The Best Hiking Pants in the World

The Still Wild West Seal of Approval is given to the Cabela's Two In One Zip Off

There is only one pair of pants you should buy for any mobile active pursuit you plan to undertake.  The Cabela's Two in One Zip Off Pants, Version 2.  They sell for $29-44, depending on when you buy them in the season.  If you not the standard Cabela's sized shopper (that is the kind of man who sees nothing wrong with "Large" being the smallest size the store keeps in stock for sweaters, and having multiple 4XL of each item in stock), then you can clean up the clearance racks and cherry pick discounts online near the end of August.  I did this last year and got some great deals on Waist Size 30 slacks.  Cabela's must have had hundreds left, if the sample customers I saw when there (or Americans generally) can be taken as representative.  I kid, I kid.  I love you you fatso drunk hunters who ask me incredulously on trails: "You've walked all the way here!? (about 3 miles from the parking lot, by the by.  I was equally flabbergasted as to how to answer.  "Do you ride your horse to the mailbox?"  Kept popping through my mind.)  Please don't shoot me, Cabela's boys, the next time you see me in the woods, and "Dueling Banjos" from "Deliverance" comes into my head.  And people ask me why I carry a 13 inch bowie blade as well as an ice axe, or collapsing heat-hardened steel defense baton and other weapons in my light arsenal when I do not pack extra food or clothing.  Um, these are the same people who lock the door to watch TV, for fear of being mugged or something, in the afternoon.  I can look at the sky and say, that looks bad, or things look calm, and that's what they will be (usually).  But people...yeesh.  Actually I like hunters, in the sense that they actively take a hand in killing their own meat (as Emerson said, "however far away the slaughterhouse is, you are still implicated by chewing")- that's a misquote in the wording I think, but generally is what he wrote.  The spirit of the thing and close in phrasing.  And if we know that workers in slaughterhouses became sadistic, get more diseases, and enter life-long cycles of depression and violence (right before we decide to deport them), then eating meat you did not kill implicitly means you sponsoring family and child abuse as the data suggests workers in slaughterhouses are more likely, etcetera (have you SEEN Texas Chainsaw Massacre- talk about the first subversive vegan propoganda!  You don't even think when you see guts and titties do you?  But that was the message!  PETA produced that film!  Look it up.  Would I lie to you?)  Also, modern animals are tortured to a point that fresh animals cannot possibly feel whatever fear or pain they go through being shot, and it is a long and constant pain the kind that we humans call existential angst.  They are not able to be pigs or chickens, to fulfill their humble but God-given duties such as scratching at the dung of other animals all day, or rolling in squallor not only from their own ass.  So people who eat chicken tortilla soup everyday and stick their nose up at the brutality of hunters make me sick, especially you, reading this right now.  Still, I can't fully respect any hunter who is out there with a gun that does 51% or more of the work.  A fit guy with a bow and arrow- man I would really admire that guy.  But fat drunk guys who can hardly walk with $2000 worth of equipment...not so much my ideal of heroic backwoodsmanship. 

Right, the pants.  Now there are 2 reasons I steer you to Cabela's.  First, they are great pants.  Lots of well-placed pockets (though a little small its true if you want to carry items that your small army style backpack will not hold for a 4 day trip, true), with special knife pockets (Hells yeah!) that will make you feel cool, a good heavy-duty canvas material that is not too heavy, and resists damage (though the blades on skis will slash them up, just beware), dries reasonably quickly when considered against their durability, look stylish, fit tight, accentuate toned buttocks (es?- what is the plural?), can be zipped off at the knee to create short shorts (or half-unzipped at the back of the knee to create airflow, which I do to reduce sweating and chaffing even on cooler days- most pants zip at the front, which does not work as well)- very short shorts, I should add, though if you got it flaunt it, right men? And can be zipped open to flare into bell bottom type pants for easy removal while keeping boots on (a nice feature surely) or simply to get more air flow, or look damned cool and quaint/unique.  See the picture for proof.

