fatdad wrote:If you also factor in things from other survival stories that we know to be true, we know that people have an amazing capacity for endurance that goes beyond what we estimate when sitting on the sofa reading a book. Any misstatement of fact doesn't render every other fact implausible. But then, if you didn't like the book, that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
I liked the book, bit put it in the category of quasi-fiction when I came across the
13 days in the desert without water.
Really, I've been in the desert a lot; friends say I use much less water than most. I used 1.5 L to go from Phantom Ranch where it was 114F, to the S rim of the GC via Kaibab Trail, in June, and was never thirsty. I used about the same amount for the Shorty's Well to Telescope Peak jaunt, where the accumulated elevation gain is 11500'.
But I have a fairly good feeling for human limits; how heat, exercise, incessant sun, etc. can shrink that supposed 3-day limit on human life without water. I used to run in the summer in Las Vegas, at the heat of the day, and got to see the thin line between life and death... just over the hill.