How to Melt Snow for Water
With oppressive temps currently baking Southern California, I thought I'd escape for a moment by listing a few tips on melting snow for water that I've learned these past few seasons snow camping. What's attractive about melting snow instead of carrying water is you can save a lot of weight.
One can of fuel can easily give you four liters of water or more, which would be prohibitively heavy to carry up the mountain—especially when you factor in the cruel load of winter camping gear and climbing hardware.
Regardless, carrying water becomes moot once the temperature drops past a certain magic number and your bag or bottle of water freezes into a solid brick. So, if you're going to camp in winter, you're going to want to know how to melt snow to get water. Sounds simple enough, right?
Well, I've found it's a little tricker than you'd expect.
Melting snow takes a great deal of energy—ie, fuel. Efficiency is therefore going to be a priority. If your melting methods are poor, your water yield per can of fuel will plummet. Here are a few tips that should make a big difference:
Wind
Ah, beware the wind. Any wind—and especially a gale—will greatly increase the amount of fuel that it takes to burn a liter of water. You can try cooking in your tent, but the associated hazards are considerable—and potentially even fatal. The safer solution is to find other ways to shelter your stove.
Presumably if it's winter, you're going to have a lot of snow to work with. Dig out a kitchen area, cut snow blocks to make a wind break, and in the most wind-protected end, dig out a little alcove in which to put your stove. This won't be perfect, but if you align your kitchen so that the open end faces downwind, it will provide considerably more protection than nothing.
Not enough snow to do this? Use any natural shelter you can find, including piled rocks, bushes, etc. Complement with your own body for extra wind protection. Also, consider using a Jetboil or MSR Reactor stove, which are specially designed to offer superior performance in windy conditions.
Choose your snow wisely
Obviously, you want to choose the cleanest snow possible for your water needs. Avoid discolored snow, and avoid snow that is beneath overhanging tree branches. Staying away from vegetation as a general rule is probably a good idea.
Dig beneath the surface snow, which usually has the most dirt and/or pollen on it, to find cleaner snow below. Whether or not you choose to purify the water you get from the snow is a personal matter. I am generally comfortable drinking unpurified meltwater, though I do filter it through an MSR coffee filter to get the worst of the grit and pine bark out.
It's often convenient to bring a stuff sack to fill with snow for melting at your stove site, as you may otherwise get tired walking back and forth carrying handfuls of snow. If camping in a group, you'll also want to make clear where you're getting your snow for water, so no one pees on it in the night by mistake.
If you do decide you want to purify your melted water, your best choice is probably iodine pills or Aquamira. In winter, purification pumps/filters like the Katadyn Hiker or MSR Hyperflow will tend to freeze and become useless. Also, boiling all your water will not be a viable choice as a purification method. It is too fuel-intensive.
Never Heat a Dry Pot
This is important! Always keep a little water in the bottom of your pot to efficiently transfer energy to the snow. Put an inch or so of water in your pot, then pile in snow. As the snow melts and the water level rises, pour out the water, keeping that same inch at the bottom.
Don't Heat the Water
Another efficiency tactic: don't waste energy heating water. Your goal is to melt snow, not warm up water. Once you've got liquid water, you've got what you need. Toward this end, keep adding snow to the water as room becomes available in your cook pot. In particular, add snow and swirl/stir just before you pour out any water. This helps recover any lost energy spent heating water.
Use a Lid
This is a big one. I've heard that putting a lid on a pot greatly reduces the amount of energy needed to boil water. In practice, I haven't noticed much difference in boiling speed, but I notice a huge difference when it comes to melting snow. I believe that by putting a lid on your pot, you trap hot air and steam inside the pot, which speeds up the melting process, and greatly improves melting efficiency. This also allows you to regularly swirl your pot, mixing up snow and water, without risk of spilling anything. Again, this boosts efficiency.
Establish Redundancies
Oh how funny it was on the sub-freezing trip up Langley where I forgot to bring a cookpot! If you are going to depend on melting snow for water, be sure (1) there's going to be snow and (2) you have a working stove, fuel, and cookpot. In fact, I recommend you avoid depending on just one stove—as your commitment level increases, be sure you have redudant ways to get water (note: this rule applies both winter and summer).
Find Passive Ways to Melt Snow
You don't need a stove to melt snow. Fill your pot with snow, put on the lid (to keep the bugs out), and put it in the sun while you're out climbing and skiing. You'll have a little more water to drink when you get back to camp.
While you're climbing, you can add small amounts of snow to your liter bottle if temperatures are above freezing. Using this little trick, you can climb with only a liter of water, but drink quite a bit more than a liter all day. Just find a patch of clean snow, stuff some into your bottle, and keep climbing. Remember: there has to be at least an inch or so of water in your bottle for this to work. Don't overfill it with snow: the snow will absorb all the water, and you may end up with an undrinkable slushy. Finally, this method only works in relatively warm, sunny weather.
Another popular passive-melt method is to fill a black plastic bag at camp with snow for a higher-capacity snowmelt engine. The dark plastic absorbs energy from the sun, melting large batches of water for you while you're out climbing.
Utilizing passive methods is an important tactic when winter camping. Anything you can do to use less fuel will be of great benefit. Nothing is worse than hearing your stove run out when you're short on water.
Happy melting!
— May 17, 2008
Andy Lewicky is the author and creator of SierraDescents
Brad September 6, 2011 at 10:46 am
Hey, just poking around here. I'm a new skier -- been a backpacker for a long time (and half-assed climber for a bit) but now I love the winter. Been doing a bunch of 2-3 night trips in Yosemite for the last couple of years and skiing Kirkwood while I build up my skills.
Question -- I was never able to get canister stoves to work in the winter. Once the fuel can cools down (which it does no matter what), the stove dies. How do you do it? I switched to an XGK from my Pocket Rocket for the winter.
Andy September 7, 2011 at 8:20 am
Brad,
That's sort of a subject in itself. Quick answer is be sure you're using the right fuel: a mixed canister like MSR's IsopPro. Also: keep canisters warm (inside your coat) until use, cook at higher altitudes, and don't set them directly on snow when cooking...
Brad September 7, 2011 at 9:18 am
Thanks for the response. I usually use Primus Power Gas. Do you think MSR is better for cold? I usually sleep with the can, but when cooking it gets so cold the power drops to an unusable level. The only way I got it to work was to have 2 cans and swap them in and out of coats.
art February 20, 2014 at 8:09 pm
What sized "can" are you refering to when you say it will produce '4 liters of water or more"? Butane or Propane?
Andy February 20, 2014 at 8:21 pm
I use the small-sized isopropane cans. With a Jetboil in good conditions, you should be able to get 4 liters of water per can--but always add more fuel when the commitment level is high.
anonamous November 21, 2017 at 6:23 pm
This really helped with my essay on how to survive