Second, there is not a single other decent set of pants still available on the modern market.  Light weight is the rage, and quick drying, for all those people who like to hike so little that they barely do it in good weather, because apparently, when the weather doofus says, "chance of rain", they all go scrambling for their freshly waxed Subaru to drive to the middle of nowhere and try to get hit by lightning.  Hey, here's an idea: if you see black clouds coming in, put up your shelter, if you have one, or else, get under some cover somewhere.  (According to advice I read, the following are unsuitable to lightning danger: caves, trees, and everywhere but the middle of a bog where you will drown in quick sand before lightning can notice you.)  Then your pants won't need to dry so quickly.  Or throw over a cheap 3 ounce plastic parka.  Nylon is the popular material right now.  And every brand and style of pant that zips off is made of nylon.  Which tells me that no one serious about hiking and climbing buys zip off pants.  They are gimmick, though I wonder why, as personally, maybe its just me, but I hate sweating through my clothes the first 4 hours I am in them on a 3 day trip.  So I like the option of being in shorts and I don't want to carry shorts and pants along.  But the owner of a cool independent store in Salt Lake, I.M.E., which I recommend as one place to shop or call when buying gear, especially crampons, told me so, by scoffing when I asked if they had any good zip offs by saying, "R.E.I. is just next door, go there.  We don't carry those."  Fair enough, even terrific, and heavy canvas pants may work for a climber who is spending all day going up one wall, but if I have to cover 20 miles and go up 5,000 feet of elevation, chances are I will go through lots of climates and need both pants and shorts.

Nylon is a wonderful material, for parachutes, and stockings, and I don't know what else.  But in all those applications it must be checked regularly for rips.  Do you see where I am going with this?  Anyone who tells me that nylon pants are the way to go is an idiot, or a commission driven sales person, or someone who never hikes.  I know this because a "friend" kept touting his pants to me.  We went on one hike, staying on a well-groomed trail the whole time.  And when we got home, he noticed a few stray branches (not exactly brambles you know) had scratched his pants up pretty good.  Also, had I been a psycho or pervert ala "Deliverance", I would have heard him coming from 10 miles away, because nylon pants make an annoying swishing sound.  This will keep grizzlies away perhaps, as they will never be surprised by you, which I read pisses them off royally, but it might drive you crazy enough that you will run naked up to any grizzly bear you do see and slap it around until it mauls you just so you don't have to go put your loud and annoying nylon zip off pants back on to listen to them for 10 more miles of trail.  Of course, if you listen to a loud MP3 player the entire hike anyway, then this is not a concern.  And if your pants are not in tatters when you get home, you will be quite fond of them.  Of course, I can get to within 2 feet of most hikers who are not listening to music before they notice me, and that is usually not until I want them to, out of politeness or to get them to step aside to let me pass, by clearing a throat or purposefully stepping on a crunchy dry leaf.  I nearly gave some nice older ladies a heart attack.  They asked where I had come from, how long I had been there.  I said I was a spirit of the woods, an Indian reborn.  I could join a campfire and sing kum-bay-yah with a group before they began wondering who I was and why I was there.  And once I followed a man listening to an MP3 for several miles of a trail before he noticed me.  I was within 5 feet.  His dog kept barking at me and this guy just called out each time, "Come on Simba, easy, let's go home!"  If I had been the sort of derelict "Dueling Banjos" covers...looking behind you is wise in the wilderness, also paying attention, and if you listen to music, keep it somewhat quiet, I suggest.  And listening to music will be quite easy and pleasant with the varied and versatile pockets on your Cabela's Two in One Zip Off Pants, Version 2.

P.S. Cabela's, I could kiss you for not tinkering with a product once you had made one that pleased customers.  They just rolled out Version 2 again this year.  (Obviously, either someone there is a marketing genius along the lines of Bob Dylon for naming his great album "Highway 61 REvistited" (italics mine), rather than "Highway 61", or Version 1 had glitches.)

The Short and Typical Journey of Wenger Footwear

And ode and a lament in one, for the world's greatest shoe (deceased) 

4 years ago, my feet were about shot.  So too my knees, and my back from time to time.  Some people advised me to buy better shoes, which I tried, but every activity still wore me down.  I came across some Swiss shoes by Wenger, the maker of the original Swiss Army knife, online only, and thought, okay I will give these a shot.  I thought hey, if they are designed and built for the Alps where well-to-do, cultured high-brow Europeans do some of the best hiking and climbing in the world, then they ought to answer for Utah.  I hesitated to buy online, as sizing and fit can be an issue, but with fingers crossed, I ordered anyway.  The shoes were new (their first year), looked great (bright reds, orange with pink, blue, green, different styles and heights, and treads), seemed extremely ambitious, carried a top name and proud logo, and displayed the kind of exuberance that youth brings- in a person or a company.  And which fades over time too often...

