What water bottle do you carry on climbs?

I'm looking for a tough water bottle I can clip to me on shorter trad multipitch climbs. Should I just go with a camelback? 

I like to carry the Hydrapak 0.5L or 1L soft pouches. I'm trad climbing 99% of the time so I often put it inside an Avant snack pack that I keep on the same strap as my chalk bag to give it some abrasion protection. But often times I'll just clip it to the back of my harness and it's worked great. If it's sport climbing, no need to even think about protecting it from abrasion. 

I think the question to weigh is do you prioritize tough (and generally bulky) or less tough but easy to be compressed and packed away when needed

A Tropicana juice bottle that I duct taped paracord to. Maybe 8oz? 12oz? The type you’d find at a gas station or vending machine. Wide mouth and sturdy. 

Clip a 16oz Wide-Mouth Nalgene to the back loop of your harness with a small carabiner?

Josh Rappoportwrote:

Clip a 16oz Wide-Mouth Nalgene to the back loop of your harness with a small carabiner?

please don't. Those loops aren't meant to hold anything and often break.
https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/120220349/epinephrine-conditions 

Adam Flemingwrote:

please don't. Those loops aren't meant to hold anything and often break.
https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/120220349/epinephrine-conditions 

Um...we were talking about filling it with water, right?

I guess that I thought 16oz of water on a shorter multi-pitch was relatively safe, and you could always check the loop to make sure it isn't fraying etc.

Tahr Cap Straps^

Randy Vannurdenwrote:

Tahr Cap Straps^

Just picked up one of these. Seems well made.

Normally use a 1 liter platapus half filled 

Randy Vannurdenwrote:

Tahr Cap Straps^

I use this.  Works well.

Josh Rappoportwrote:

Clip a 16oz Wide-Mouth Nalgene to the back loop of your harness with a small carabiner?

Don’t trust the plastic loop on a Nalgene. Even the smaller 16 oz is still going to ruin someone’s day if it hits them when the plastic inevitably breaks and it falls a pitch or two.

2 or 3m cord tied with a barrel knot on a 1 liter nalgene. Ive been using this for years with tons of whips and never had an issue.

Wide-mouth Gatorade bottle of your chosen size with a loop of cord cloved to the neck and taped for security. Will never leak and weighs nothing.

If I’m leading every pitch the answer is 2 gallons in the followers backpack. If we’re swapping leads then it’s a 500ml hydrapak. If I’m drinking electrolyte solutions then I always carry a rigid bottle because the bladder style are a bitch to clean. I’ve got an 800ml klean kanteen that can be clipped right through the eye on the cap which is nice.

The best of all time IMO was the first Platypus soft bottle that had a perfect huge loop integrated into it that you could clip. Sadly, they discontinued it. But fortunately, the design seems to have lived on or they had just licensed it, because the Survivor Filter brand bottles on Amazon are 100% the same design, though they seem to use a different plastic that I don't like quite as much but is still fine. 

https://www.amazon.com/Survivor-Filter-Collapsible-Water-Bottles-2-Pack/dp/B010OLZ3E2/?th=1  

They are cheap and I'm sure the lightest weight option there is, and as a bonus, a Sawyer filter fits on them well enough. The great thing is that the are soft so they aren't uncomfortable and the more you drink, the more they get out of your way. 

I add a little hole in the bottom plastic so that I can use them to gravity feed through a sawyer mini: 

I find the combo of smart water bottle for the approach and soft survivor bottle for the climb to be perfect.  

The other good alternative I do sometimes is a gatorade / powerade bottle with chord tied around the lip and reinforced with tape. You can rig this up in a jiff with just a random bottle from the gas station. Sadly they don't seem to have good 1 quart size gatorade bottles any more though =(

Gatorade/Powerade bottle with cord on the neck tied with a constrictor hitch (it's like a clove hitch with an extra turn ABoK 1188)   animatedknots.com/constrict…

TaylorPwrote:

2 or 3m cord tied with a barrel knot on a 1 liter nalgene. Ive been using this for years with tons of whips and never had an issue.

This is the way. Can use a noose knot also.

There is some pertinent information missing from the OP’s question to give a very specific answer.  “Shorter” is a pretty vague and relative term.  

I’ve used a huge variety of bottle of the years depending on a lot of factors.  How long will I be climbing for, how hard is the climbing, is it a hot and dry climate, is the rock abrasive, is there a chimney, etc.

From small to big.

    •    250mL (8oz) - disposable plastic water bottle the airlines and stupid corporate events handout.  Choke the top like the above pics of the Nalgene. Great for short hard routes, up to 3 pitches or an 1 to 2 hours.

