Into the mists: 2 reasons why you should be aware of the moisture in the air

May 24, 2018

If you go camping very often then you know that the most unpredictable aspect of being in the wilderness is the weather. The weather is also the most likely to cause damage to your equipment. However; that being said, you should also know that water, (which is the most prolific aspect of weather), is the most important – and hard to come by- need that you have for survival.

So, I said all of that to say this: You should always be aware of when and where you can get a free clean water supply, and to the problems that can arise from such opportunities.

Just get one thing straight, those films showing the carefree mountain man or cowboy getting down on his belly and drinking from a cool mountain stream are fantasy. That is a sure way to end up with the dysentery. Now, that being said, I have done just that before, but I haven’t done it for any length of time, nor have I partaken of any great volume of water from a creek or a stream.

So here are two really good reasons to pay attention to how much moisture is in the air whenever you are camping or in a survival situation.

1. It can ruin your fabric and tools. I am talking here of a misty, foggy, wet atmosphere. First and foremost, it’s hard on your stuff to let it get wet. So you need to make sure of two things. First, when you are going out on a military surplus camping trip, always treat your fabric appropriately so that it doesn’t get permeated with moisture and start to rot. If your fabric does get wet, make sure you dry it thoroughly before you store it so that it doesn’t dry rot. The same concept goes for any tools that you have too.

2. It can offer a great supply of free water. You have all heard of a cistern right? If not, a cistern is basically just a well that has no other water source than rain water. Most cisterns are fed by gutters from barn and home roofs on farms. The same can be said of rain or mist in the wilderness. One of the neatest survival tricks I ever learned was to take a t-shirt early in the morning on a misty or dewy day, on a survival trip, and roll it in the grass and then wring a nice supply of clean water for drinking into a receptacle.

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