But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it. -- Rudyard Kipling, from Gunga Din
Not been doing much in the way of slaughter but when it comes to water I know exactly what Kipling means. Doesn't take too long wandering around in the desert to develop a newfound appreciation for water.
Working on my Red River Gorge project, I've been spending a lot of time out hiking. Along the way I've discovered that the amount of territory I can cover is chiefly limited by the amount of water I can carry. Normally I carry a liter of water with me (it's the biggest water bottle I can still fit in the pouch on my camera bag) and that'll let me cover five miles or so as long as I don't mind staggering back into camp dehydrated.
That'd almost be okay except that's been during springtime and we're about to plunge into summer. 100% humidity and heat indexes north of 100 degrees (F) are common features of summer here and that just makes water disappear. Or gives you heatstroke.
Out west I was able to cover twice the distance on that amount of water but the humidity makes one hell of a difference. Anyways, the whole reason I'm writing this is to ask those of y'all who spend time out in the backcountry how do you haul water and how much do you bring?
If I could stick a hydration bladder in my camera bag it'd go a long way to solving my problem but my current bag isn't compatible. Did discover that such tricks do exist but unless HIVE moons in the next few days I'm not going to be able to drop $300 for one in time for when I'll need it.
Guess that leaves improvising. The mountain laurel will in full bloom soon so I'm going back to the gorge next week. The forecast is calling for 80s all week, gonna need to come up with something in a hurry.
These photos are all from Canyonlands and Arches National Parks in the desert of southeastern Utah. I was there at the beginning of October when the daytimes temps were only in the 80s. Wouldn't have been able to do half of what I did if it'd been any hotter.
That neck of the woods reminds me a lot of Red River Gorge, except hotter and dryer and with the consequent lack of trees. Still can't decide whether I like the unobstructed views or the vegetation better.
The humidity in the gorge offsets the lower temperatures, there's more shade but it doesn't cool you nearly as well as in the desert. A natural sort of yin and yang, they're both equally brutal on your water supply.
With El Niño expected to bring us even hotter temperatures for a while, I'm guessing the gorge won't be the only place I'll be needing extra water.
https://leofinance.io/threads/view/rabihfarhat/re-rabihfarhat-2m7lk1qhp
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people ( rabihfarhat ) sharing the post on LeoThreads,LikeTu,dBuzz.
These are some incredible shots. Took a lot of water to make that.
Thank you. It's an incredible place, particularly Canyonlands, I feel like all I did there was wander around saying 'wow'. Water may be slow but it's one hell of a sculptor.
Randall Carlson has some theories worth looking into if you haven't. He's talking about it happening quite fast, all at once.
I'll have to look into him, I'm not familiar with him. Seems he's going to be just a bit south of Red River Gorge in October for a 'Middle Cumberland Plateau Flood Tour'. Sounds festive.
He's on a couple Rogan podcasts on Youtube still. Decent starting point I suppose but there's quite a bit out there on the guy and his words. It boils down to glaciers with lakes on top cracking open and draining out ferociously near the end of the ice age, to put it simply.
Dump a large bucket of water on sand. It'll yield nearly the same results in your photos, on a smaller scale.
Oh, glacial lake outburst floods? I've been down some wikipedia rabbit holes on those, there were a bunch in the western US, the scablands in Washington are a result of that I think.
Yeah. Plenty of locations, plus that water still travelled. It's fascinating. Makes more sense than a slow release in my opinion. Slow release over time still contributes, of course. Wind erosion as well. So many things. No doubt nice to look at though.
I haven't hiked anywhere that arid, but I have been building up a system that needs some testing. I splurged on a CamelBak, and I have some old ALICE web gear I can rig with either surplus canteens or a Nalgene bottle hydration hose system. $30 is better than $300.
Let me know how that works. ALICE rig might actually be helpful, with my camera bag I can't really do much with a CamelBak but that'd at least let me carry more water.
Lol, the $300 ones are for when you need something for both backpacking and photography. There's areas that I want to explore that'll take a good bit of hiking to even get to.
Now that I've had some sleep ALICE is sounding better and better. At least the belt and suspenders setup, now just to find it, the army surplus situation around here is surprisingly bad considering our proximity to Fort Knox. Thank you sir!
There are commercial harnesses and belts, too. If you can stomach Amazon, the Condor brand might be a decent balance of budget and durability. Sporting goods stores might have Blackhawk on the shelf. The downside to any of these is potentially looking like a tryhard mall ninja, but they seem to be going for chest rigs and tactical vest systems these days.