Well it all worked out.  I have been wearing my classic oranges for 3+ years now and they still answer for a walk of a mile or less.  I got some blistering the other day power walking 3 miles to start getting into shape for the hard summer I have planned, but they have been complimented, performed in all weathers, can be used for climbing, hiking, jogging, you name it- go great with all outfits, are tough, waterproof, and still, shake off dirt like no shoe I have ever seen.  For 2 full years they would look shot and then with a spritz of water shine like new.  Thank goodness I have another pair fresh in my closet waiting for me the last 2.5 years, because I will need them this summer.  And Wenger does not make any oranges anymore.  The model of shoe, Matterhorn, is also not available at most websites anymore.  I once checked Wenger's home site, which does not specialize in sales, and found that in Europe some bright colors were still available (are they now?  Who knows, even Europeans get boring, because for some reason they copy our fashion, and are even trying to get fat and stupider), although few.  But the specialization and craft is largely out of the company now.  Their second year in business the shoes were leaning towards being grey and black with striping of bright colors, with more traditional cuts and fewer options.  I am not sure how to take that.  At the time I thought, well I guess no one but me wanted shoes that everyone will admire and be jealous of, no one is confident enough to wear the colors of the sunset on their feet.  People are pretty boring.  And maybe some of their over-hyped claims, such as how the Albion was a hiker (I own them, and they are only a "hiker" if you consider walking to work on sidewalks "hiking".  Yes they are a fine walking shoe, made of good material, with gorgeous shape and cut, and in bright red with red laces I get a lot of compliments (quick suggestion here men: women seem to look at a man's feet more than you would think.  I have had about a dozen women of various ages begin conversations with me over my great Wenger vintage shoes.  So stop wearing the ratty old pair with holes and do yourself a favor, dress up, starting from the bottom), but I would never take them on an actual hike.  They are a gorgeous casual shoe for people who want to pretend they are sporty, like how most drivers of S.U.V.s care more about the pop down TV screen than about the extra paneling on the undercarriage to protect them from rocks on gravel roads.  They will do in a pinch if you need to jog to work.  Anyway, it does not matter, they too are discontinued.

Year 2's slightly less artisan shoe line of smaller scope (was the passion gone?  Or was the plan to see what sold and stick with only those?) with stiffer bodies that pinched the foot a little, but which still performed (I can jog on bald ice in my winter hiker pair from that year) gave over to Year 3.  An even smaller line.  Grey now the most exciting color.  Brown and tan the norm for the few cuts.  All of them more cheaply made and even the same "models" being downgraded.  (I cannot jog on bald ice in my Year 3 Winter Hikers which are theoretically the same shoe as Year 2, but in different colors, and they can still claim to be weather rated against frostbite to negative 25 Ferenheit, but my feet get cold in them near zero)  Those shoes that were constructed well, such as the Yetti, a fine winter sport hiker, with full ankle support, creative tread well suited to snow, and very sturdy toe box and heel shell molding to give a tighter, truer fit with snoeshoes (they do by the way- no slipping, which means no blisters), came with trash insoles.  The Yetti is still available, by the way, and though I have not tried the second year model, if they are comparable, are well worth the $99 price.  The boots look great, will last well to actual use (take care of them, but only after you beat them up in using them), and are not so insulated as to be unusable in summer, though in hot temperatures, you will get some steamed feet.  Still, they are as waterproof as boots come and true summer hikers in another brand make my feet sweat more, and are not even close to still being waterproof after 2 summers.  They barely remained so for one, which is typical (and yes I know that one needs to treat goretex products with a re-sealer each year, I am not an idiot, thank you).  I recommend the Yetti, though the trash insole will not even work to walk around the house in.

