Water is a problem. It’s a problem because you need a LOT of it, but it’s extremely heavy. For extended periods of time, you need more water than you can carry comfortably. What that means is that you’ll need to rely on found water that you then make safe to drink (by whatever purification method you use).
What happens, though, when you want to carry water with you? You’ve either got to carry an empty canteen or water bottle, which can be bulky and inconvenient… or you’ve got to carry a container in your gear. For ease of packing, that container should be something that takes up less space when not in use than it does when it’s full. 12 Survivors has the perfect solution for that problem, as it turns out.
Reservoir 34 Water Bottle
You wouldn’t think there would be a whole lot you could say about a water bottle, but it turns out you’d be wrong. The Reservoir 34 Collapsible Water Bottle is an extremely lightweight, potentially very compact water container that you can take on the go. It’s a TPU (thermpolastic polyurethane) sack with a silicone bite nozzle, a polypropylene adapter, and a pair of TPU gear/attachment loops. Empty, it weighs just 1.4 ounces and can be crumpled up small enough to fit in your first.
The bottle ships with a reducing adapter for standard threads so you can attach it to a water purifier and a variety of other standard bottle caps. The company says it’s BPA-free, PVC-free, and phthalate free. Seams are RF-welded for strength. According to the company’s website, the one-liter bottle is 9.25 x 4 x 2 inches long.
I’m not embarrassed to admit that, when I first filled the bottle with water, I couldn’t figure out how to drink from it. I simply had not encountered a bite valve before (which, I found out after the fact, is quite common). To drink from the water bottle, you bite down on the silicone nozzle. This makes it easy to drink on the go without spilling any water or unscrewing the works. The nozzle has a protect plastic cap that fits snugly over it and keeps it clean. It’s attached, so you don’t have to worry about losing it when it’s off.
Built-in plastic loops make it easy to attach the bottle to gear (or strap whatever you’d like to the bottle itself). Full, the flexible bottle is rectangular in shape. Something about that made me laugh — the fact that I was carrying my water around in something square.
Most of my bugout bags have traditional military-style canteens and aluminum canteen cups. The Reservoir 34 is not only a great way to carry a more modern water bottle for quick hikes, but also an excellent means of packing away a mobile storage option. If you found yourself forced to rely on found water, you could pull this bottle out of your pack and use it to carry away a liter of H2O. It’s a slick, modern option that I found nicely designed and executed.