How To Find Water in the Desert

hey guys Jeff here with Martin survival now many of you know that the desert is a land of extremes we have dust storms high temperatures in the daytime then very low temperatures in the evening that can set you in a state of hypothermia very quick there's also one other thing and that's a lack of moisture here in the Mojave Desert it's extremely dry and it could be very difficult to track and locate water so today I'll take you back into this Canyon and we'll try to track and find some water and who knows maybe we'll get lucky so stay with me and let's start our search so there's actually a few different ways to track and locate water here in my area of the high desert number one is following washes and that's what I'm going to do here in just a second the second way is looking on top of the granite boulders where there's natural indentations a lot of the time when we have our lightning storms it'll touch right down to the rock and it'll almost form a cup just a natural cup right in the middle of a granite boulder so you can look in those right after a rainstorm and you could find water that way another way here in the Joshua tree area and even down lower into the morongo Basin is the vegetation whenever you find cotton woods or willow mule fat you know there's water nearby and a lot of the time that's all earthquake the earthquake faults pressure pushing that water to the surface I'm actually heading back into this wash here and I'm going to see if I can't find any moisture on the ground any water pockets or hey maybe even a pool of water that would be pretty nice that'd be actually really nice we'll see what we have okay so I don't have a pool of water or anything like that no pockets of water but what I did find is a lot of moist soil so what am I going to do I'm going to use a stone here and kind of dig underneath the earth and see if I can't find any water okay so definitely no water in here usually what I like to do is dig about 12 to 13 inches underneath the earth and see if water starts forming in the pocket but in this case we're just hitting a bunch of moist sand and that's no good would I build the solar still here absolutely not I do not believe in building solar stills in any survival situation whatsoever it's very life threatening not only you burn through calories you also blow through hydration and that is a huge huge issue especially here in the desert so solar still no go no water forming underneath the hole so we'll just move on well this is definitely a cool fight right behind me on this Boulder here you can see there's petroglyphs from a Native American and one of the tribesmen that lived off of this land so just an awesome find it kind of gives you a little bit of assurance that you're not alone out here and their spirits are definitely with us and it's a really cool thing to see out here okay so I followed the wash a few hundred feet and went around a few bends and as you can see we have water this is right in the center of this rock and like I said earlier there's natural holes in this rock and a lot of the rainwater gathered in this rock so this is an excellent find and I'm going to take advantage of this I'm going to fill up my canteen here in just a second now of course I want to boil this down now if I don't have the means of boiling it or natural filtration or even treating it with a chemical I'm still going to drink this a lot of the books and manuals tell you to skip out on the water and don't drink it because of all the minerals from the rock and that's absolutely true but in a survival situation short term at least you're most likely going to find help and rescue within 24 to 72 hours so absolutely drink this this is definitely a lifesaver you know the more that I look at this hole in the rock this is definitely made by man dating back hundreds of years ago I'm assuming they use this hole to grind acorns and manzanita berries in here so an indian tribesman definitely lived off of this land now how can I tell that this is made by man right in front of me literally about three feet ahead there's a boulder and that Boulder has petroglyphs all over the rock as you can see so this is definitely an amazing amazing thing to find and I got to say for the lost person in the wilderness and someone who's in a survival situation this is definitely a gift from an Indian tribesman to find water in a hole they made hundreds and hundreds of years ago an amazing find this stuff fascinating I've seen more than one of these in different areas of the park but every time I come upon one of these I just think back in time and what they were doing and how they lived fascinating to say the least so finding water in the desert is definitely a challenge it is by far the toughest thing to do we were successful today but some of these lost hikers they aren't and they end up dehydrating and dying from lack of water I kind of compare finding water in the desert like primitive fire in the Eastern woodlands it's very hard and it's hit or miss you could succeed you could fail at it but getting out in the environment knowing the signs recognizing the vegetation is very crucial to locating water especially here in the Joshua tree area even in the lower morongo Basin it's so rare well I appreciate you guys joining me for this video I'm Jeff with Martin survival we'll see in the next one you

Channel: Primitive Lifeways

Views: 474,410

Rating: 4.0105896 out of 5

Keywords: Jeff Martin, Martin Survival, Desert Survival, Wilderness Survival, Woodsman, Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree National Park, Water In The Desert, Survival, Survival Skills, Primitive Skills, Primitive Living, Bushcraft, Wilderness Living, Survival Preparedness, Emergency Preparedness, Survival Kit, Knives, Survival Gear, Man vs Wild, Knife Review, Knife Test, Survival Knife, History, Cutlery Lover, Dual Survival Season 3, Prescott Arizona, Prescott Arizona Survival

Id: SdykTxvRQMU

Length: 8min 6sec (486 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 21 2012