Again, I cut Wenger slack.  Most hikers these days are trained by REI staff members to believe they need a $40 insole and why not, there is more money to be had.  So perhaps Wenger thought, why waste the money putting in a good insole that people will discard before even trying out?  Wenger's Year 1 and 2 shoes had magnificent insoles, by the way.  I am still on the original in my Oranges, though I have had to pad them the past 2 years underneath by cutting old socks and slipping those under the insoles. This costs exactly nothing by the way, and so you will never hear anyone in the business, such as an REI staffer suggest it.  Why be resourceful in a modern capitalist country?  Why take 90 seconds making your shoes better than new for free by cutting up an old sock when you can swipe a credit card?

Ah but now we are in Year 4 and I see what Wenger's plan probably was all along.  Get some name recognition, some devoted followers, insiders who have credibility and tell everyone buy Swiss or go barefoot, and to all the time, be working on creating a product that can be mass-produced in China quickly enough to infiltrate Target.  Yes, you can now buy decent and well-designed tents, backpacks, shoes, and other gear at Target chains with that glorious Wenger red cross, as well as at Ross and TJ Maxx chains.  They are the best thing you can buy- at those stores- and are still a better deal than most products you can buy at R.E.I.  or similar stores, where backpacks cost an astonishing $200!  And may last, but are so pretty that you will feel the need to buy a new one after taking it out once, because for $200, the thing ought to shine and sparkle you know?  But in no way can I now say that I will never buy anything but Wenger again.  They saved my feet, and maybe even my life, (melodrama?), but the product they are putting out now does not pass The Still Wild West 5 second flex test.  I can pick up a shoe and tell you in 5 seconds if it is worth buying.  If it feels like it was made by hand with leather the way my vintage Wengers still do after 2 and 3 years (I kept buying new models; I get teased by the same women who compliment me; "oh you have more shoes than I do.  Every day a new color."), then it is worth almost any price.  Sadly, I don't know of any company that makes such a shoe now.  Salomon only works for narrow feet and I lost some toenails trying them on steep hills in Utah.  Though maybe I could size up.  I just hate looking like another yuppy you know?  Wearing Salomon to me makes a simple statement: look at me, I like to look like I do this all the time!

I haven't liked the few other major brands I have tried either.  Wenger was one brand not building in arch support, which only works if you have, you know, high arches.  Otherwise it causes problems.  So good luck.  If you find the perfect shoe let me know.  I have about 3 years left with my new oranges, and maybe with new insoles, I can make the 2 sets of Matterhorns I have last forever.  If not, who knows.  If only I had had the foresight to buy 3 pairs of Matterhorns, but that seemed too ridiculous.  Who buys shoes more than 2 years in advance really?  And had I known they were good for 3 years each, I'd have said, well, I'm covered until I am 30, and by then, I may be sick of having fun or will have been struck by lightning.  Oh well.

If you Use a Camelback, you're a sucker

When hiking I rarely meet anyone without a Camelback these days.  I find them unnecessary and silly.  They are difficult to clean, the hose can break or rupture, there are several parts to replace, they can tear (mine did when I had one), the twist cap where one fills the bladder can slip and leak (mine did) or slip and cause tearing around the rim for permanent leaking (mine did).  And it costs $40 or more for a decent one, and is annoying to store unless in a specially designed backup.  Those are all the bad.  What is good about them?  Well everyone assures me it is essential to get a constant and steady influx of water, which is nonsense, and counter-productive.  First, studies and experimentation will show you that your body and mind attain more satisfaction from one gulp than an equal quantity of water in sips.  Second, sipping a little water at a time encourages your body to sweat, as it gets the idea that you have water to spare.  Third, if you are worried about hydration, then replacing what you lose is idiotic.  Would you rather replace hubcaps the neighborhood punks steal, or not have them stolen to begin with?  A better plan therefore, is to soak your shirt.  Start wet and your body is tricked into thinking it has already sweated, or at very least, will not sweat.  You sweat more as the sweat beads evaporate, so with a layer of water atop your skin, the sweat does not come out, or much slower.  Last, off the top of my head, having a water bladder and sipping from it makes you weak.  Either you have water nearby (a creek, rain, a waterfall) or not.  If you do, then you need not carry water.  It is silly too.  More weight on your knees and back are bad for the body and the stamina.  I suggest you lose more stamina with the weight of the water than you gain by the constant rehydrating.  If you do not have water nearby, then you need to be working on wilderness skills: how to not only read, but interpret a topographic map, for one.  If crossing desert or leaving a canyon or creek bed, study the map for stream crossings, and try to guess based on the terrain around you (color of leaves/bushes/brittleness of ground/recent weather if you know it, or what you can guess of it) which will be running and how deep.  Or seek out springs, estimate how far you will travel until you hit water again.  Then carry a little more water than you think you need.  And never drink water (this is my best advice for all hikers) until you start to need it.  If you baby yourself you will be a baby.  I don't know when it came into fashion to coddle one's tummy while punishing the muscles, but people these days will work out like demons, all the while making sure to get a perfect influx of electrolytes and all that.  Let's call this the marine principle- but I needed a new paragraph about a paragraph ago.

