Three Ways to Get Safe Drinking Water From Snow
Intro: Three Ways to Get Safe Drinking Water From Snow
One of the things I like about winter in Canada is that we get LOTS of snow! This means that drinking water is abundant, you only need to know how to process it out of the snow we get.
I created a YouTube video here:And I also posted this on my blog here: http://muskrat-survival.blogspot.ca/
As many of you are aware, a handful of fresh snow is mostly made up of air. That's right, a little bit of water and a lot of air. If you were to fill a pot with snow and set it on a fire, you would likely scorch the bottom of your pot.
The following are three ways that I like to use to melt snow into drinking water:
STEP 1: Body Heat
STEP 2: Warmth of a Fire
If you don't have a metal container to slowly melt snow near a fire, you can make do with a bandana and a cup or other container. Simply open the bandana flat then fill the middle of it with clean snow. Tie or pin the four corners of the bandana so it holds the large snowball. Now, using a sturdy branch, suspend the bandana near the fire. Soon the heat of the fire will start melting the snow. Before too long, the large snow ball will start dripping through the bandana. Use a cup or other container to catch the dripping water. This method works well basically unattended. You can go about your business doing other things and just checking back from time to time to make sure your container is still catching the drips and not overflowing.
STEP 3: Solar Power
Putting snow on a black garbage bag (a.k.a. drum liner) in the bright sun will melt the snow to give you drinking water, but then it's difficult to get that water into a container. Because of this difficulty, I didn't add it to my video. Then my brother John told me about a simple improvement on this method. By putting the clean snow in a clear zip-loc bag on top of the black plastic solar collector, all your drinking water is conveniently made inside the easy-to-handle zip-loc bag! BRILLIANT !! So this method works if you're camped in a bright sunny location for a while and if it isn't so cold to re-freeze the water as it melts.
If this interests you, consider visiting my YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/MuskratSurvival
I have over 75 videos in my Muskrat Survival Series.
My blog at http://muskrat-survival.blogspot.ca has other survival topics as well.
8 Comments
Tess Hipps 5 years ago
SuzannaN3 6 years ago
Actually melt ice rather than snow. You will twice as much water for half as much heat. Lower snow is generally more granular and gives more water than surface snow.
Crucio 9 years ago
Jim,
I enjoyed watching some of your "related to" youtube videos. Thanks for posting!
Muskrat-Jim 9 years ago
I have many more videos on my Youtube channel at http://www.youube.com/MuskratSurvival
Crucio 9 years ago
Thanks, I have subscribed and look forward to watching more videos later this week.
Muskrat-Jim 9 years ago
Thanks, I appreciate your subscription!
Muskrat-Jim 9 years ago
Well thank you for watching some of my videos! I appreciate your viewership!
sperky69 10 years ago