Sunday, November 17, 2024

Equipment notes (8): "some prefer rubber water-bottles made in Germany"

Alpine outfitting advice from the mid-1930s.

How to carry food and drink— It is convenient to have a number of linen bags for holding provisions and other articles and keeping them clean in the sack. A large one will hold the bread. Butter, jam, or honey are best carried in aluminium boxes with double covers; aluminium bottles are good for wine or tea.

Felt coverings to the bottles are useful, as the felt may be dampened in hot weather to cool the contents, but some mountaineers prefer the rubber water-bottles made in Germany, for these take up less room when empty. The same applies to the leather Pyrenean “gourdes,” which may be procured from Paul Gleize of Chambéry. All these bottles can be cured by leaving wine and water or weak coffee in them for a couple of days before use.

Aluminium should never have tea, red wine, or spirits left in it for more than a day. Bottles made of this metal should be rinsed out with water and left to drain. The yellowish brown stains that form are protective and should not be scrubbed off; it is only the small white spots that must be removed. Neglected aluminium can he scoured with a 10 per cent. solution of carbonate of soda, followed by washing out with concentrated nitric acid.

Aluminium drinking-cups with handles are sold by most foreign outfitters and hold a quarter of a litre. The handles are indispensable if the cups are to be used for hot drinks. Leather has been tried as a substitute for horn or aluminium; it makes a compact though cheerless form of drinking-cup. An aluminium “egg,” for making tea, with a chain attached to it, saves using more than one utensil in the making; but the “eggs” usually sold are too small for any but the smallest party.

For carrying raw or lightly cooked eggs, special egg-holders are sold; as the holders are of aluminium, however, and are easily knocked out of shape, it is simpler to pack the eggs very carefully in paper in a tin.

References

Chapter Three “Equipment” by C F Meade in The Lonsdale Library of Sports, Games and Pastimes, Volume XVIII, Mountaineering, London: Seeley Service & Co, 1934. 

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