How marines train (if every memoir I have read was not making up the same lies; I have no direct evidence or experience): you get no gatorade and no protein bars.  You get water, and food.  Large meals, in a hurry, not snacks, and water only rarely, mostly at the end of the day.  Snacking, and I have mentioned this on my food blog, fits into the same principles as water bladder sipping, with the nozzle right an inch from your mouth so you never take a parched step is a scam.  Let us get there the Socratic way.  I will ask you this: why do we keep seeing million dollar studies on vitamin C and colds?  Do you think the benefit of vitamin C is yet in doubt?  If so, then why are the orange juice companies promising us good health and fewer colds?  Are they lying?  The link is quite proven, conclusively, to put you at ease.  Orange juice industry people are not lying to you.  But why then the studies?  Is this all the doing of scientific experts and specialists who with 25 years of vitamin C behind them are too old and settled to try a new line?  Well they are abettors, but how do they get money?  Begging.  And by producing desired results regularly.  Who would want these results regularly, in press releases, and tied to famous big name scientists at big name research labs and universities?  Well in our vitamin C example, the orange juice industry.  Out of sight out of mind.  But every few months, particularly near the beginning of a new growing season, you will see lots of vitamin C and colds studies popping up in magazines.  So back to snacking.  Why would hundreds of studies prove "grazing" is better than meals?  Who would want these studies?  Right, the food industry.  Any branch of it, but snack companies in particular.  Companies are always looking for ways to get you to pay more for food (over your dead body as they find, Americans think of food as quantity only, not quality, we want more, not good, food for our money, which makes sense since Americans have bad taste in everything and pick loud and long movies over thoughtful and meaningful ones) or if not more for the same food, than to eat more food.  Thus we have all these studies, funded by the food industry where nutritionists discover and prove it is better to have 6 small meals than 3 and even better still to have 12 than 6.  Why?  Because you eat more, stupid.  People are not satiated by a snack.  It does not even register in the brain, nor does it trigger much in the way of digestive hormones.  It is a non-event, like a small earthquake you sleep through and have to read about in the paper.  What's more, look at all the new products we have, all with sickening amounts of packaging to dispose of, though that is beside the main point: 100 calorie snack packs (a genius move by the food industry- people pay up to 10X more per calorie for these to stay thin, and the people buying them are often not thin, and these same people if served a 1/4 pound burger at a sit down restaurant rather than 1/3 pound burger would cause a scene or not come back), single serve yogurts, slim jims, and on and on.

And this allegedly to stop the spread of diabetes, which became a problem about when the "grazing" theory came out and became popular.  This also did away with the family dinner (well it was a nail in a very tightly sealed coffin anyway) which is better for the various food industries, because if the kids aren't going to sit with Mom, why should she bother making something from scratch when there are TV dinners and boil in a bag dinners and all that sort of thing with much wider profit margins.  I have strayed again, but I will find my way back.  Would you believe I adore the book Tristram Shandy?  It is a mock auto biography by an author who is barely born by the end of the book, as he keeps getting distracted and going into details about friends of his father, philosophical debates between cardinals about whether a baby trapped in the mother's womb can be baptized by "squirt" or no before both expire at the hands of the clumsy midwife, the correct pronunciation of things in Latin, and so on.  At first (and here was my problem at age 12 when I first tried to read it and threw it away in disgust) one thinks, my blessed soul, I am 50 pages into this book and this clod has not gotten himself born yet!  And then, poor woman, his mother has been in labor near 100 pages!  But then by the 200th page, it is really just a marvel that the author could draw the thing out.  I am listening to the audio version right now and I have never laughed so hard as when this comic genius reading the thing, takes a shallow breath to drawl out in fine classical british accent the single word "foot...note".  And now, I need a new paragraph again or we shall never see the light.