I'll probably just stick to surplus kit, it'll go well with my BDUs that already make the city slickers nervous. On a side note, did you know that BDUs/ACUs/whatever the hell they're calling them now are impregnated with permethrin? Was picking wild blackberries years ago and noticed that I was finding a lot less ticks on me than my friend who wasn't wearing BDUs, did some research and discovered that. Now I try to wear them in the woods anytime the weather will permit.
Tryhard mall ninja, that's a good one. We just call'em LARPers, may have to start using that one too. Yeah, it was a lot easier to find the vests and chest rigs than ALICE stuff when I looked online today but I have no use for either the look or the gear, it'd just interfere with my camera stuff.
According to Wikipedia, permethrin is also useful as a single-application topical remedy for scabies. The much-maligned ivermectin requires two doses some time apart for equal effect. Huh. And it does mention the US and UK are both impregnating uniforms with permethrin.
Any idea how old your gear is? I'd like to now how good that is long-term. There's a commercial spray-on product suggesting 6 weeks or 6 washings, but an impregnated fabric would presumably be more effective long-term, and the instructions there might be more about selling bottles that a real decrease in effectiveness.
It was probably ten years old when I discovered that. When I was trying to find out more about it I came across some DoD regs that require it to last for the life of the uniform which they equated to 50 washings. Even after that it supposedly only losses effectiveness slowly. When I noticed it with my BDUs it was well past the 50 washings mark, so it seems that's likely to be true. It's definitely more effective than the spray-on stuff, that's why the DoD made the switch.
Water is essential for outdoor adventures, and your experiences in the Red River Gorge and arid landscapes highlight its significance. Your improvisation in carrying sufficient water serves as a reminder to appreciate its value. Keep inspiring others with the importance of staying hydrated during their own explorations. Thanks for sharing your story:)
Water is life. We already have too many people who die from a lack of it each summer, I'd rather not have myself or anyone else join them :) Thank you, and thanks for dropping by!
That's right 🙏🏻
I think I'll never have enough of that view and exploring all the beautiful formations. Nature is just so beautiful 😍
I'll second that. It was so hard to leave there, particularly Canyonlands, I just wanted to stay and keep exploring. Lol, the view gets even better at sunset, I'll have to post some photos of that sometime.
Looking forward to those sunset shots 🥰
Your photography skills is impressive. You have captured all these pictures on perfect time. Natural beauty always attracts the people's attention. Sometime ago today I did the same with my friends at similar beautiful places and we had a lot of fun.
Thank you! It's hard to think of a bad time to be at some place like that :) Nice, where did you and your friends go? I usually travel solo on my photo expeditions, having friends along seems like it'd make it a lot more fun.
Most welcome. Most of the Pakistani people here go to the Swat side, we also went there.
I really like your post, your pictures but specially the information you shared. Water is extremely important, and along the dessert it’s difficult to find it, even more with the climate change we are experiencing.
Glad you enjoyed it :) Particularly in the desert water's importance is matched only by its scarcity. Unfortunately you tend to realize this only after it's a bit too late. The area that I took those in is in the middle of a megadrought, I'm afraid climate change may make the area damn near uninhabitable soon. The state these are located in is about to get its water supply cut by something like 25%, I'm glad I was exploring there when I did, it'll be much more difficult in the very near future.
Thanks for dropping by!
This post has been manually curated by @bhattg from Indiaunited community. Join us on our Discord Server.
Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating to @indiaunited. We share more than 100 % of the curation rewards with the delegators in the form of IUC tokens. HP delegators and IUC token holders also get upto 20% additional vote weight.
Here are some handy links for delegations: 100HP, 250HP, 500HP, 1000HP.
100% of the rewards from this comment goes to the curator for their manual curation efforts. Please encourage the curator @bhattg by upvoting this comment and support the community by voting the posts made by @indiaunited.
Thank you!
Congratulations @coloneljethro! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 59000 upvotes.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
Check out our last posts:
It is at that moment of needing water when your survival instinct kicks in and you think of nothing but the basic need, you pray for a single drop of water to fall from the sky and reach your mouth.
At the moment you are going through this odyssey of fetching water you don't pay attention to anything but what is necessary, but I admire that you have taken some very cool photos of the large stone sculptures created by the wind.