{"id":12272,"date":"2024-09-04T11:59:49","date_gmt":"2024-09-04T09:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/?p=12272"},"modified":"2024-09-04T12:00:34","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T10:00:34","slug":"the-water-bottle-paradox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/the-water-bottle-paradox\/","title":{"rendered":"The Water Bottle Paradox"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

This weekend when I hiked to Valangin I thought that I would found a water fountain along the way, so I took just 600ml of water. A few weeks ago when I went to Charmey I took the same amount of water because I didn’t want too much weight for the Via Ferrata. The result is that I have run out of water twice recently.<\/p>\n

The paradox is that this isn’t because I lack water bottles. I have a collection of them. I have 1l bottles, 500ml water bottles, 600, 850, and more. I have one 1L water camelbak and one 2L camelbak. I could easily use them in rotation.<\/p>\n

When I ran out of water on Charmey I ran out very close to the end. I believe that part of the reason for which I ran out is that activities sometimes take longer than I expected. With Charmey we sometimes had to wait for people to do certain segments. The result is that the quantity of water I expected to use was too low. Luckily someone was able to give me a little water. <\/p>\n

Charmey<\/h2>\n

With Charmey I wasn’t at risk of dehydration. I didn’t feel desperately thirsty and I would have been fine without someone’s generosity. I accepted the water as a safety precaution. I would have been fine, but to be responsible I had to accept the "gift". <\/p>\n

Valangin<\/h2>\n

With Valangin the situation was different. When I do a 12-14km walk by myself it would take about three hours as I can walk up to 6km an hour, but that’s not the key reason I ran out of water. I ran out of water because I expected to find fountains along the way, whether streams, village fountains or other. I ran out of water in Valangin, and there were two fountains but neither of them were safe to drink.<\/p>\n

I should have refilled my water bottle in the castle but I was back outside when I remembered. I also expected that when we walked through the village we might find one that was safe.<\/p>\n

1 Litre Backup<\/h2>\n

I have two Sigg 1L aluminium bottles and one nalgene water bottle. All three of these could be used to refill my primary water bottle along the way. That’s what I have done when walking down L’Areuse and the Orbe. With a spare litre in the backpack we can easily have enough water, and have some spare to share. If I had taken one litre on both days, rather than 600ml I would have been fine<\/p>\n

More Serious<\/h2>\n

I went for bike rides during real heat waves where the temperature got up to 37\u00b0c and if I ran out of water on those days it was serious. I had sometimes expected that I could refill at water fountains, but due to the drought they were off. The result is that in at least one case I think I used the public bathroom taps by the Broken Chair\/Place des Nations to refill on water.<\/p>\n

If you don’t have a bike lock and you’re cycling alone, and you don’t find a public bathroom you can try a restaurant or failing that go to a train station where you can get vending machine water. It’s expensive but it is a reliable backup solution.<\/p>\n

And Finally<\/h2>\n

When I did the Via Ferrata in Charmey I wanted to save on weight. I could easily have taken a slightly bigger water bottle with me. With Valangin I didn’t expect it to be so hot, and I expected to find more drinking fountains. I assumed water would be easier to find. it’s better to walk with a spare litre, and not use it, than run out.<\/p>\n

I finally did refill my water, in Neuchatel, once the walk was finished so I would have drunk one and a half litres if I had carried it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>This weekend when I hiked to Valangin I thought that I would found a water fountain along the way, so I took just 600ml of water. A few weeks ago when I went to Charmey I took the same amount of water because I didn’t want too much weight for the Via Ferrata. The result […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[255],"tags":[4546,733,4525,496,4552,1158],"class_list":["post-12272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-swiss-walks","tag-climate","tag-cycling","tag-heat","tag-hiking","tag-hydration","tag-weather"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12273,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12272\/revisions\/12273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}