You are told to snack to sell you 100 calorie wheat thin packs.  You are told to sip water constantly to sell you a water bladder with replacable parts, that, if they are marketed as replacable on the label, you can be sure, will need replacing.  There's more money to be had that way.  And also to make you a week sissy weenie, there I've said it.  The weenier you are, the more crap REI can convince you you need.  I know how you feel.  They spend the few sentences of every paragraph enticing you in these outdoor magazines.  Then they tell you how prepared you must be.  Which involves a staggering expense of gear.  Now I learned the hard way that some gear is necessary.  One cannot simply live in a fine place like Utah and throw on old beat up tennis shoes and go sally up a mountain for a day.  I tried that first thing on moving here.  And ran out of water on a dry trail, had to eat some dirty snow (I found two handfuls of it between some rocks in a miserable gully in late August) because all the small creeks and springs in the area were dry, sucked a pebble for three hours to keep my throat from getting too dry, resisted blowing my nose or spitting for fear of wasting the fluids, got so dehydrated I could not walk anymore, and just rolled myself down the steep gravely slope, ruining clothing and skin in the process, but recovering when I heard a creek some hundreds of feet below me, enough to drag myself to it, plunge in, cool my overheated body, gobble up water until I threw up (I knew better but you try stopping yourself sometime- torture is pure audacity, it is sexual frustration acted out.  There is no need for it.  Simply do not give a man water for 24 hours and keep him in the sun.  There is nothing worse I promise you. If you disagree you have not been thirsty, you only think you have.)  I dreamt of water for miles, I could think of nothing for an hour but the word "water, water, water."  I learned a valuable lesson and went water bladder shopping the next day.  Which took things too far.  Only after the thing broke and I was too cheap to replace it (let me here insert that those who tell you something like a Camelback will last years do not hike much.  My roomate has a tent that has lasted him 6 years and he will scold me with superiority when I find a small tear in a backpack or sleeping bag.  Well, he has never used his tent.  So I would hope it did not tear by being stored in a dry closet.  And he hikes at most 2 days per year, so his Camelback is still in fine condition, true.  But even taking care of my things, which I do, they wear out and break.  This leads me to believe I must post on products very soon, in a more general blog.

Back to water bladders.  Once it broke, I began to just let myself get thirsty, because the water bottles were on my back.  I could not drink easily by walking.  So I would just stop for a gulp every hour.  Then that got tedious, day after day, so I went to every 2 hours, then 4, then I was only sipping water at noon, and rehydrating when I stopped around 4 to set up a camp.  As I was not drinking, I stopped eating.  Now I eat only a few handfuls to start the day and the rest when I stop.  It is wonderful convenient if you want to make big miles in a day, and it is not even close to a hardship anymore.  That's the thing about hardship is you get used to anything.  When people sipping their waterhose (IVs will be sold in a few years) and eating a handful of trailmix or a 100 calorie craisin pack every 45 minutes by a timer meet me, and imagine what I must be going through, they cannot imagine.  Well it is this: much less than they.  Every 40 minutes they start to crave that snack, and every 5 steps, to want water.  My body and I are in perfect concert.  I demand that it endure, and when we stop, I will take the boots off, not put them back on, and pamper my body fully.  I know how to rest and I know how to push.  For my troubles, I get no hunger pangs.  I can go a whole day without food and not even get much of a rumble.  I love it.  I start to notice hunger as I am eating.  I have to press myself to eat at first.  I get thirsty when I am drinking.  There is no constant denial that the Camelback kids believe I must go through.  I suffer so much less having suffered.  For one gets to the other side, or over the crest, well, use your own analogy.  Its better, trust me.  And you can lighten your load.  I am all about a light load and will blog on that soon too.  The other consideration, even if you do not want to be a mighty man of blood and iron, is that when something goes wrong, such as you run out of water and are lost, if you are not used to getting water all the time, you will be able to endure without it.  This summer I got myself into trouble with a friend who always sips water and politely suggested to me I was silly not to take care of my body.  Well we were nowhere near water and wound up on our feet for 18 hours, covering 20 miles, going up or over 2 peaks, climbing all told 8,000 feet of elevation, much of it on broken vegetated cliffs with loose rock, debris, and with lots of exposure.  It was stupid and should have been avoidable, but the difference in our staminas was rather shocking.  He noticed it too, and I think I may have won in some part a convert to my method of thinking.  I only wore out at the very end, when I had been without water and food for 10 or so hours, though I hid it from him, as I'd been a pillar till then and it was dark and I did not want to worry him.  I ate some snow every few feet.  He had more water on the day as he had his Camelback, but his bag was enough heavier for it that he dumped some expensive and nice equipment.  And this is a very fit person.  In ideal conditions, he can whip me: that is, running a marathon on asphault he would run circles around me.  I had 1 liter of water in those 18 hours.  I have also done 12 mile desert hikes in the last year on 90+ degree days with 1 liter or less of water.  I usually bring a few swallows back with me and ritualistically pour them out or over my head when I reach my car.  I do not ever want to be truly thirsty again.

