A friend and I went on a 3 day survival hike in
It was sometime in June, the weather was hot and dry. I learned some very good lessons on this hike!
The first lesson I learned was about shade. There are different types of shade and they all affect you differently. In the desert there are several types of shade, no shade, light shade, medium shade and dark shade. I will explain them below:
No shade – that is pretty obvious. You dehydrate very quickly and can get a bad sunburn.
Light shade – This is shade you find under a Palo Verde tree or any tree that has very few leaves. Light shade is better than nothing, but not much. Psychologically you may feel better but you will still dehydrate quickly and get sunburned.
Medium shade – This is shade you find under brush or a tree that has a lot of leaves. The sun still filters through, but you can feel a definite change in temperature. You will still dehydrate, but not as fast. You can also get a bad sunburn sitting under a tree or even on a cloudy day.
Deep shade – This is shade you find in the shadow of a rock, in a hole or next to something very solid. This type of shade can be 10 to 30 degrees cooler than the outside temperature. Here you will retain more water, although the dry air will absorb a lot of your sweat and moisture in your breath anyway.
We spent the next 3 days doing our best to stay out of the sun and in deep shade.
We ran out of water on the morning of the second day. We couldn’t find water anywhere. We looked in all the places you normally find water in the desert, there just wasn’t any. The black rock of the canyon made the heat almost unbearable. As we became more dehydrated, we became more desperate to find water. Being hungry didn’t bother me much; I just wanted a drink of water.
We made a solar still and that didn’t produce hardly any water at all. We were excited at first when we saw the condensation form on the plastic, but after waiting for several hours the cup at the bottom of the still had very little water in it at all.
By day 3 it was obvious that we probably weren’t going to find any water and we needed to hike out that night after the sun went down. I was pretty confident that I would live through this, what I was not sure of was if we would make it out on our own. We had left instructions back at home, explaining that if we didn’t return on time we would most likely be in trouble.
It is interesting how the mind starts to go when you get dehydrated. Logic kind of goes out the window and you find it very hard to concentrate. We even thought about climbing down a 60 foot cliff to get to the bottom of a bluff because it was a shorter route back to civilization. Fortunately, we decided it was probably a bad idea and if one of us got hurt it would just make things worse.
I have gone 48 days on just water alone. I was hungry and lost a lot of weight, but my mind was crystal clear. In less than 72 hours without water I felt like I was an idiot and could not function very well. The extreme heat didn’t help. It was hard to walk in a straight line or even tie my shoes. I even wanted to leave my day pack behind, just like in the movies. I fought the urge and kept it. This would prove to have been a wise decision later on.
It was almost dark on the third day when we noticed some bees near the base of a cliff. There was a narrow slit that they were flying in and out of. I thought “Maybe there is water there, or a hive.” Usually if there are a lot bees there is water somewhere near by.
The slit was only an inch or two high; it didn’t look like much at all. I was desperate so I started digging the sand out of this opening. I had dug about 2 feet in and I noticed that the sand was moist. I took a handful and put it in my mouth. I just wanted something wet. I dug some more and in the back of this crack there was water dripping slowly from the top. It wasn’t dripping very fast. I put my hands under it, but I couldn’t hold the water long enough to get it to my mouth. I took my cup out of my day pack and put it under the drip. It took about ten minutes, but the cup was half full. You would have thought we had found gold or something. My friend and I were jumping up and down yelling and screaming like a couple of wild Indians.
The second lesson I learned was that even if your water bottle is empty, keep it. When you do find water you will have something to store it in. The cup proved to be very valuable. I now carry a metal cup so that I can boil water in it.
We stayed there and drank until our minds started to feel clear again. We ended up staying the night next to the water hole and walked out the next morning.
We were psychologically prepared, which made the experience easier. We didn’t panic, but when you are severely dehydrated it is difficult to think clearly.
When going into the desert or anywhere I carry plenty of water and try and find out where the water is or should be on a topographical map.
I hope sharing this experience with you will be helpful,
Ray