| (Originally posted by ML on the Hoods Woods Forum, 26 May 2006; reproduced here with the author's permission) |
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What makes a man rich? Money? Power? Family? The admiration of friends? The adulation of the masses? The desert is the great equalizer. Under the magnifying glass of the desert sun, it doesn’t matter whether you own a factory with hundreds of employees or scrub out the foulest train-station toilet for a living. Whether you fart through silk, or dive into the dumpsters behind hospitals, looking for discarded organs and biopsy tissue to use for taco stuffing. Whether you’ve got a whole safe full of unused knives and a new SUV in the driveway, or flog around an automotive abortion running on half the cylinders it was born with. Wealth isn’t measured in camels or horses or goats or guns, the size of your tent or even the number of nubile young lovelies (or eunuchs, for all I care) in your harem.
No, after you’ve secured your little bit of shade and shelter, in the desert your wealth is measured in three very basic commodities: Water Fuel Ice My last little desert photo essay concentrated on things that failed in the desert—shoes and tires. Today’s little epistle is about things that work, and how to protect each of the three above assets in the big Dez. * * * * * Water Maybe the most unusual sight I’ve come upon in all the strange things I’ve seen in the desert occurred 25 years ago. I used to flog an old long-bed FJ55 Toyota Land Cruiser with a 327 Corvette engine through the Sierra Nevada, the Mojave, and Death Valley. I was on the east side of Death Valley, in the Nevada desert, raising some dust on a fast desert dirt track when I saw a car stopped ahead. As I drew closer, I saw a positively enormous woman—and we’re talking marine-mammal-grade here, probably tipping the scales in well in excess of 400 pounds—naked from the waist down and squatting next to a sand-blasted old Ford Falcon that was missing both the windshield and the rear window. Next to her stood her companion, a Charlie Manson lookalike meth head who couldn’t have weighed 100 pounds dripping wet. He was bare-chested, filthy, and wore a pair of goggles. I slid my Star PD under my thigh, and pulled up to a stop to see what was going on. Charlie didn’t seem very interested to see me one way or the other. But the closer I got to the cetacean, the more bizarre the whole scene grew. She was moaning and grunting, and a stream of diarrhea gushed intermittently from somewhere beneath all the flab. I couldn’t tear my eyes away—like watching a hideous highway wreck. I asked what was going on, and was told that Ahab’s dream here was sick—obviously. What had brought it on? They’d run out of drinking water, a problem she’s solved by drinking the meltwater in the ice chest. Good enough, except that the water was pretty warm, and apparently full of all sorts of floating funk from the food sitting in it—sort of a nasty soup. Another groan, another squirt. I winced, shifted into first, wished them luck, and was on my way. Such sights one doesn’t soon forget. * * * * * Carrying water with you in the desert should be a no-brainer. An oft-cited rule of thumb for bare-minimum survival is a gallon per day per person, for drinking purposes only. The U.S. Marine Corps Desert Handbook breaks it down into even more detail: Quarts of water, per man per day, in moderate desert conditions (air temp below 105° F) Light Activity (Deskwork, guard duty) --- 6 Moderate Activity (Route march on level ground, tank operations) --- 7 Heavy Activity (Forced Marches, unloading, digging in) --- 9 Quarts of water, per man per day, in severe desert conditions (air temp above 105° F) Light Activity (Deskwork, guard duty) --- 10 Moderate Activity (Route march on level ground, tank operations) --- 11 Heavy Activity (Forced Marches, unloading, digging in) --- 13 If you’re headed to the desert for any sort of extended time, you’ll need to transport all this water in a prudent manner. In my last little desert trip, I came across a couple who had purchased three 2 ˝-gallon jugs of water at their local market—you know the type: it’s packaged in a semi-translucent whitish plastic jug, about the strength of a plastic milk jug, with a little pull-open spout on the bottom. This seemed reasonable, but ultimately proved a poor choice. They’d loaded the water along with the rest of their camping gear into the bed of a pickup, and had then bounced along 75 miles of desert washboard road. Bu the time they got to their campsite, one of the containers had leaked out all of its contents, and the other was about half gone. The containers simply weren’t up to the thrashing of desert travel conditions. I’ve carried water in many ways, but what I use now is the same stout containers the military use, a super-heavy-duty “jerrycan” design, but made out of thick plastic. Here’s an example: |
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The handles are stout and give you good control when lifting a full can. The filler-mouth opening large, yet the pour-spout is small enough to give you good control and eliminate waste. The plastic construction eliminates rust, dents, and split seams. The squared-off shape makes them pack well with no wasted space around them, and they can travel inside the vehicle or outside in external racks. But most of all, they’re stout, and it’s here that you have to be a smart consumer. Lots of products look like this, but often they’re made of cheap materials—think of that $4.95 Chinese knock-off knife that looks like a more expensive quality blade, yet is substandard in every way.
