Digging for Water in a Survival Situation Secret Survival Tip
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- Digging for water in a survival situation.
Where to look for water in a dry river bed. How to dig for it if you have no shovel. How to get that water out.
Part one of a two part series showing where to look for water in the wilderness. Many people write about it, many people talk about it but how many actually show you how to do it? That's right finding water in a dry river bed and how to extract it.
I dispel the RUclips armchair survivalist's recommendations for using knives to dig with in a survival situation. Anyone who recommends this either has never had to do what you see in this video OR has lost their minds. If you loose your mind, call it what you want, or loose the plot, either way you may have lost your chances to survive. Australian Aborigines were digging for water ca 80,000 years ago, somehow I don't think they were using knives. Let's get out of our arm chairs and practice practice practice LOL.
You notice I wear a synthetic bandana most of the time if not, I'm carrying it always. If you have no tube you can use it ( the bandana) to collect dew or in this case also soak up water with. Similar to a good sponge (remember NOT all sponges synthetic or otherwise soak water the same.
Why an arms length of tubing? Because that's the limit of depth to which you can dig a hole unaided, so just a bit longer so you can suck up the water. Why not a smaller diameter? A smaller diameter will get easily blocked and also tend to suck up more debris from your water hole as you will be aided by the decreased cross sectional area of the tube, which could be actually a disadvantage.
So you are all saying, hey he didn't show us that "trick" he spoke about to stop the hole caving in! That's right I didn't. The "Trick" is that if you use a tube you can bury it (but using BIG ROCKS ONLY NOT THE SAND-THIS IS IMPORTANT!!) and mark the location so you can come back if necessary. So it really doesn't matter if your hole caves in, ONCE you have your tube in place as described.
This river bed BTW has been dry for years. Two years ago it had water in it for about one month. My point is try and know as much about the terrain you will enter into.
Knife in video Extrema Ratio Dobermann IV
That's still less work than sucking a frosty from Wendy's through a straw
LOL! Love the analogy! Thanks for watching!
Ain't that the truth
Anywhere there's green, there's water. Plants don't live where there's no water.
Also, the height of the plant is about the depth of the water. If the bush is 7 ft tall, the water is about 7 ft down. If it's 2 feet tall, the water is about 2 ft down. Most plants roots don't go farther down than it is tall.
Right on! Like the width of the canopy also shows the lateral extent of the roots. Thanks for watching!
This might save my life on day
Great video. Water sources here in the arizona desert can be very challenging to find.
I can believe it. I'm yet to get to Arizona, maybe one day. I'm very interested in the geology there and all of these old mines.
@@BushCampingTools you would love it
Find some more large flat rocks to build a barrier to keep the small rocks & dirt from caving into the hole.
Yes that would work if there were some like that in the vicinity. Thanks for watching. BTW you can do likewise with springs on beaches.
every survival situation is different what your demonstrating is in my opinion the correct way and to carry a tube which has no weight but could potentially save your life ,well demonstrated
Hi thanks and yes, all these people showing how to dig holes and almost none talk about once water is found, if in sandy loose soil/gravel then it will immediately begin to cave in, so a tube which as u say weighs nothing and therefore even if you don't need it, no big deal, all the more better.
Bush Camping Tools I think some people make comments for an ideal situation there's a big difference between ideal and survival as we both know mate thanks for sharing
Too right!
I will think back on this video next time I go to the desert. Hopefully I won't need to dig for water, but maybe I will try this as a training exercise.
TKDLION right on man!
still no high ground
sounds like he's hitting the bong hahaha big old juicy hit of water lol
+Gabe Segundo Ha never even thought about that but now I'm pissing myself laughing! Thanks for watching!!
Gabe Segundo and the sounds of lighter going dead cause he keeps trying to light it. 😓
Gabe lol 😝 dude
My dog loved watching you dig! And so did I.
LOL! Thanks!!
I see all kinds of large rocks at the beginning of the video and you could use small pieces of wood or block the dirt with some sagebrush maybe.
i guess Im pretty randomly asking but do anyone know a good place to watch new series online?
@Edison Morgan Flixportal =)
@Cayden Tripp thank you, I went there and it seems like they got a lot of movies there :) I really appreciate it !
@Edison Morgan happy to help :)
I always have a folding shovel
I do if I'm in a vehicle, it's a must. Thanks for watching!
Great video and good tips there.
Yo Adrian Hey thanks for saying so and thanks for watching too!
Tips for eveeyone. Use shoe or what every to move all loose sand away from the area before you dig. Digging the same sand will waste energy and when your not capable of wasting it then use your brain.