    •    355mL (12oz) - same as above just a bit larger.  Say 3-5 pitches or 2-3 hours

    •    500mL (17oz) - Hydrapak Stow bottle - soft silicone flask that is great if you are caring a larger water container in your pack on the approach and want to roll this one up. Built in clip in loop that is bomber - really good warranty if they get holes - 5 to 10 pitches or 3-5 hours (or the Nose if that is a “shorter” climb for you)

    •    600mL (20oz) - Easy to find gatorade bottles in this size. Probably the perfect basic bottle for most short climbs.  Enough water to prevent dry mouth but not heavy enough to get in the way 

    •    1L (32oz) -  Hydrapak Stow or Gatorade or if you really care about weight get the cheapest Walmart offering as possible.  Those seem to have the thinnest plastic.  5-10hrs of climbing depending on fitness.

    •    1L+  I usually start bringing two smaller bottles so I can balance the weight on my harness.  And generally speaking if you need more than 1L you are getting closer to length/difficulty that hauling a small pack might start to make sense.  Or train yourself to drink less water.  

Some other notes, a basic 1L clear Nalgene is very very rarely a good choice unless you are on an overnight climb with a stove and plan on putting warm liquids in it and you like carrying extra weight. They weigh about 175g empty!  The soft white ones weigh about 105g.  So if you must use a Nalgene get the soft white one.  A HydraPak Stow 1L weighs about 60g.  115 grams is a pretty real weight savings even for just a short climb.

Any sort of tubed hydration is asking for trouble.  When I use to guide in Yosemite I had to give up my water numerous times when my client’s hose broke.  I ended up not letting clients bring them and insisted on a normal bottle.  Same goes for the older platypus plastic bottles.  I’ve seen way too many of those leak.  They need to be in a pack and wrapped in your extra clothes so when they do fail your extra clothes are also wet so you are for sure never going to use them again.

All of that to stay, just have a few different cheap disposable plastic bottles laying around with small cord on them or get a couple Hydrapaks.  

Mikey Schaeferwrote:

Some other notes, a basic 1L clear Nalgene is very very rarely a good choice unless you are on an overnight climb with a stove and plan on putting warm liquids in it and you like carrying extra weight. They weigh about 175g empty!  The soft white ones weigh about 105g.  So if you must use a Nalgene get the soft white one.  A HydraPak Stow 1L weighs about 60g.  115 grams is a pretty real weight savings even for just a short climb.

Aw come on Mikey, its just training weight! The hard Nalgene makes me feel better when I'm squeezing through chimneys, don't want to pop a hole in something. Most people already have a Nalgene, plus it keeps plastic out of the landfills from repeatedly buying Gatorade bottles. If weight is a big concern to people, Just start drilling out your carabiners.

Since no one has mentioned it, I'll add -- bike bottle.

I don't have my bottle with me, so here are a couple of action shots from climbing (clipped to harness) and backpacking (clipped to shoulder strap).

The best part is drinking is a one handed operation because of the built in pop top -- unclip, pop open with mouth, drink, pop close, and clip back. No need to unscrew a lid and no cap to drop. Bike bottles are very durable. It will not shatter like a Nalgene when dropped, and it will not puncture like a soft flask. As long as your pop top is intact, it seals pretty well, although I normally try to keep my full bottle upright when carried in my pack. Wide mouth -- it's easy to mix electrolytes in, wash, and reuse. 

A simple clove hitch on a paracord works best -- it cinches down into the narrow neck. I've been doing it for a decade+, gone through my fair share of chimneys, and never lost a bottle.There are different sizes of bike bottles available (I stole a photo from the web) if you want to control how much you carry on your harness. If your clove hitched cord is the right length, you can easily slide it off one bottle and on to another one.

P.S. My Zefal 33oz tall bike bottle, with cord, weighs 103g according to my lighterpack log.

Another vote for bike bottle. Mei (above) introduced me to it. It makes so much sense for multipitch rock climbing for all the reasons she articulated in her post (Specifically, one-handed operation, durability, and easy attachment to harness). Anyway, after adopting it as my standard on multipitch climbs, I starting using it as my go to water option on IAD peakbagging missions (hiking / scrambling) in the Sierra where time & weight are at a premium. It is just so convenient to quickly refill in a stream, etc.

TaylorPwrote:

Aw come on Mikey, its just training weight! The hard Nalgene makes me feel better when I'm squeezing through chimneys, don't want to pop a hole in something. Most people already have a Nalgene, plus it keeps plastic out of the landfills from repeatedly buying Gatorade bottles. If weight is a big concern to people, Just start drilling out your carabiners.

I think I've had the same Gatorade bottle for a year now - by plastic weight alone a Nalgene is about 4 gatorade bottles, so it's a negligible difference. Plus I couldn't pop a hole in that thing if I tried.