[pct-l] Can one not use snow?

[Eric Lee (GAMES)]

Steel-Eye wrote:
>
The biggest problem
with snow is that it requires quite a bit of heat energy to melt the stuff.
It's onerous in terms of precious fuel if you stop to fire-up the stove, and
it seems to take forever to just let it melt in the drinking bottle.
>

Yeah, what he said.

You have to turn frozen water into liquid water before you can use it, and that takes lots of energy and/or time.  If you're planning on it ahead of time and carrying fuel for the task, or enough water to let you wait a long time, then sure, no problem - but it's not something that's easy to handle on the spur of the moment if you're carrying "just enough" of everything.

You might think you could just eat it, but it's easier said than done.  You have to eat a *lot* of snow to consume a decent amount of water, and it a) gets painful pretty quickly, and b) saps a lot of energy from your body.

Eric