Getting safe water on Long Treks

Water is very essential during trekking, and neglecting that can cause serious dehydration. For short treks, you can carry most of the water you need for the entire journey in bottles. But for extended treks, this becomes more difficult, especially if camping or cooking is involved. Water is heavy, since a litre of it weighs a kilogram, it quickly overwhelms the carrier.

Water from natural sources like streams or by melting snow can be used for drinking and cooking purposes, however a few precautions are mandatory, to prevent unwanted diseases from drinking contaminated water.

The most effective of all these is to boil the water. The water need not actually boil for an extended period, just getting it to boil should suffice. This will render the water safe to drink. But this is also a complicated and time consuming procedure.

The other method is to buy Iodine beforehand at your local medical store. For a recent 3 day trek I bought BetaDine(R) iodine bottle for about Rs 113 at the local medical store. You can buy Tincture of Iodine also, but it has less concentration. It was a normal 100ml bottle, and can potentially clean hundreds of liters of water. Just add 8 drops of it to a liter of clear water, and wait for 30 mins for the iodine to kill most of the microorganisms. Iodine is not poisonous in higher doses, so you can safely increase the dosage without any side-effects. double the dosage, if you see visible contamination or if you want quicker response time. After 30 mins, there will be a slight after-taste to water due to iodine. I personally did not mind the taste, but for those of you who do, you can carry Vitamin C tablets. You must add them AFTER the 30 mins, otherwise iodine will not be effective (since the Vitamin C tablets convert iodine to iodide, removing the taste). I would suggest using iodine in normal water once before the trek to know clearly how you feel about the taste of it, and see if you need Vitamin C or not.

WARNING: Do NOT EXPOSE IODINE TO SUNLIGHT! It renders it ineffective!

Iodine tablets are also available I suppose, although I havent tried them.

I also suggest having a backup scheme to purify water, to prevent any unexpected incidents like the bottle accidentally getting exposed to sunlight or breaking.

Check out this link for more details on other water purification methods. Remember, by not carrying a lot of bottles, you are also not polluting the environment with plastic!

Trekking Essentials

Trying to go for a trek in the wilderness? Here is a list of the essentials you need to carry. Most of them will seem like overkill, but if an emergency happens you will be happy you have them! The list is incomplete, and I will be adding stuff regularly as I figure it out.

Navigational Aids:

1. Detailed and marked Map
2. Compass (optionally supplemented with a GPS receiver)
3. Cell Phone

Survival Aids:

1. Water proof Matches/Lighter with candles for easier starting
2. Flashlight
3. Knife
4. Rope
5. Cap/Hat
6. Water Purification tablets
7. Old News papers for Fire
8. Energy Bars
9. Jerkin/rain wear (against rain and cold)
10. Whistle (for communication if lost)
11. Local Enforcement official contact and details
12. Extra batteries (for flash light or camera)

Health Aids:
1. First aid kit
2. Sprain Band & Gauze
3. Sunglasses and sunscreen
4. Mosquito/Insect repellent
5. Disinfectant (For handwash)
6. Protection against Leeches

Comfort
1. Extra food and water containers
2. Extra clothes
3. Rain wear
4. Extra socks
5. Tissue paper
6. Wet Tissues

Miscelleneous/Entertainment:
1. Camera
2. Extra clothes

Treks with camping:
1. Tents
2. Sleeping bags/blankets
3. Campfire starting materials

Treks with substantial climbing:
1. Gloves
2. Shoes with proper grip
3. Bags with tight straps
4. tight clothing
5. Ropes
6. Pick axe

Trip to Nandi Hills

After a long vacation-less November, it was time for action again, and this time we decided to go visit Coorg near Bangalore during the weekend of Dec 6-7. However since the number of people got reduced to my friend - MJ, his wife - Sudha and myself, We had no option but to cancel the planned 2 day coorg trip and then instead planned on visiting Nandi Hills about 70 km from bangalore.

Since we felt a cab for 3 people was an overkill, we took my friend AJ's Pulsar 180, and Phani's Bajaj Discover to visit Nandi hills. We started at 1PM in the afternoon after having lunch at Swagruha near our friend's house. After travelling for 4 km on the Outer Ring Road, I was stopped by two cops. The Pulsar 180 is a Tamil Nadu registration vehicle, and my friend never actually paid the Karnataka state tax for it. So not having any kind of insurance/pollution certificate or tax reciept, he asked for a Rs 800 fine... or Rs 200 bribe :)). I paid the bribe and he warned me about more cops checking vehicles near the Hebbal flyover. I took heed to his warning and closely followed a lorry, and missed the bunch of cops who were stopping vehicles at the Hebbal Flyover.

Nandi hills is located about 40 km away from the newly constructed Bangalore International Airport (BIAL), and hence the road was a 6 lane one with a 80KMPH speed limit. The P180 was rearing to go and I cruised along, but not forgetting to check out for cops at the same time. We reached Nandi hills at 3:30 PM.

The place was extremely beautiful, although there were no clouds. We had a complete view of the place around. Nandi hills was actually a fort belonging to Tipu Sultan at one time. The rock formation was awesome, and we had a walk all around the place and took a ton of pics. We also took our trademark "in-the-air" pics, where we jump, and use a multi snap capture camera to take a series of photographs spaced about 300 ms from each other. The monkeys on the hill were a serious menace, with one trying to snatch a chips packet directly from my hand. and it would not scare at all.

We started back at 5:30PM from Nandi Hills, and it was almost 8:00 PM by the time I reached my friend's house, without any further brushes with the cops :)