My water filter froze solid on the JMT last week and I had to melt snow for 2 days straight

2 comments

2 Comments

My buddy Dave had his Sawyer freeze solid near Muir Pass a couple years back, and he ended up wrapping it inside his puffy jacket at night just to keep it from turning into a brick again. He said melting snow took him almost an hour per liter, and by the second day he was so sick of the hissing stove sound he just wanted to chuck it into a creek. Made me double-check my own backup plan real quick, you know?

the_jason3d ago

Man I feel that pain so much. Having your filter turn into a block of ice on trail is one of those things you don't really think about until it happens, and then it's just a solid day or two of misery. Melting snow is such a slow process too, especially when you're already tired and just want to get water and keep moving. At least you had a stove and fuel to actually melt it, imagine being stuck with just a filter and no backup plan. Props to you for pushing through that though, that's the kind of thing that separates the people who finish the trail from the ones who bail out at the first bad luck.