Good tip!
Also when hit mud you can make a mud border so sand wont go back in the hole.All depends though,I just find it useful.
i dont wanna disappoint you ,but your over a dried channel who may had a running water few month ago , go the rocky places, this is low land farm having a beautiful channel lol
Hi, no you don't disappoint me at all. I knew this, it was simply to illustrate this method for people who know nothing about where to dig for water. This area has a continuous aquifer/s under it even in the driest months. All of the village houses have wells and in some places the water table is within a couple of metres from the surface, others, no deeper than say 3m for plenty of water. Where I showed is actually part of a huge wide river bed (this was just a small annual channel, created after the spring snow melt). However, your comments much appreciated. I have made other videos too about where to look for water on rocky coastlines. (check play lists if interested). Thanks for watching!
Thank YOU
I bought a spyderco bushcraft uk. Love that thing.
i know this from the dinosaur movie when they had no water
Thanks 👍
what about those long tubes that have a pump like feature, you put one end in and when you pump, the water comes out the other end, a bit like the ones you use to pump out water out of an aquarium? Pump the water out into a bucket then you can then filter out the sand. Might make life a bit easier, if you happen to have that in your backpack :)
Yes that would work just fine and those things are not heavy or big to bring alone on a hiking trip that traverses arid land where water could be scarce at the surface. If u didn't have any bucket, cups and cooking pots would work just fine too. Thanks for commenting and watching
If there wasn't a tube could you have lowered a piece of cloth from your clothing down there and just soak up the water?
Absolutely! or use my bandana, or a hollow reed. The trick is not to let the Hole cave in. Try digging a hole in the sand on a beach and as soon as you strike water the hole will begin to collapse. The only way to avoid this is by digging a very wide and maybe deep hole which of course is time consuming and uses lots of energy. If I know I'm going into regions where there are many dry creek beds I'll carry a tube with me, it weighs nothing. If however I'd be "caught out unawares" then sure your clothing to soak up the water because even if the hole collapsed the cloth would still be soaked (hopefully-dependent on the material's capacity to absorb water- many modern fabrics are not good at doing this) and you could pull it out and squeeze some water out.
Does the effort of digging the hole outweigh the small amount of water you get in return?
Hi that depends upon whether one is really "dying of thirst" Ordinarily one would only dig such a hole in the evening out of the blistering sun and heat. That was plenty of water in this hole but all locations would vary. I have friends in the Australian military who had to do exactly this if they wanted a drink on a training mission in outback Australia, he told me they had to dig into a dry creek bed. One guy passed out from heat exhaustion but the other three (one my mate) got enough water to drink and obviously "survive". It's about knowing where and when to dig. Thanks for your question and for watching!
I think it would be better to collect the water, dig another shallow pool
put the water there, wait for sediments to go to bottom
and then drink it.
LOL, seriously make no mistake, i was once in a situation where I made a party member drink muddy water. he was already becoming a physical threat to the remaining 7 of us all due to becoming severely dehydrated. i had no time to filter any water for him and gave him the first water i found in a pocket 15ft up a cliff seeping out of a small pocket, just large enough to put a small camping pan into, it got muddy when i was doing this because i had one hand holding onto a tree branch, one foot on the tree trunk the other on the cliff. he at first refused to drink it but then on encouragement from me he did and t was like a miracle, within 5min or less, he was fine-at least fine enough to be rational again. and enough for him to continue travelling to the next permanent water supply. I know many comment here and make jokes about drinking muddy water but if one i serious about survival, one has to weigh up a bit of muddy water over the consequences of waiting around for clean water. We're not talking about parasite/virus infested waters or chemically polluted waters, just a bit of silt; LOL maybe even good for a supply of minerals LOL!
Would dowsing rods be useful in this situation?
Hi, personally I am a non believer in this but I know of those who do say it works. I think the better option is to read the environmental signs, ie green vegetation living quite well in dried up river or creek bed usually means there is water not too far aways under ground. Thanks for watching.
. . .and an empty plastic bottle with slits around bout it and jammed down into the hole. The water should seep into the bottle.
XLNT!
