Hey great job man. I'm not going to jump on the shoe deal but want to impress the lesson you learned regarding water and reaching it. This is something that probably a couple dozen of us realized when you wrote it and should have mentioned before hand.
First, for two hours even in the rain, you did not drink nearly enough and in a SHTF situation your adrenaline will be much higher. You mentioned only drinking 16oz. Got to do better. Whether that be by moving Nalgene bottles around or using a hydration reservoir.
Yeah, I definitely need to drink more water. As I am sure most of you know. In a strenuous situation, if you wait until you are thirsty to drink, it is too late. Between a smaller pack and being overweight, I can't really reach the water bottles that are located in the side pockets of my pack. This is where the small 16oz bottle at my waist is working well for me.
What I need to do is develop a rhythm to my water intake. Back in my youth when I did a lot bicycling, I set up a countdown timer on my watch. It was set to go off every 20 min. That would be my reminder to take a drink of water. After I had done that long enough, I found I had developed a rhythm to it and didn't need the alarm any longer.
If I work on developing a rhythm like that now (and keep it practiced), then I won't need something like the alarm if my GHB really comes into play. Having an alarm go off would not be good for keeping a low profile.
Other methods, like counting steps, can also be used to aid in drinking enough water, but in the past I have found that mentally counting steps reduces my situational awareness. (often the counting became fairly automatic, but, when that happens, I found I often keep right on counting long past my target number.)
While the hydration pack would be a better solution, the pack I have now is what I have already spent the money on. As stated previously, there really isn't room for an add-on bladder in the pack now. In the future I may replace the pack and would get hydration then, but funds are limited and this is the pack I have now.
Filling the 16oz from the 32os bottles periodically will work pretty well for now. Besides, when the 16oz bottle is empty, that is a good sign that I should stop and take a break anyway. Stopping to fill the 16oz from the 32oz will make that happen automatically.
I also clip my bottles to the pack, as I have lost them on the trail. On a couple of my packs its pretty easy to reach and unclip with the pack on my back. On a few others I dummy cord the bottle with a couple feet of 550 cord so even if it falls out it drags behind to I figure it out.
I fully agree on securing the water bottles. There was bottled water in a side pocket of my work backpack. One day it fell out somewhere between work and home and I never realized it until the next day. Can't take any chances on something like that in an emergency situation. For this pack, I used small utility carabiners to clip the Nalgene bottles to a pack tightener strap. The waist pack comes with the standard elastic bungee holder.
The idea of using paracord to secure the bottle is a great one. Especially if it is on several feet of it. That insures that not only is it not lost if it falls out, but you can't accidentally leave it behind and you can't forget to secure it either. I'm beginning to think of paracord as the survivalist's duct tape. The uses are virtually infinite. Thanks for the suggestion.