Gambit McCrae
05-21-2018, 09:24
Its a commin outta the ground, its quite cool. If you don't spend time filtering all your water when you get it, and only a bottle at a time, then if you haven drank the dirty water by the time you get to the next source then you can dump it out, and get cold water again.
Old Hiker
05-21-2018, 12:32
Sometimes was a problem, even when I was thirsty. I would add a sleeve of some kind of flavoring - preferably something with a little nutrition.
After filtering and adding the chem tabs, I had to wait a minimum of 30 minutes. Usually, it wasn't TOO warm. Between far off water sources is when it got warm(ish).
Berserker
05-21-2018, 12:36
I do the majority of my water drinking around water sources, so it's usually pretty cold. Any sipping in between sources the water usually still stays cool unless it's a super hot day. When it does warm up I'm usually so thirsty that I don't really notice once I've been out a few days. What I do notice on a hot day is how cold the some water is right out of the source.
Runner2017
05-21-2018, 13:08
In some parts of the world, people only drink warm/hot broiled water. Warm/hot water, actually, has more benefit to your body. If you do long distance thru-hike, you will soon learn to let go all the unnecessary things you believe you definitely can't live without.
I started my "desert career" in the Middle East in summertime.
It was terribly hot.
The only thing I cared about water was, that it was not too hot to burn my mouth (which happened once).
From then on I like drinking warm or hot water more than cold one.
Here in the Alps, most water sources are so cold that you can't guzzle it down, you can take small amounts at a time only, which easily leads to dehydration (if a mild one).
I like much more like the luke-warm water from my drinking bottle.
gracebowen
05-21-2018, 15:02
I was wondering the same thing. I have a couple containers that keep water cold for 24 hours. The problem is they are heavy.
I'm seriously thinking about taking the weight penalty and bringing the small one as a luxury item.
BuckeyeBill
05-21-2018, 15:29
You can make a cozy for your water bottle. I have one for my coffee bottle and my water bottle. Keeps them nice and hot/cold for several miles.
You may build a desert fridge :
Keep the cozy wet and hang the bottle in a shady windy place.
globetruck
05-21-2018, 20:16
When it’s hot and my water bottles have heated up, the cold stream becomes that much more enjoyable!
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Riocielo
05-22-2018, 03:50
Perfect attitude! :)
Never been a problem for me. I have found that backpacking has the life-changing benefit of learning to not making yourself miserable by wanting unnecessary things you can't have. You can be happy or miserable. It's your choice.
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I most places except during the worst of summer the water is generally cool, at least for a nobo.
I remember a few quite chilly creeks in Vermont near the end of July
I've dragged many a cooler full of nice cold adult beverages up a mountain side. It's a matter of willpower really...
You inspire me to carry more weight :D
I've dragged many a cooler full of nice cold adult beverages up a mountain side. It's a matter of willpower really...
gracebowen
05-23-2018, 00:07
I like the cozy ideal.
Temp has never been an issue, neither has brackishness on shorter trips. It's the highly alkaline and mineral laden desert and elsewhere water, that makes me thirstier the more I drink it, and that which tastes and smells like cattle dung or upstream chicken or pig dung and meat packing plant death in the water that most concerns me. I'd rather drink from water in a Smartwater bottle, and have, that contains water fleas, mosquito larvae, sallammander or frog eggs, tadpoles, tiny fish fry, dead red wigglers, vegetation, the occasional dead may fly or hellagrammite than anything like that. Water with a strong chemical presence(odor, sight, viscosity, etc), including many tap waters with chlorine compounds, or water that has been laying a long time in older plastic water pipes (PVC, CPVC, PB) I strongly aim to avoid.
Nature can't kill you as effective as human waste can <G>
One problem I usually develope during longer desert trips is, that the stale taste of typical desert water (which might come from minerals and alkalines) that totally lacks the limestone pricklyness of our Alpine water starts to be disgusting me at times, and I have to force down the full amount to stay hydrated. So not the temperature is the problem, but the taste.
bigcranky
05-23-2018, 07:17
I have found that backpacking has the life-changing benefit of learning to not making yourself miserable by wanting unnecessary things you can't have.
This.
This is the most enduring lesson I have taken from the trail.
Never been a problem for me. I have found that backpacking has the life-changing benefit of learning to not making yourself miserable by wanting unnecessary things you can't have. You can be happy or miserable. It's your choice.
Well said!
Add to that, being grateful for what you do have on the trail... clean water is on my grateful list. I'm actually one of those idiots who does NOT drink water at home, yet on the trail I often wonder why that is as its pretty good. I DO actually pursue cool water by using an insulated bottle and a cloth between my bladder and backpack frame, but truth is its short lived and more of a dodge to minimize drinking water that can be nearly hot during peak temps.
Never been a problem for me. I have found that backpacking has the life-changing benefit of learning to not making yourself miserable by wanting unnecessary things you can't have. You can be happy or miserable. It's your choice.
FWIW, this is what I use to keep my water cooler than a regular bottle- at 5oz not a big weight penalty and tough as nails
https://www.camelbak.com/en/bottles/insulated/R02014--Podium_Big_Chill_25oz?color=d6b71daf5dc040ed9ebff5 54a0168700
Last Call
05-24-2018, 03:48
Water is water.....
Dan Roper
05-24-2018, 22:12
Water on the trail is one of life's greatest pleasures. Abundant water on the trail is even greater, for you can drink as much as you want and not worry about running out (at that moment, anyhow).
Water coming from ta spring or a high-mountain creek in the southern Appalachians is refreshing even in July and August. When it's hot and humid and you're sweaty and thirsty, the spring or creek is an oasis of pleasure.
That first glass of ice tea or ice water when you finish a tough, hot section hike in the summer? Awesome!
Pondjumpr
05-25-2018, 15:11
I understand where you are coming from. I drink ice in almost every beverage I consume at home and at a restaurant. Once, on a trip to Mexico, I visited several restaurants that evidently didn't have access to abundant ice and therefore didn't put much in the glass. It was gone rather quickly and I didn't enjoy it.
With that said, I still try to drink cold water right after filtering it from the cold creek. I like it better that way. With that said, a few miles later, when thirsty, lukewarm water is still refreshing and I enjoy it. To me, ice is a luxury and when I drink out on the trail, it is not our of enjoyment, it is out of necessity. For that reason, it never gets old or something I don't enjoy. I still prefer Ice cold beverages but on the trail, water, any water, is always refreshing. You will be fine without ice.
MuddyWaters
05-25-2018, 15:19
I drink warm water at home right out the tap.
I've never paid attention to water temperature on the trail as far as drinking it. It's all good.
And I'm working in a country right now where I haven't seen an ice cube in a drinking glass. They don't serve any drinks over ice. And when you drinking warm water out of a glass, the glass kind of smells sometimes.