Putting a piece of cloth on the end of the hose wouldn't that filter the water coming out
Hi there, yes it would only stop thye bigger particles which will fall back down the tube anyway. All of the silty stuff, no way, notfor generalist stuff one might have on them, unless a very tight weave of material. My real experience with this is that drinking muddy water in an emergency situation does less harm than becoming severely dehydrated, lass of rationality and pose a problem for the rest of the party. This is exactly what happened on a long walk once with a another person on the trip, who ran out of water (after water was rationed between all, we sat him down because he was becoming unruly (he is a big guy too) and was starting to do silly things like trying to cut his way through the bush with a small folding knife. Once we realised what was going on (we didn't know he was not drinking). Ok so after sitting him down to keep him relaxed, I went off to find water for him. It was about 10-12ft up a cliff face dripping out of a horizontal crack about 4inches high. Luckily there were some trees growing right up against the cliff face, I bridged those trees and with one hand around some branches, with the other I scooped out that crack with a small frypan to deepen it. The water became very muddy from clay particles in it. At first he refused to drink the water and after some discussion with him (but no raising my voice) he drank. It was like magic, within 5 minutes or so he was back to normal behaviour. At that point we were about 1 .5 hours from plentiful water supply. I watched him unpack stuff after this episode and we all saw that5 whilst he was indeed out of water (we had already rationed water between everyone but he wanted more) we saw his pack contained several (I have no idea why) tins (yes tins and bottles! of preserved peaches in liquid of course! and one container of UHT milk about a litre!) all of which could have been drunk before me running off to find water. He's an educated guy who was at the time fairly fit and healthy, lack of water can turn anyone into "trouble" before they get to a worse state; so yeah drinking dirty water (as in just muddy-not chemically contaminated or with other types of pollution) may be necessary dependent upon the individual situation. I've abbreviated a lot of that real event but it's essentially a summary of what happened. If one doesn't remain properly hydrated in very hot weather or just properly hydrated full stop, things can turn bad. When a trip is planned properly things can still go astray. In the above case one can also just wait for the water sediments to settle out before using a pipe. A commercial water filter too in this case would quickly become clogged, so the water would def need to be pre filtered in some way.
Could you estimate how long that bed had been dry? I'd be curious to know how long water will stay within an accessible depth after the surface water is gone.
Florida Bullfrog Absolutely, with the exception of a flood 2years ago for which water was up to the level of the bank for well over one month, I've never seen not a trickle of water here for the previous 4 years to that and of course including this year which is a drought again.. The direction of flow is as u might have guessed coming from those distant hills where in the next video I show some springs that i've known about for some time hidden away. It surprised me that I did find water here and we began without any "pre video, pre dig" for the camera thing LOL to make it as realistic as possible even if I didn't find it.
Oh BTW the locals of a village told me they haven't seen water in that creek bed for over 15 years.
Florida Bullfrog Thanks for watching and sharing too!
Forget the hose take your bandana or shirt soak and rinse.
Same thing for wet grass
Yes, exactly, thanks for watching (or even shirt and once I've used "clean socks" although that was over the end of a proper water filter inlet hose.
Isnt the water dirty?
Muddy, just a little bit as it was pretty much filtered through lots of sand. This was a demo but in real life I had to save someone from serious dehydration. I climbed about ten to 15ft above the ground where some water was trickling out of a crack in the rocks. I didn't make it all the way to the ground level. When I got there I realised I need to actually scoop out a small depression in order to place a metal camping plate into the crack. When I was scrapping it out (with one hand because he other hand I needed to hold onto a small tree growing against the cliff face. The water naturally got fairly muddy but I had to force this person to drink it because at that stage they were really totally irrational from lack of water. But after about5-10 minutes it was like some sort of magic and he felt much better (and was certainly with a better attitude and behaviour) we could then move him until we made it to a proper source of drinking water.
My point is that in an emergency (we were bordering on one) you may have to do things you wouldn't normally do and drinking slightly turbid water is probably going to be one the the less troublesome LOL. I wouldn't advocate doing this just for the heck of it all the time but one must learn how to get at water when it could be all around you, especially under the ground and not too deep.
Thanks for watching.
This video
Yes, t h i s video decided to pop up after watching AlanTutorial
What did I do--
now you just need to find a way to filter it
Hi yeah LOL! Actually once we basically averted what could have been a serious situation for a hiker who was severely dehydrated and suffering from irrational behaviour by getting him to drink fairly turbid/muddy water as soon as it was available to him. Without exaggeration his condition was vastly improved within 5-10min of consumption. I figured the first 5 was a somewhat psychological improvement then what followed was from the proper rehydration. He was able to continue his journey within an hour or so. But yes if it wasn't an urgent situation like that I'd be letting it settle or filtering it. There was of course in this situation (the video) the chances of ingesting cysts of giardia possibly as there are livestock/animals in the area and proper boiling/ and or filtering should be done.
Let the soil settle to the bottom
are u Aussie?
wotaahhh!
