Please Carry Enough Water When Hiking

​In this episode, I explore why I think it is a silly idea to try to minimise or 'toe the line' with the amount of water you carry on the trail. 

Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, we are talking about the importance of carrying enough water while hiking and

[0:09] why I personally believe you should probably overpack how much water you carry. Now, in all honesty, I never really thought this was an episode I was going to have to talk about. I thought this was probably pretty common sense, but I read an article the other day, which kind of made me realize that this does need to be talked about because there are a million articles and podcasts talking about hydration for hikers and 99% of them are sort of saying, hey, hydration is pretty important. You should pay attention to it and stay on top of it.

[0:41] This particular article, I think, was just wanting to be a little bit different, a little bit contrarian. And it was very, very, very weirdly framed. And it was very, very weird how they went about it. And basically the main gist

[0:53] of it, and we're going to dive into it a bit more as we go through. But basically they were saying, look, as hikers, we don't want to overpack on the trail. Fair enough. That's a good idea. They're also saying one thing hikers tend to overpack on the trail is water. They were saying, and their thesis here was saying, you know what, as a hiker, you should only really carry what you need for water. And even if you get a bit dehydrated, it's not that bad. So as a hiker, really, you should try to take exactly what you need when it comes down to your water. Now, this is the type of advice where it's like, it makes sense in theory. If you're from the outside and you're looking from a clinical perspective or a scientific perspective, whatever it may be, this type of stuff may make sense in theory. But in reality and practicality, it's just really, really backwards. I think it's really, really silly. And I'm going to kind of break down a few things that sort of this article says and this kind of chain of logic and just talk through my thoughts because I feel like it is really important because I know people do think like this.

[1:54] I know people do get really, really hung up in like the optimal approach to certain things. And I know a lot of people, even if we're not talking about specifically hydration, specifically what we're talking about here, a lot of people kind of get caught up in these sort of chains of logic, which sound really, really good in theory, but in practical, in reality, ends up missing a few things. So I'm going to kind of talk you through a few issues I've had with this particular article and kind of just talk you through my thought process.

[2:21] Now one of the major reasons they were sort of saying in this uh this article they were like look overpacking is something we want to avoid and they were sort of saying okay we don't should avoid overpacking as a hiker because it will add extra weight in our back obviously which will weigh us down it will slow us down and it will increase exertion that's all pretty true and which will probably make you sweat more which i guess you know is true and also they were saying extra papcoate will put you at risk of extra stress in your ankles and knees. Now, all of that's true. You probably will be weighed down. You probably will be slowed down. You will have more stress through the ankles and knees because you've got more weight. That all makes sense.

[3:02] The next sort of argument here was that basically we're going on about that drinking a lot of water is a wellness trend and that we as a society currently have an obsession with hydration, which is a little bit odd, but that's fair enough. And then further in the article, They talked about dehydration, and they said that outside of hot and arid environments, serious dehydration is rare, which may well be true. And having a serious dehydration, which can be a serious medical concern, that may be relatively rare in the hiking community outside of hot and arid environments.

[3:42] But the problem with kind of taking this type of thought and this type of like saying, hey, it may be rare, is there's so many levels of dehydration. And we need to kind of keep in mind that it's not just black or white. You're not seriously dehydrated or hydrated. There's a lot of different things. And one of the reasons why so often people talk about staying on top of your hydration as a hiker, and that one of the reasons people sort of say, hey, avoid dehydration, is that even small amounts of dehydration is going to affect your physical performance and output. And while small amounts of dehydration may not be a serious health concern, it can affect how we physically perform.

[4:21] And it was funny enough in this article, like they sort of said in this article that they admitted that like small amounts of dehydration can affect your aerobic performance, but they said as a recreational hiker, this isn't a big deal. So very, very odd. Essentially the way they framed this article, it was really strange to me because on one hand they were sort of saying, okay, an extra kilo of water on your back is a big deal because it's going to make things harder. It's going to weigh you down. It's going to slow you down and all of this. But then they also said you know in another paragraph that a significant reduction in your aerobic fitness isn't a big deal so it doesn't make a huge amount of sense and essentially they went on to sort of say in this article that they were talking about how much you should bring and a one-hour article was saying hey you should aim to carry exactly what you need or worst case scenario just undershoot it a little bit so you have less weight on your back and yada yada yada but then when it described the actual process of figuring out how much people should bring, it admitted that that's the whole formula they gave people was just a rough starting number that you aim for. And they said, look, there's many other factors which affect how much water you need to bring. These can be rough estimates, and it's going to change from person to person, height to height. So reading between the lines, even if you're trying to be spot on with your water, you're only really taking a rough estimate in the end.

