Spanno

Last April my girl and I went on our first backpacking adventure together. I quickly learned that we over estimated on gear, namely food. The one thing I did feel like I did well on was the water.

Each of us had 2 one liter nalgen bottles on each side of our pack and a 3 liter camel bladder in the pouch of our Kelty packs. I am a big one for hydration so I purchased a Coghlan Expandable Water Carrier, Water Bladder.

If you don'd mind the extra water weight, LET ME RECOMEND this product. It was less than $8 at Cabela's or you can order it on line even cheaper (campingsurvival.com). It holds 8 liters (that weighed about 16.9 pounds) and is very flat even when it is full. It has a water spout and slides inside the pack where the bladders goes. Not only does it fit, but the 3 liter bladder will still fit also (at least in my Kelty pack it did).

A couple of days before our adventure I filled the Coghlan up and froze it. Let me tell you that nice cold water at the end of the hike was nice and it kept my water in the bladder cold to for the hike. This was in April and when we woke up the next morning there was still ice in it.

I figure I was packing 13 liters (2 one liter nalegen's, 1 three liter bladder, and the 8 liter Coghlan) that came out to about 27.5 pounds or closer to 28 pounds with the containter wieght itself added. I have read that on the Big Bend adventure there is no place for water. This would give me 3.43 gallons to meet my 1 gallon a day requirement for 3 days.

Do any of you have any other resomendations for water containers and consumption? I would rather have the water weight and most other weight. Hell I figure this is a lot better than when I was in the Marine's. We used to throw one of those 5 gallon cans in our Ruck's and that bad boy was heavy!!!:eek:

As a plus on this next trip I just bought a CamelBak M.U.L.E to thow a bladder in when we get to our location. The last time I did not think about exploring once we set up camp and had to carry that nalgen bottle around. Now I have a light little high speed pack for water, snacks and first aid to carry with us when we go out exploring.

Neville

I would suggest the MSR dromlite bladders. When I have to pack water in the backcountry, I fill up two or three and place each in it's own garbage bag. This way if the bladder were to spring a leak, the water would be retained in the garbage bag.

toejam

The toughest bladder I've had is my new Camelback. Don't leave your water containers out at night - I've had birds and varmints chew them up.