Bottol o' wotah
I hate to be that one guy pointing out the obvious, but his method of digging that hole seems to terribly inefficient simply because he failed to have a shovel. As he is digging, the sand and gravel are literally fall back into the hole. lol Now granted if you are ever in a situation where you didn't have a shovel then I suppose his method is the best option.
+Keyonic Man Hi there, firstly thanks for watching. Yes of course I didn't have a shovel. If I travel to the desert in a 4WD or even a car then a folding shovel is mandatory. But backpacking I'm not going to be carrying a shovel. I do state that this method works when you can't shore up the hole to prevent the sand from re entering the hole you are trying to dig.. Many people talk about digging holes in sand or gravel but even with a shovel but if you can't shore that hole then good luck, you will be wasting precious energy. The video is nothing about "failing to have a shovel" it's about how to be resourceful without one. Survival may not be about saving yourself but someone else.
+Keyonic Man Oh forgot to say to that this video is also about skills that may be useful in different situations.........
I wasn't attacking you. And as you mentioned, it truly is about survival. You do what you have to do despite the lack of resources, etc. However, I would argue that if you are packing, anyone and everyone that is going primitive camping should definitely bring a shovel.
No one said you were attacking me. The problem with texting is there is no face to face contact and meanings can get lost. I really appreciate any comments to my site even ones that hate it. (I'm not saying you hate it- just using this as an example) I don't have a problem with it.
Each to their own opinions on youtube that's for sure. In this latter case regarding your opinion (no doubt) based on your experiences, you would "bring a shovel for primitive camping" fair play. In my case I don't, since it is environment dependent and it's not needed where I go and for what I do at least for the last 35 years of wild camping. I do appreciate your comments and taking the time to watch and reply.
You would think he would be Getting a ton of sand!
A bit of sand, it really depends upon the depth of the water. It was a crazy idea but it does work. I was leading an expedition once and a member became very dehydrated (it's complicated but for some reason he decided not to drink for about a whole day!) and by the time I realised his irrational behaviour change was due to lack of water we were all running low on water but not exhausted completely, however, he needed to be watered immediately and that meant he had to drink some muddy water I got for him-5 min later he was a different person, even if he had a gut load of muddy water.
What will you do if you find a billion dollars worth diamond stone instead of water but you're damn thirsty,dehydrated and nearly dead??😂😂😂😂😂😂
LOL, take a serious 360 degree scope, grab the loot and disappear! Oh yeah suck a few of those diamonds!
Kinda defeats the purpose of survival skills living off the land. This guy used man made tools that may not always be available. Specifically a knife and a hose. How do we get the water out if these tools werent available?
Ok so I will reply to your query. The point of survival is to know how to be resourceful. (and obviously keeping a cool head in the event of a situation). Knowing what you can and can't do is also paramount in survival situations. Just a quick clarification, yes I have been involved in several survival situations, so I'm not speaking out of thin air. The video was made to demonstrate what many never will tell you or show, that is if one digs into a sandy river bed for water (shown all the time in "survival books" and TV shows) that unless the sides are in some way propped/shored up then ones efforts will be in vain, if not followed by the hole possibly collapsing in on itself. I could spend more time writing about the physics behind what I just said, however, the use of a plastic hose/pipe etc dependent on the depth of the hole, one doesn't have to worry so much about "collapsing holes".
Now, say you don't have any plastic pipes, good point, you would in my case have to shore the hole with sticks and or rocks and if you didn't have any kind of container small enough to extract the water with you of course could use your clothing etc (or the bandana on my baldy head :)! Yes I could have done and have done all of this without a knife too, just barehands nothing else. All of the above too must be done with as little effort as possible if a real survival situation so as not to expend necessary energy (unless lots of food-but no water).
I'd never stick ones head into a hole to drink up any water unless you want to end up in a worse situation then you might already be in if the hole collapsed.
BTW if you have absolutely nothing on you i.e. tools or can not access any or make them, is an extremely unlikely survival situation, meaning naked, I can't think of how one might end up in that situation, except from human intervention. And if the weather was so severe as to rip off all of your cloths e.g. the South Col of Everest then you are in deep trouble enough. Finally to quote you, "living off the land" doesn't mean having no tools. It's all about knowledge. Thanks for watching and I hope I've answered your question.
You would use your hands to scoop the water, place a cup into the water or soak a piece of cloth and ring it out.
I don't recommend you use a hose to drink directly from the hole, even if the water does not have pathogens or bacteria the sediment will upset your bowel lining and give you diarrhoea thus negating any benefits of water as you lose it due to sickness.