The five-gallon (20 liter) black water can in this photo is a veteran of Desert Storm, and was purchased used at a gun show. Now you can also get these as 2 ˝-gallon (10 liter) cans too--the size of the smaller red fuel can in the photo--this size is very handy. Both are manufactured by the Canadian firm Scepter. The five-gallon version is built to Mil-Spec MIL-C-43613 and weighs a substantial 5.9 pounds empty. The 2 ˝-gallon version is extremely handy, weighing only a little over 20 pounds when full. You can find them mail-order in the U.S. through Brigade Quartermasters (www.brigadeqm.com, phone 1.800.338.4327). In this shot, the two red cans are for fuel, while the black can is for water, but both are available in a variety of colors (red, tan, black, green). Having the apparatus to filter or purify water in the desert is a good idea. Knowing the location of a spring or other water source is a good idea too. But nothing beats having your own water supply with you, ready and secure. * * * * * Fuel Desert roads can mean rock-crawling in low-range four-wheel drive, or slogging along through deep sand at walking speeds and on under inflated tires. It’s not unusual to see your fuel consumption double under such conditions. A truck that may get 18 miles to the gallon on the highway may start drinking fuel at the rate of seven or eight miles to the gallon. That can use up fuel fast. Add a load to that and things get even more dramatic. Using our example vehicle (18 mpg/9 mpg)—a desert road that starts 60 miles from the last gas station and goes 75 miles into the back country on tough dirt roads can mean you’ll need 22 gallons of fuel, plus reserve. Add a single wrong turn up a dirt track and you’re buzzard bait. Some solve this problem by adding an extra-large fuel tanks or second fuel tanks to their vehicles, and of course these work. But they can be very expensive, and may reduce your ground clearance too. They complicate transferring fuel from one vehicle to another. For many, a good fuel can or two is an excellent alternative. And again, we turn to these plastic jerrycans. After ten years of using them now, I’ve sold off all my old five-gallon steel cans. They always seemed to rust inside, and the gaskets all eventually gave out and they’d start to leak. The Scepter fuel cans use a different cap assembly from the water jugs, so there’s no confusion. You’ll need a special spout with them, too (forget about pouring fuel from either a metal or a plastic five-gallon jug into a funnel—a flex-hose spout narrow enough to fit into the unleaded fuel baffle is what you want). The Scepter fuel cans, again available in both five-gallon and 2 ˝-gallon sizes, are built to Mil Spec MIL-C-53109 and NSN 7240-21-8270. They’ll last you a lifetime. In the old CSUN survival classes, it was virtually guaranteed that at least one student would run out of gas on the way into or out of the mountains on our survival trips, and I always carried at least five gallons extra. Today, with high fuel prices, and doubly high prices in remote desert locations, it’s tempting for drivers to take off with less than a full tank. Don’t get caught out there without enough fuel. * * * * * Ice Even in the desert there are springs and wells for water. And you can stash fuel in a desert cache, or carry extra with you. But the one great perishable commodity in the desert, at least in the summer, is ice. Ice keeps your drinks cold and your food from spoiling. The former is a luxury, the latter a necessity. Most often, we carry it in some sort of ice chest, but air temperatures of 120° F and ground temps of up to 180° F for weeks on end can test an ice chest severely. In the desert, ice is the currency of kings. Recently I’ve found one that’s truly superior. Normally I try to avoid simply trotting out brand names or models, but there seems no way to avoid it here. The Coleman company offers several “degrees” of ice-chest performance, and it’s such exaggerated ad-speak it’ll make you want to spew. Their “Maximum” models will, according to the company literature, keep ice for three days at 90° F. The “Xtreme” models claim to keep ice for five days under the same conditions. And the “Ultimate Xtreme” are supposed to keep ice for six days. |
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| I used a Coleman Ultimate Xtreme Marine (a 58-quart model) on my recent Death Valley trip. It was hot—a lot hotter than the 90° F in the company literature. How much hotter? Take a look at this little digital thermometer: |
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| You read that correctly: 134.1 degrees F, and that's at 11:00 in the morning. I can vouch from first-hand experience that even after seven days of this elevated temperature (and higher), I still had substantial ice in the cooler. Of course, you need to observe some ice-chest discipline, too. First of all, use block ice rather than ice cubes; in the 58-quart chest, I used two ten-pound blocks for the trip, and then backfilled the spaces around my food with cubes. Second, pre-cool as much of your food as you can in your refrigerator at home. Even better, freeze whatever you can before it goes in the ice chest. If you’re keeping drinks in the chest that come packaged in plastic bottles (think of something like Gatorade here), try opening each bottle, pre-drinking about 10 percent, re-capping the bottle, and freezing the remainder before it goes in the chest. If you’ve got a long drive to the desert, top off your ice chest with fresh ice at the last possible spot, usually the last gas stop. Always keep the ice chest in the shade, even if this means moving it several times per day. The most reliable shade in the open desert may be under your vehicle. Don’t keep it in the vehicles or the trunk, though, as temperatures there are often much higher than outside. Never put anything that isn’t already cold into the chest. Try to limit how many times per day you open the ice chest. Here, pre-trip planning can pay dividends. We pre-packaged each day’s food, and layered the packages bottom to top. We probably only opened the chest twice a day, and that for just a minute or so. You can really stretch an ice chest’s performance by covering it with a sleeping bag at all times. Here, you can see a blue ice-chest jacket I’ve made with a cheap $10 sleeping bag. |
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It’s like a reverse tea cozy, adding insulation to keep the heat out, and the cold in.
Under the most severe conditions, I take two ice chests, one for drinks and one for food. The “drinks” chest gets opened and closed more, but is considered expendable—a warm bottle of apple juice or lemonade is no disaster, but spoiled food can be—vomiting or diarrhea can dehydrate you so quickly under harsh desert conditions as to be a life-threatening situation.
On the way out of the desert, it’s an extreme act of generosity and courtesy to offer any of your remaining ice to others you might see out there who are staying longer. And it’s an extreme act of discourtesy and weakness to ask for ice. If it is gifted to you, accept it graciously, but never ask, and never beg.
And if you weigh 400 pounds, do us all a favor. Try to keep you clothes on out there. It’s been a quarter century, and I still have nightmares about that one.
* * * * * Happy trails, from the land of the scorpion, tarantula, and lizard, --ML |
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Copyright © 2006 by Eric Stoskopf. Last updated 07/15/07 Back to the Contents page. |