Hardcore Survival Series
Hardcore Survival Part 1
Sourcing Water
Water is the second most important thing to source in a survival situation. Once you have figured out your shelter, you can always upgrade it until you are rescued or until the situation has passed.
Hydration is far more tricky. You have 72 hours to source your water situation, before you will suffer. Dying of dehydration is a horrible way to go in case you are wondering.
We are going to discuss different methods of obtaining water that are safe and easy to gather. The planet Earth is 70% water according to the USGS and 96% of that is in the oceans. Water Vapor in the air, and freshwater rivers, lakes and streams.
Since most of our recreation happens near water in the U.S. how people become dehydrated is probably due to ignorance of how to collect clean fresh water. We are going to discuss methods in this blog to remedy this. If you are lost in the forest or national parks of the eastern or western U.S. you only have to survive a few days or so before chances are someone is going to find you.
River, Creek or Stream - If you are lost and find a river, stream or creek, by walking along until you find an area of moving water is the first step. Next find the fastest rapids you can locate, and look for a sandy beach a short distance past the moving water. Take a shovel, or stick flattened on one end and dig a hole in the sand as deep as you can about four to five feet away from the river’s edge.
This is called a Seep Well, and you will soon find out why. Water from the river will begin to seep into the “well” you just dug once you get low enough past the level of the river. If you can locate some flat rocks, clean them in the river and line the interior of your well to aid in making the water clear. If not, you will notice after several minutes the water in your well will have clear water at the top and sandy water at the bottom. The longer you can wait, the clearer you will find the water has gotten. This water should be clean enough to drink with no issue. If you want to be double sure, boil the water you collect from your well or add a couple drops of chlorine.
Filter- Making your own water filter with easily obtainable materials in a survival situation is a very viable option. Taking a 3ft length of 2 inch wide pipe, some cotton cloth, sand, small rocks, and a screen or slightly larger rocks, and layering them in this order.
Cotton Cloth
Sand
Small rocks
Larger rocks
Take the pipe and cover one end with cotton cloth and layer more cotton cloth in the pipe on top of that. About five or six inches. Clean sand goes on top of that for another five or six inches, and another five or six inches of larger rocks. Leave a foot of pipe empty to hold water that will be poured into the filter.
Pour water into the filter until full. Let the filter fill until water is dripping out of the bottom and collect the water into a clean container. You can boil the clean water that comes out of the filter, but it is not absolutely necessary. This filter is extremely portable and can filter plenty of water until rescue arrives. If you notice the water coming out of the filter is discolored after a while, you can re-make the filter with clean sand and a clean cloth.
Desalination- Taking the salt out of water is easy but very time-consuming and can be accomplished a number of ways effectively. Anyone going offshore for fishing, or boating should have the skills required to safely extract salt from water. We will go over two methods here.
Evaporation- Building a solar still is a simple method of extracting fresh water out of saltwater. It requires a surface area of one square foot to extract ½ to ¾ lbs of freshwater out of saltwater per day. You can purchase a solar still or manufacture one yourself with scrap materials you might find around. You need a water source, a plastic sheet, and a collection container. Place the plastic sheet over the water source and angle it so that the evaporated water will run off into the collection source.
You can also boil the water, collect the evaporation with your sheet of plastic, and gather the evaporated water into the collection container.
A better option than either of these methods is a water filter. Using either a Life Straw or pump-style membrane filter is a far more efficient method of collecting water. Life Straws will last one person for weeks if not months if used properly. A water filter will provide gallon after gallon of fresh drinking water before the filter needs to be changed.
Remember, this is for survival over short periods of time until rescue. Once you have been rescued you must tell medical personnel what you ate and drank while stranded. They will take the necessary precautions to make sure you do not get stuck with a parasite.
By taking the easy precautions early you can make yourself tough enough to kill that rescue can arrive to find you little worse for wear.