You use your hands because you may not have a shovel in a real survival situation but...you have a medical grade tubing. I say you are pretty much screwed.
Gino Punsalan Hi I have been eagerly waiting for someone to make such a comment. Ok, so I have medical grade tubing you are correct! Of course this doesn't have to be LOL. Any flexible tubing will work. It's the tubing I had laying around in my real job LOL. As you are probably aware, it is food grade.
Many people who travel with 4WDs into wilderness areas, believe it or not fail to take tubing with them. It can be used for siphoning fuel from one vehicle to another or as i illustrate in the above scenario. If you are hiking in, some where and that might involve long distances between reliable water; walking some 20km before your first suitable campsite (where this is plenty of water-hopefully- and I personally have done this many times over the years), due to my fully laden pack, I'm not going to be carrying a shovel, folding or not due to size and weight restrictions. The aim of the video was to show how to locate water and successfully extract it, not an advertisement for Sant Gobain products LOL! And yes, tubing other than Tygon would be better for 4WD purposes as Tygon is not resistant to gasoline etc.
The key points are if you try and dig a hole in a sandy rocky riverbed/creek bed etc, using tubing as I said in the description, if the hole caves in, as is common once water is found, planting tubing into it isn't going to a problem and saves time and effort trying to shore up the hole, say to get a cup into it or pot etc or some other container that can hold water. Try it and see for yourself. if no rocky dry riverbed available then the beach will provide a good example.
Australian Aborigines have been digging for water for thousands of years in some instances but never have they possessed shovels until "whiteman's" influences reached them, and they weren't screwed.
Of course without a shovel and tubing, then I would be forced to shore the hole in order to put my bandana or some other article of water absorbing clothing into the hole in order to soak up the water.
Finally, it is vitally important to know your area into which you travel.
In reality most of us are not being blindfolded and taken into remote areas/islands and forced to survive with nothing but the cloths on our backs.
Thanks for watching and commenting.
Sounds like smoking a bong
It does indeed!
Or you could just bring water with you 🤪
LOL, too easy!
U need to dig deeper ur sucking up air u need to get below the water tsble
Who all are feeling frustrated from all that sand falling back onto the hole😂😂😂
At least we got to drinkable water LOL! Thanks for watching!
Cryptosporidium City, mate....You want to get the water out, filter it, and boil or pill it, mate.
Yeah could be for sure with all the livestock around and I guess with goats and sheep you can find it. I was banking for the "realism" of the video that I didn't inject any cysts, I wasn't too worried about live protozoa. I would of course always advocate proper treatment when and where possible for all dubious drinking water. Thanks for watching!
I would of used a stick from the beginning
Yep of course that would have been a good idea however, as I mentioned in the text, this is obviously not a life and death situation, I have camera, it's on RUclips, say no more on that aspect of YT videos; however, I wanted to try and show as many scenarios as possible. I've been in desert ares where lol there are no sticks and or trees and the only stuff to dig with is your hands , rocks etc. or a shovel (ok if you had a shovel, no need to make any video LOL!) and or a big bladed knife (unlikely carry in the desert- remember this video is not just for super here survivalists etc, they should not need to watch such a video :). Also I've spent time on a uninhabited island, there was one small tree about under 15ft and the only "sticks" were those washed up as drift wood. We used that for a fire (we did have a backup multi-fuel stove of course) we were told in an emergency and the boast could not come to retrieve us we could dg in the middle of the island (it was in the Indonesian archipelago) and after about a metre or so we should have fairly ok water to drink if done wisely , ie there was a little bit of salt, so you can appreciate how small it was 10 minutes and you have walked around it LOL. But yes, always use a tool and the hands in this situation would be a last resort for sure! Thanks for commenting and watching.
thats a huge bong hit
LOL!
Everyone always says that
He put water secretly
LOL!
Bush Camping Tools , brother in real situation water never found.
Bush Camping Tools , we're also living in this world. Not alien world.
Hehehe...
Khekhekhe...
Bush Camping Tools , no difference between you and bear grill.. both found water everywhere..
Hahahaha...
Chchchchchhhhch
BR??
BR?
??
Wait a second you cheated and went from a small hole all of a sudden to a big hole what’s up with that?🤷🤣
LOL, naw, there was no tricky editing, maybe a few minutes if that between the first and second cut. I was very careful not to make out it was done in 5 minutes, because it certainly wasn't LOl. Thanks for watching!
are u Aussie?
You betcha 5th Generation! Mix Irish, Chinese, Italian beat that!
Bush Camping Tools Awesome!!