[5:37] And it was just a weird article. And I'm not going to talk about it anymore, because realistically, none of this really matters. It's good inspiration for this episode, because I know a lot of people use these

[5:46] kind of chains of logic in this thought process, but realistically, none of this matters. Because the main idea I want to get across on this podcast is I really think that underpacking or trying to be spot on with your water as a hiker is a bad idea. Whether you're a day hiker, an overnight hiker, a multi-day hiker, or whatever it may be, I think it's a bad idea, even if technically it might make sense. And I really, really do believe that every hiker should be overhacking their water. Why? Well, in all honesty, you never know what's going to happen on the trail. If you're on a day hike, maybe you take a wrong turn. All of a sudden you're on the trail for an extra hour and your calculations for hydration has gone wrong. Or maybe you have a fall or roll your ankle or have some other type of emergency situation. All of a sudden you're on the trail for multiple more hours and that spot on water, well, may fall short. Or maybe you'll come across someone in a bad spot, how many times have you come across a hiker who didn't bring any water or didn't bring anywhere near water and you needed to share it? I know I've done that so many times. And you want to be in that situation where you can help.

[7:01] Now, if we're looking at it like that's just day hikes, if we're looking at like a longer hike, maybe there's a water source had an issue. And you're like, oh my gosh, you know, I got here and there's no water in the river. Or maybe I got here and the water takes dry. Or maybe whatever may be, or maybe something's contaminated. Having a bit of extra water is pretty important in any of these situations. And it's such a simple thing you can do just to be prepared. That old scout's motto, be prepared, be ready for the unknown. It's such a simple thing. And if you have a little bit of extra water at the end of the day, or the end of the hike, you get home, you're like, oh, you know what? I carried an extra leader for no reason. Is that really a big deal? I would much prefer to have a little bit extra weight and be ready and confident that I'm ready for those types of things than not.

[7:46] Now, I have the same opinion about food. I personally believe in overpacking food, and I know some people figure out the exact calories that they need to do, but for me, exact same reasons. I think overpacking is a good idea so you are ready for things that come up.

[8:02] If you come across stuff like this online, if you read these articles, which will logically make sense, they're like, just nail your targets, get it right, make sure you're not carrying that extra half kilo or extra kilo in your pack. This type of stuff may make logically. But please, when you come across this type of thinking, don't take it literally. The realities of hiking, there's just so much more that goes into it. Please don't try to over-optimize things. It's valuable to reduce your pack weight. Yes, absolutely. But don't skimp out on things which can be really, really important. Don't skimp out on your water. Don't skimp out of your food. Don't skimp out on your first aid kit. Don't skimp out on your wet weather kit. Don't forget all this stuff. Be smart about it. Please don't skimp out of it. And if you are truly worried about extra pack weight, if you're like, you know what? I am worried about having to carry an extra kilo or an extra two kilos or even extra three or four kilos. If that's stressing you out and you're weighing up your options here and there, i would so much stronger recommend just put a bit more effort into your training, do the right training to build up your tolerance to that pack load do your strength training do your pack work plan out your hiking and build that up and build yourself up to the point where you can comfortably carry more weight than you actually need on the trail so then you can have leeway on the stuff like this you're not stressing about getting your water targets exactly right.

[9:30] Be smart about this. And in all honesty, I felt like that article was just so irresponsible. It blew me away that it was published by a big publication.

[9:40] And yeah, I just wanted this episode just to kind of talk about it a little bit because I do see people going down this route. I do see people falling into these things. I do see people just having, as I said multiple times, having this kind of chain of logic, which makes sense in theory, but kind of misses some of the more important aspects. So with that being said, I'm going to wrap things up here. Last thing I will sort of say on this episode, as I always say on these episodes, if you're listening to this and you like a care realm, it makes sense. But in all honesty, if I've got to overpack things or if I've got to bring stuff that will cover all this, I am a little bit worried about being ready physically to carry that pack weight. And I am interested in finding training that's going to help build that up, then I would love to chat with you. If you want to find out more about our online personal training for hiking, you can go to summitstrength.com.au online. On that page, there's a big video, talks a lot about our program. And if it sounds like something you want to explore a little bit more, there's a link on that page. You can book a free call with our team. We can have a chat about it all and see if one of our options may be right for you. So if you want to learn a bit more, go to summitstrength.com.au online. So with that being said, thank you for listening. Hope it was useful. Hope it helps a few people. And please just don't fall into this mistake. Thank you for listening. And we'll talk soon. Bye.

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