Nalgene Bottles

I don’t go anywhere without gearing up with a Nalgene bottle.  Years ago I would take leaky water bottles with me on little hikes, and occasionally make messes.  Then I upgraded to a couple of aluminum bottles that fit well into an old backpack at the time and those were the go to, but even though they didn’t leak I couldn’t clearly see how much water I had left, or how clean they were inside.  So more recently I’ve switched to Nalgene since they don’t leak and a translucent, which solves those issues.  A new issue was however creative because I have a slight bit of a hoarding mindset wherein I have to collect all of something, need it or not, and Nalgene sells a LOT of different colors and shapes for their product.  We will not discuss how much money I’ve blown on that.

Anyway given my more recent hiking backpack choices I’m usually running with 1 or 2 of the 32oz bottles.  A rule I created for myself hiking is that I should drink 32oz of water for every 3 miles hiked.  So the number of bottles on me is frequently determined by the distance of the trails I think I’m doing.  This rule has kept me from getting dehydrated and feels pretty balanced as of yet.  I’ve also opted most of the time to use the wide mouth Nalgenes.  They are admittedly more prone to splash you in the face when drinking from, but I also carry of a Lifestraw.  If I every actually have to scoop water from a natural source and be on the go, the wide mouth will allow me to dip the straw into the bottle.  This wouldn’t be possible with the narrow mouth type!

These bottles have also survived my dishwasher, freezing conditions, being dropped, and even going to work with me which is a rough environment too.  They’re in my life so much that there’s usually a 16oz for water in my refrigerator to remind and force myself to drink more water since I suck at that outside of the wilderness environment.  That’s where the pretty colors of the bottles pay off. A shiny Nalgene catches my eye and I’m more prone to drink water, go figure.  Also when I’m camping it isn’t just the 32oz for hiking, but the 48oz silo bottles are typically sitting around for whatever misc water needs I have.

I’ve learned a few other tricks with these as well.  Nalgene seems to sell other containers for food storage.  But why bother?  The water bottles, which we’ve established I own a bunch of, work just fine.  Things that keep water safely within, keep water locked out just the same.  So I’ll put trail mix and other goodies into a wide mouth 16oz and toss it into the hiking pack as snacks.  Likewise I’ll put a bunch of grapes into a 32oz wide mouth and toss it into my cooler when camping and it holds them well without any worry of melting ice water encroaching and getting things weird.  And my absolute favorite thing is when I’m at the beach or kayaking or something water sport related and want to take emergency supplies (prepper mindset here), a 48oz silo bottle is my aquatic environment safe supply kit’s container.