You are in a situation where you have only the following and you MUST find a way to boil a liter (not necessarily all at once) of water within the next 8 hours.

The environment:

-Plenty of non-drinkable (without boiling) water.
-There are no Brich trees so lets not get in to the whole Birch bark container thing. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> The area is wooded with, furs, cedars, maples oaks and cottonwoods and shrubbery common to north america.
-Temp is about 80 degrees and high temp for the day is expected to be about 85
-Its about 11am so you have until 7pm to get your water boiled, cooled and drank.
-If you can find a way to stor the water, great, but this is not a requirement. You can boil, cool, drink a 1/3 of a liter three times in that time period if you want, just as long as you have boiled, cooled, and drank one liter of water within 8 hours

Your Gear:

-Lighter, Sparklite, Ferrocerium Rod, Lots of Matches, Vasoline Cotton Balls (yes this is a bit exaggerated... the point is that starting a fire isnt a problem in this scenario)
-High Quality Fixed Blade Knife w/ 5" blade.
-Photon II Flashlight

Okay so basically the way I am trying to set up this scenario is that youre in a typical modern day north american wooded area in the summer. You have a good knife, good firemaking equipment and plenty of good dry tinder, kindling and fuel for the fire. The only way to get drinkable water is to boil it and you have no container in which to boil and/or drink from. How do you improvise in this situation. The time limit prevents you from wating till morning for the morning dew or extracting water from plants in some other way. You MUST boil your water in this scenario so it would seem that you must improvise a container in which to boil it. How do you imporvise such a container???

One last thing... In this scenario there is no trash of any type left behind by humans that is anywhere to be found. So. no you cant say "I'd pick up the soda can left behind by other hikers and use that to boil in".

Does this seems like an impossible situation? I know it's one that I have pondered and I have yet to come up with a "good" solution. Can you carve a bowl out of a log or weave a backet and boil with hot rocks? Remember you only have 8 hours to get a liter of water boiled and cooled.

Brian:

If you have all the mentioned gear and no filtration devices, chemical purifiers, heavy duty aluminum foil, or container to boil water in, you deserve to dehydrate or drink questionable water and all the ills that befall you.

Digging a hole in the ground and using heated rocks is out as the ground would probably soak up the water before you could process it.

Chipping out a rock to use as a basin would probably be too time consuming and you would need a lot of fire if you were to use the rock as a cooking utensil.

Weave a basket?, come-on now, if you were too stupid for container carry, you probably don't know how to weave a watertight container.

Your only saving grace might be clothes to put the water in and hope to achieve a 5 minute boil before the clothes burn up.

Otherwise do like snipers tell their targets, "Don't bother to run, you'll only die tired". Scratch your vital information on a nearby tree, and lie down at its base and wait for darwinism to take its rightful due.

Bountyhunter

I've pondered the same. That's why I now carry a metal cup! Also heavy duty foil (not the rolled kitchen stuff, a foil turkey roaster pan cut up). But first I'd go for the water I always carry, then the water purification tablets, and finally the mini-filter straw I carry too.

In other words, I thought about your same scenerio, couldn't figure out anything terribly efficient to handle it, so I gave in and decided to carry the minimal stuff that would stop such a situation from unfolding (hopefully)!

easy ......

Open the Photon microlight, remove the batteries and the circuit, leave the LED(so that end is closed) and use this improvised container to boil a few cc (?!) at a time.
Advantage : such a small qty you can drink it hot , no need to wait for cold water ....
<img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

A mixed hardwood/coniferous forest will have complex soil types ranging from decomposing ganite to the fine silts your very water source is in. You can make a serviceable clay container and fire it to useable temper in the time alloted with plenty of time to heat rocks as a heat source to drop inside. If you kill or come across a large dead animal, the stomach makes a water container that will hold water over a fire and achieve boiling temps.

I am going to go out on a limb here. In my mind I see two fundemental requirements for a container which

1) must hold water resonably well. I cannot think of a way to boil water without storing it in something....other than just pouring it on the fire... ;P

2) be fire resistant-ish

So...it must either come in a bowl type shape or be able to be fashioned into one. I agree with the other posts that making a wood container is impractical given the time frame. Weaving one might be possible but I doubt it would hold up to the heat enough to actually boil water.

Ultimately I submit two possiblities...and I have no experience with either one so don't bother flaming me, I am claiming ignorance from the get go.

Plausible Solution A. 1) Kill a deer/elephant/bear/T-Rex whatever 2)scoop out the brains 3) fill the skull with water 4)make a wooden spit type thing to keep the water-filled skull off of direct flames 5) a miracle occurs 6) the water boils 7) enjoy your brain flavored water over ice with a twist


Plausible Solution B. 1) you dig a bowl shaped hole 2) you line the hole with large leaves 3) you take mud and sand and gunk and leaves and make a mash (think adobe style) 4) then you press the mash into the hole on top of the leaves 5) it drys and then 6) a miracle occurs 7) you take you mud pot and fill it with water 8) you place it over the flames 8) repeat step 6 9) you have mud flavored water..mmmm, good 10) you donate everything you own to the Equipped to Survive Foundation and Doug buys a large RV and tours the World teaching common sense and the PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. listen 11) everybody goes and buys PSK's and lives happily everafter, secure in the knowledge that they could fashion a waterproof, fireproof container out of the aluminum foil in their shiny new PSK!!!

in your gear list, you don't mention a cheese-burger, don't you ....
hum.... too bad, the paper wrapping could be enough....

The guys are on the right track here.

Scout around for more clayey soil. Dig a pit (cauldron) in the clay. Fill with water. Heat rocks, use tree limbs to handle hot rocks into water. Steam is generated. Hold shirt over steam. Wring out shirt (distilled water) into mouth or container.

Downside:
Need many rocks, large long lasting fire.
Need rocks that won't explode when heated.
Need head examined for going out without correct gear. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

(Tip from Australian Army Survival Wing)

Is this a trick question? <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

CK has the best answer: find some clay. Dig a gallon-size hole, line with leaves, line with clay, build fire inside clay to fire it. Cool. Lift this bowl from the soil/leaves, carry to water source and fill. Meanwhile, you've built another fire & heated some rocks that you didn't collect from along the river/lake. Return filled bowl to camp, use forked green branches to lift hot rocks into bowl of water until boiling.

If you're incredibly lucky (dumb, but lucky), you might find a water-eroded rock bank along the shore that has a ready-made bowl formed in it above the water line. Splash water into it, build a fire as near as you can, heat rocks and drop into the water until boiling.

Sue

In a science class once I boiled water in a cup made from a folded up sheet of paper. The paper won't burn while it is wet. Maybe you can fashion something similar. Anything that gets wet but holds water long enough to boil and cool would work. Waxed cloth might not work, unless the wax melted out before it ignited.