So, carry either: a 1 liter bottle to refill, or if going more than 5 miles from road or town or car, then I suggest taking 2 bottles of that size.  One should be narrow-mouthed and one wide-mouthed at the opening.  Why?  The narrow is easier to drink from when walking, the wide can be stuffed full of snow if you cannot find water.  Try stuffing snow into a small opening sometime and you will see how frustrating it is,and time consuming.  Also, eat all she snow you want I say.  I have never gotten sick from it.  Beware of water though.  However, consider that guardia and other viruses won't get you sick for a few days to a few weeks usually.  So do what you need to to make it through the day, then worry about the cramps later.  When you are in your own comfortable house and have people to listen to your moans and pity you.  Priorities.  For purification, there are 2 good options, and one decent one.  The decent is to carry an emergency filter straw by Aquamira.  It costs $6, will work for 20 liters of water or so, and will kill most anything.  It weighs one ounce.  A better choice is a water pump.  I prefer the Katadyn Hiker Pro, by far, to any other.  The next best option is the Katadyn Hiker, which is the same pump but a less stylish color, and with a lower quality filter that will need replacing faster.  However, if you will use the pump less than often, go with that one and save $10 or so.  They weigh about 1 pound, have a fine carrying case, are an up and down easily pumped device which it would be hard to break, and offer some hose features that I lack the power of words to communicate, but which will make sense reading the instructions.  Those I know with other brands are envious as the Katadyn is easier to clean, store, and use.  I do not like the MSR as it has a swing hinge pump and will wear out over time, I expect.  Let us say it is an established fact that a swing hinge on a single pivot is more vulnerable to physical stresses and forces than a pump that simply goes up and down, though I have no evidence that the MSR will break faster.  I only know, that it should, in most cases.  A hypothesis.  Also I like the bottle adaptor with the Katadyn pump, as it has fit snug onto every bottle I have tried it with, to prevent spills and make for even easier pumping.  The MSR would not fit a narrow-mouth Nalgene bottle and spilling was a problem.  The Katadyn is a really fine product and at $79 or so, in the middle of the pack on pricing.  The other option I used to prefer is Aquamira (not iodine) droplets.  The trouble is, the bottles leak, though if you leave the foil seal mostly on under the cap, and press it down after using, it is better.  But for each liter of water, you need to mix a few pipette drops from Bottle A with Bottle B.  And scrambling around, they do leak.  So you need to bag them.  But they will kill anything, with even more certainty than a filter, so if going into a wilderness area where there will be cows (yes the government allows herds of non-native animals into wilderness areas to do much harm to it; the original definition of wilderness area explains that they are needed to keep jerks from overgrazing and destroying the lands, but assumes the right to graze; perhaps I will blog about the trip some of you have heard about where a herd of mother cows and I had a showdown and four of the ladies marched in line towards me snorting before I noticed I was between the herd and a wobbling little calf that had strayed off) or sheep (Uintahs, Wind Rivers), you may want to go with these to be sure you don't get infected from cowpies in the water.  Also they weigh about 2 ounces and will not leak on flat terrain.  And cost $15, which will last you for a hiking season, unless you are on the Appalachian Trail, and then they will last you a month to six weeks.

This has been another smug and exuberant rant where I come off as a superior know it all.  I hope you enjoyed it.