There is something strangely liberating about finding water in the woods, something that appeals to the inner rugged individualist in us all, something far older than camelbaks and nalgene bottles. I've been actively seeking these places out for a while now, poking around the geology, looking into shady slot canyons, and places where rainwater might accumulate and persist in punchbowl tinajas for longer than a few days. I've found a few, I guess, and I guard the knowledge jealously. Most are on the topographic maps - the quality ones made in the old days anyway - and marked with blah blah spring or something something tank, but some are not, and those are by far the most precious of all.
Despite being the high country, there isn't much of it around here, the water I mean. At least not the kind of surface water where anyone besides a tree can get to it. It's there of course, it always has been, but it's uncertain and tough to tease out, especially now that the dry season is advancing. But if you pay attention to the clues you'll sometimes be rewarded with an ephemeral seep and a few liters of black, water-strider and mosquito infested liquid pooled up in the back of a rockface or deep in some marshy hollow.
If you're lucky enough to find it it's best to simply put an X on your topo map, jot the location and date in your journal (you do have one of those, right?) or mark a waypoint in your gps for future reference. This is emergency water, bug-out water, the sort you drink only if you've run dry and have no other choice. And even then, you take only what you absolutely need. Why? Simple: the wildlife needs this water far more than you do. The deer and the birds don't have access to endlessly free-flowing taps, don't have a couple liters of water waiting under the seat of the truck back at the trailhead. For them that stinky black water is the difference between life and death. Better to leave it to them if you can.
I suppose I needn't tell you about the dangers of drinking front and back country water. Filter it with a quality water filter, boil it, or treat it with harsh, nasty tasting chemicals. Or maybe do all three depending on how paranoid you feel. I hear we've become soft, hardly fit to reside in these places, and a dose of the wee beasties that our ancestors would've shrugged off a couple centuries ago tend to have their way with us now.
Oak Soup, Coconino National Forest, May 2012
And the clues I spoke of?
Ah, yes. The clues.
It's simple, really: the birds will tell you the secret knowledge of water, the butterflies, the deer, the large green trees, the geology itself. Learn to listen to what they say, follow in their footsteps, and they'll lead you right to it.