Water bottles and Water treatment

Water is very important to walkers. You can go a week without food (if you must) but water, no. Life gets uncomfortable very quickly if you haven't any. Still, a lot of tosh is talked about hydration. We are bullied into believing that you need to drink gallons of the stuff to stay healthy, and it simply isn't true. Your body can very easily get used to either drinking lots, or not drinking very much. If you don't believe me, perhaps you will believe The Times. I long ago decided to get used to not drinking very much, and now I find a litre a day is more than sufficient to carry. I will normally drink more.. perhaps two litres or so per day.. but much of it will be at breakfast or overnight, ie it will be supplied by a refuge or wherever I'm staying, or by the water source I try to camp near. Overnight camping without a water source I avoid so far as I can.
If it is very hot - so that you are sweating even when walking on level ground or downhill - then you will need more; water lost that way must be replaced.

I am also not a fan of bladders and similar "hydration systems." Without exception they add weight, and also are hard to keep bacteria free. If you prefer to use them, fine, each to their own.

I use simple plastic bottles of 1/2litre or 3/4litre size. Ordinary water bottles, Evian say, are very light but they are not really strong enough. If they split, life can get difficult. What I did was go to my local supermarket and look through all the drinks sold there, and just bought some bottles of juice or whatever, that were a suitable size and shape and looked robust. Two 75cl bottles and two 50cl bottles together weighed under 100g. That gives 2 1/2litres capacity which was more than enough for me. I used them throughout my 55 day trip and had no problems at all.

So far as water sources are concerned, I ranked them (in the Pyrenees, anyway) as follows:

- first, a spring or source. The water comes straight out of the ground, it is crystal clear, and always very cold. Condensation forms on the bottle as soon as you fill it. It tastes fantastic. I never bothered to treat it in any way. Sources are found in most parts of the Pyrenees and always great to see.
- second, human-provided sources, such as water fountains at refuges, in villages etc. Some of them say the water is untreated, but they were generally reliable and I didn't treat it either.
- third, running water, above about 2,000m, ie streams. With these you must look around you, are there any animals or animal droppings? Where is the water coming from, snow melt or what? A lake? Occasionally I decided to trust them, but most of the time the water needed treating, however clear it might look. You never know if there is a dead animal somewhere upstream, and it is amazing how high up even sheep and horses can get, never mind izard , marmots etc.
- fourth, standing water of any kind, pools and lakes. I always treated it. It doesn't have to stand still for long before interesting things grow in it, and breed. Almost all lakes are fed by something and it is usually worth finding a feed coming in and using that instead.
- finally turbid water, or any water that is not completely clear. Avoid wherever possible. Usually not difficult to do that. Good water is seldom hard to find in the Pyrenees and I only once or twice ran short.

For water treatment, I carried a Steripen Freedom purifier. This has been brilliant. Mine has worked flawlessly. It only weighs about 80g or the same as just 80ml water. Best of all, it recharges from a standard usb cable so the external battery I brought to keep the phone topped up would recharge it too. Actually I never needed to do that - it supposedly treats 40 x 1/2l lots of water, but I never got to the point where it ran out - but it was comforting knowing that it would always work if needed.
I am not completely sure exactly how the Steripen works. As I understand it, ultraviolet irradiation renders anything nasty in the water sterile, so it cannot reproduce. I don't know how they can be so certain it has done its job every time, but I can say that it has always worked for me. I only had one stomach problem in the Pyrenees and that came from restaurant food.
I also carried a few coffee filters for use if the water was visibly contaminated. I only needed to use them two or three times, just as well as they were rather slow. The steripen itself is quick, 48 seconds per treatment and you are done.
Ideally you need a wide-mouthed water container to use the Steripen in. What I did was to cut the top half off a 2pint plastic milk container. It even had a 1/2 litre mark on it. I carried it in a side pocket of the rucksack, with water bottles fitted into it. It only weighed 10g or so. Scoop water up in it from the source, Steripen it, and pour it into the bottle, easy peasy. I always treated the Steripen carefully, wiped it dry after use etc., and it never let me down.

The black cloud is tadpoles...

... which panic and froth the water if you get close to them. Would you drink this water? You bet, if there is nothing better available, but I did treat and filter it first!

Clothing

on day 1 2015, above Hendaye. Rohan top, White Sierra trousers.

The full equipment list for my trip along the Pyrenees is available here. I don't want to do extensive reviews of all the clothing I took, but there are some useful comments to make.

