OK, so you're out in the middle of nowhere and the weather is freezing cold. Snow is piling up all around you. You know that you'll need to get a fire going, so you begin the urgent task of locating some firewood. It takes about a 1/2 hour to come up with some firewood, then you take a wad of firestarter out of your backpack and the next thing you know you've got a nice little fire going! After that, you build a makeshift water generator by setting up a tripod. The tripod is positioned close enough to the fire so that it can feel the heat, and yet far enough away so that it doesn't burn the wood. The next thing you do is, you take an old cotton tee-shirt and you stuff it with snow. The tee-shirt is dangling from the center of the tripod, which is close enough to the fire so that it melts the snow into water. Now you've got water dripping down into a plastic cup which is positioned under the tripod. You've got water, but you still aren't sure if you'll need to boil it. The snow is fresh, but you can still remember what it says in the US Army survival manual: it says that you must always purify your drinking water, even if the water was procured by melting snow and ice.

Imagine that the snow is pure and white and clean-looking and you are in dire need of drinking water. Will you be risking a serious water-borne illness if you just melt the snow and drink it ? LW.

Snow is frozen water vapor-distilled water, in essence. It could pick up some airborne microbes, unlikely because of the effectiveness of solar UV in killing such off. Might have some nasty acidic factory waste particulates on board, the source of acid rain-but not enough to make it physiologically harmful, or even sour-tasting. The rest of the post-precipitation contaminants generally add some color to the snow, and this is postulated as absent. Drink it, I would.

What's a PSK ?

The local well water or city water is probably not as clean as the fresh snow in the country.

I make a fire or since I have my backpack I fire up the Svea, put some snow in the large pot from my mess kit and melt the snow, Drink as needed. Or use my homemade alcohol stove, but being it’s cold out and alcohol stoves don’t work as well in cold, the Svea is the first choice.

The challenge in the winter to find water is not when it’s snowing or snow is laying about (water everyplace that just needs a little heat) but to find it when there is no snow about.

I would generally forget the US Army Manual about boiling the melt water gathered from fresh snow fall. The melt water from clean snow will be perfectly OK to drink in normal circumstances. The US Army Manual instructions are attempting to deal with a couple of issues. Firstly, boiling would help with dealing with biological warfare toxins that may have been spread over that new clean virgin snow which fell during night and secondly boiling the water means a hot drink rather than a cold drink, which may cause problems with a contribution to hypothermia or cold weather injury.

The first point is not really an issue unless your fighting WWIII, but the second could be as it would be preferable to have a hot drink rather than a cold drink. It would be preferable to have a cold drink rather than eating snow and it would be preferable to eat snow rather than becoming dehydrated. Being dehydrated is the worst of all possible circumstances for cold weather injuries.

So it would be better exchanging the plastic cup for a nice lightweight titanium metal one and carry some sachets of Belgian double hot chocolate in your survival kit.

Titanium Mug with Belgain Double Hot Chocolate - best outcome.

Titanium Mug with Hot water and some pine needles - better outcome.

Plastic Mug with cold water - keeps you hydrated.

No Mug with dripping cold water - certainly not idea as you may have to carve/improvise a wooden cup - keeps you hydrated.

No Mug and no Knife and no fire - You may have to start eating snow, high possibility of cold weather injury especially if there is nothing to eat.

No water, no knife and no fire and no food because you have remembered from some folks survival training that advocate 'not to eat the snow at all costs' - leads to dehydration and the rapid onset of a cold weather injury.

Personally, I would worry more about what kind of junk might be in/on that old tee shirt. Deoderant, grease from working on the car, paint thinner, who knows what...

If you're worried about it, just carry along a small bottle of iodine or chlorine bleach, pre-diluted appropriately so that one drop would be sufficient to purify 4oz or water without being so strong as to cause YOU harm. You just want to nuke the bugs! Might not taste so good, but I survived many backpacking trips in the 70's drinking iodine water. Just don't boil starchy noodles in it unless you're willing to eat purple.

I'm wondering what the advantage would be in using a titanium mug as opposed to using a mug that's made out of stainless steel. The stainless steel mug is cheap enough, it's available for only a few bucks at your local Academy store. As for the pine needles, although they are definitely a good source of vitamin C, I know of at least one author (T. Elpel) who warns that overconsumption of pine needles can lead to possible kidney complications, and this is due to the resinous nature of the pine tree. LW.