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The stream from Monarch Spring should provide fairly decent drinking water once filtered

mc1-000004.jpg Once beyond the bushwhacking zone, I note that some of the brush looks greener than the restThumbnailsHaving now seen the entire stream from Monarch Spring, I start walking back and stop at the best spot that I saw for pumping waterOnce beyond the bushwhacking zone, I note that some of the brush looks greener than the restThumbnailsHaving now seen the entire stream from Monarch Spring, I start walking back and stop at the best spot that I saw for pumping waterOnce beyond the bushwhacking zone, I note that some of the brush looks greener than the restThumbnailsHaving now seen the entire stream from Monarch Spring, I start walking back and stop at the best spot that I saw for pumping waterOnce beyond the bushwhacking zone, I note that some of the brush looks greener than the restThumbnailsHaving now seen the entire stream from Monarch Spring, I start walking back and stop at the best spot that I saw for pumping waterOnce beyond the bushwhacking zone, I note that some of the brush looks greener than the restThumbnailsHaving now seen the entire stream from Monarch Spring, I start walking back and stop at the best spot that I saw for pumping water

The stream runs from two to eight inches in width and about six inches in depth at its deepest. It has a lot of algae on the surface, but the water underneath is clear and clean.

I get out my water bottles one-by-one and slowly fill them with water pumped through my MSR water purifier. I perform a taste test on the filtered water and it's pretty good.

I leisurely pump away as the sun beams down and starts to heat up the day, and me. I recognize a faint, musty odour in my surroundings that I can't immediately identify.

As time passes, I conclude that it's most probably from diluted feces from bighorn sheep, which like to frequent desert water sources such as this. I'm not a big meat eater, but lamb is my favourite red meat, and the scent of lamb meat is unmistakable.

I don't see any actual feces anywhere, but I do notice some soft earthy material on the ground that doesn't seem to be part of the hard earth layer beneath it.

I haven't seen any bighorn sheep during this trip yet, but I did catch a glimpse of a few last year near Marl Springs in Mojave National Preserve.

I'm content when my four 1.5-litre bottles are full of clean backcountry water and begin the hike back to my camp site. Passing through the area of head-high reeds around Monarch Spring is much easier on the return trip, now that I know how to get through it.