BootsnAll Travel Community

Hi all,

How much water would you recommend to carry on summit day? Is 4 liters sufficient? Any tips on how to avoid it from freezing? We each have a 2L bladder style container (with insulation around the tube) and 2 x 1L Nalgene bottles.

Thanks for your help!

Hi, I didn't summit(i came down summit night due to HAPE), but we were told 4 litres, just like the other days on our climb. The guides also said that if you blow all the water back into your camelback from the tube after taking a drink it will stop it from freezing. Hope this helps a bit.

My insulated camelback still froze, even though I blew back in it. I ended up giving up after a while. My husband had one of those 2L? bottles of bottled water, stored it upside down in his pack, and had better luck with that.

An idea for the camelback hose is to keep it in your jacket close to your body rather than have it out (even if insulated). I think that was my mistake.

4L should be sufficient. On the way up, I didn't drink that much since my water froze. But hydrated back up on my way down.

My water froze very quickly in my camelback, even with the insulation tube. We went with Bootsnall and they gave us hot tea about half way up. We did the sunrise summit, and I didn't drink much water until we got to camp. In my oxygen deprived state, I was more annoyed that I brought so much water, since it was frozen and I couldn't drink it anyway. You do have to know yourself and know how much water you typically drink when exercising, hiking and running in particular. I live in Arizona, but I hate carrying anything when I run, so I will often go for an hour or more in the heat and just drink before and after. Also, you probably won't want to stop to relieve yourself in the cold!

My camelback also froze just above Hans Meyer cave. THe water in my nalgene was like a slushie. Go figure, the $1 Kilimanjaro water bottle was fine the whole way up. Both the nalgene and Kili water bottle were in my backpack. All in all I brought 4 liters of water. Drank about half of it though since it all froze...

Hi,

We were doing a little cold weather testing hiking around this weekend. One of the nice things about Edmonton Canada in January is that there are lots of opportunities to see how your gear works at -18c.

I was using a platypus bladder that I kept in my backpack next to my back - the heat from my body kept it warm enough for the whole walk. My only problem was that the little valve at the end of the hose and the water in the last cm or two of the hose froze up. So all I did was take the valve off and put the hose in my mouth. It thawed out and I could drink the water. After drinking I held the end of the hose up and all the water drained out of the hose and back into the bladder. I think it will work for Uhuru.

Cheers,

Tim

Boil up your water before you head off and stick it in the Nalgene. Then put the Nalgene in something like this.

You won't need any more water than you had on any other day. Our guide told us that most people hardly drink any water going up because it is so cold and you go pretty slowly.

Both my wife and I each had 2.5L of water for the hike from Barafu to the summit. (Full Camelback + Nalgene) It was plenty given that it didn't freeze.

If you have a Camelback, definitely divide up your water between that and a Nalgene in case your water freezes. Also, if possible, you should wear your Cambelback inside your jacket and blow back the water all the way back inside the bladder each time you finish drinking.

Bring handwarmers (pre-opened before the summit) and duct tape. Just in case your nozzle freezes, you can wrap the handwarmer around the nozzle to unfreeze it.

Personally I'd still make sure you have 2.5-3 litres of water at least for summit night. Drink small amounts regularly as you climb up, but you'll find it remarkably hot on the way back down to Barafu if it's a sunny day.

Worth stripping off a couple of layers before you start the descent too.

Especially make sure you have about a litre ready to drink when you're back at Barafu. It was sooo hot and dry there when I got back.

Agree about hand warmers, as much for your hands as anything else! I had fleece layer gloves and wind/wet proof overgloves and I still found myself feeling frostbitten. I had to give my poles to a summit porter for half an hour or so and walk with my hands in my jacket pockets until they warmed up!

Thanks. These are all good suggestions.

We're from Canada as well, and have had chances to do some winter hiking in -15 to -20 degree (C) weather. As one of the previous posters wrote, my water didn't freeze in the main bladder area of the platypus. However, it did on occasion freeze in the tube (when I forgot to blow the water back into the bladder). I most often managed to break the ice in the tube by just folding and squeezing the tube with my hands.

One one occasion, water in the valve froze and that was a bigger problem. I was not able to remove the valve, and therefore unable to drink - that would be an occasion where hand warmers would be useful.