I did not expect the Pyrenees to be particularly cold in July and August, but in fact there was quite a wide range of temperatures at different times, including overnight frosts. Above 2,000m if it is windy, it can get pretty nippy. On the other hand, it was boiling hot at other times. So I adopted a layering system, and took nothing padded or heavy, but I did take two very thin and light fleeces. I reckoned that with them and a windproof layer (my trusty Berghaus waterproofs, see below) I should be warm enough for most things, and so it proved. I tend to run cold, so I took some gloves too but I only wore them a few times. Having two fleeces was also useful, since it meant I could wear one during the day and one in the evening, it's always nice to be able to dress for dinner...

Quantities: I took two fleeces, two pairs of trousers, 3 knicks and 3 baselayer tops, two short sleeve and one long. Another time I might take two long sleeve and one short, the extra 33g would soon be recouped in lower sunblock use.. three pairs of socks and a pair of liner socks, a waterproof top and trousers. For a week's walking you could get away with a bit less I think, but for 55 days that seemed pretty reasonable to me, the whole lot including what I was wearing weighed under 3Kg (6.6lb).

The knicks and baselayer tops were Rohan Ultra Silver (no longer made! But the ones they do sell are still pretty light.) and they were very, very good. If you can find lighter baselayers, do let me know, they are the lightest I have found. They dried literally in an hour or two after being rinsed through or washed. Mine are an attractive blue colour, comfortable to wear and (unlike my Paramo baselayers) completely free of pong, no matter how much misused. Top class. Not cheap (but then nor is the competition) but they do have regular sales.

My fleece jacket was also a Rohan, a Microrib Jacket. Also not cheap but I only paid £39 for it, keep an eye on their offers page. It was also excellent, very good in warm or hot weather but also good when it is cooler. When cold it was still sufficient under a windproof layer, as it traps lots of air. I also took a Campagnolo half-zip fleece which was even lighter.

I took two pairs of zip-off White Sierra Teton trousers, sourced with some difficulty from the US Ebay site. I can't use Rohan trousers since even their long length is only 33" - most, these days, are 34". I like the trousers (recommended to me by an efriend) but if you plan to take zip-offs, it is worth thinking about how much zipping-off you are likely to do, since there is a modest weight penalty to pay. In the end I did none to speak of, and probably wouldn't bother taking them another time. The trousers had rather a hard time. One pair got so badly ripped on barbed wire that I had to replace it, and the other pair though still in use has some amateur stitching on a small tear. Not the fault of the trousers though, they are comfortable and light and i might well buy some more, in due course. They are remarkably cheap, although shipping to the UK can mean that you don't save very much. I bought them from the Outdoor Gear Loft, who were good to deal with.

I bought my Berghaus Paclite waterproof jacket and trousers years ago, in 2009 and am still using them now. For pretty much all that time they have been fully waterproof but on this last trip they did let water in, after a while. I have reproofed them and hope that might fix it, otherwise it may be time for new ones. They are light and comfortable, and somewhat breathable but could do better. If it is hot and wet you will get wet, one way or the other! I am wondering about a poncho but they have their own drawbacks...  I've not found a system I'm completely happy with, yet. Good waterproof kit is so expensive! It is difficult to experiment.

Update 2024: For my 2024 Pennine Way traverse I treated myself to new waterproof jacket and trousers from Ultimate Direction. As you can see from my gearlist they are very light indeed. They did well, no damage or abrasion, and they were pretty waterproof. I am not quite so sure about how breathable they are but I have not found anything that performs better.

Not sure there is much else to say about clothing.. socks have already been covered, here. Overall I was happy with what I took, both in terms of amount and quality. Pretty much everything would dry overnight, except for the 1000 mile socks which needed two days.

I will put a word in finally for my Paramo cap.. see pic below. The first piece of technical clothing I ever bought, and it has survived many years of maltreatment. Not made any more, this is  probably the closest equivalent. Needless to say it didn't cost anything like that much! You can see it peeping out from under the waterproof hood in the bottom pic too, when it was still more or less its original colour..

At the Fontaine de Roland, near Roncesvalles, 2015. The rohan top is more stylish than I am making it look!

At Banyuls, day 54 2015, job done (via the HRP, not the GR10)...

In full Paclite wet weather gear, and feeling none too happy after 14 days of continuous rain and mud, near Cauterets July 2010