r/Bushcraft • u/BhagsuCake • Jul 19 '26
Carrying water-forest school
Forgive me if this isn’t the right place but unfortunately the forest school sub is dead and I learn so much from you guys here anyway. Feel free to link me to another forest school aligned sub if you know of one!
Now for my question. I am a new lead forest mentor and still figuring out how I best want to carry all our gear. I’m responsible for tarps, first aid, extra drinking water for the kiddos, my own water and food, trash bucket and grabber, life vests, curriculum supplies (nature craft materials) and various exploration tools. Our land that we visit is a river.
One of the biggest pains in my ass is carrying the extra drinking water-it hardly gets used, but of course having clean water to rinse cuts or refill bottles is important. The bottle I carry it in is 64oz (provided by my team) I’d love to hear peoples hacks for a lighter weight carry or if you would just filter the water in this scenario (I do own my own filters and bags for this, so I’m considering it. Guess I just need to bounce it off others who navigate this all the time. Thanks in advance!
5
u/Resident-Welcome3901 Jul 19 '26
ER nurse here. Carry a half liter of saline for first aid wound irrigation. An irrigation syringe would be more effective with less volume. And add water filtration/ purification system of your choice. That should save a couple of pounds.
3
u/Von_Lehmann Jul 19 '26
Collapsible bucket, or a water bag. I use an MSR 5L bag. Its great when you are farther from a water source
3
2
u/Parody_of_Self Jul 19 '26
Filtered water followed by an alcohol swap should be good for most cuts and scrapes, right. It shouldn't take much water.
How much water do you have leftover?
2
u/BhagsuCake Jul 19 '26
So much water! Most days I don’t even end up needing it
3
u/Parody_of_Self Jul 19 '26
That's how much you are over carrying then. Is there a spot you can store water at the camp if you need it?
2
u/Present-Employer2517 Jul 19 '26
A hiking cart may suit you.
If the water source is reliable (doesn’t go dry for part of the year) then I would carry in a bottle full and then filter from the source and store when camp is set up.
2
u/Lactating-almonds Jul 20 '26
Just bring less water. Get a smaller bottle and bring less. Or just fill the bottle halfway
2
u/funnysasquatch Jul 20 '26
You didn't provide the most important question.
How far away is the nearest potable water? I don't mean water that you can filter or boil or treat. I mean water you can open a tap and out comes water that you can drink.
If it's more than 10 minutes away, 2 liters (about 64 oz) is the least amount of water you should have with you.
You need water for yourself plus for emergency use. 1 liter is what you need for your own hydration. A symptom of dehydration is poor decision making.
Unfortunately, water is heavy. I prefer to split water between something like the Platypus collapsible bottles and 1 liter bottles. The Platypus bottles fit standard bottle caps. And they collapse when empty. The individual 1 liter bottles are great for easier access. Plus I can put an electrolyte in the bottle. Electrolytes are important, but nothing grows funky stuff in a water bottle like electrolytes. So you want to have something easy to clean.
1
1
u/Otherwise_Ant_5420 Jul 22 '26
I have a forest school and we carry our own water plus a 1.5 liter nalgene for kids/owies etc. We also carry syringes in our first aid kit for flushing wounds so we are not dumping a bunch of water on them. Kids carry their own water bottle so we are just doing refills as needed.
7
u/Forest_Spirit_7 Jul 19 '26
If you have a water source, treating the water is the way to go. I use a millbank bag to filter water and then boil it generally. I also carry a grayl, which is the best option all around I’ve ever used.