I've hidden water in the Northern Tenere and tried to find it a year later.

When we relied mainly on GPS (I say mainly because GPS was marking a point 30 meters from a balise), we could not find the stash and we dug up a circle of sand about 3 or 4 m in diameter.

We did find the water which was hidden among rocks - and the water was fine to drink a year later (a lot of ground water in the Sahara fell as rain about 125 000 years ago!). GPS helped find the rocks, but not the water amongst the rocks. We would also have found the rocks without the GPS.

Hi

As I am reading this thread I am wondering...

How long can water be safely stored before it's not safe to drink?

Regards, Gary

Well, I understand wine has been drunk from casks sunk in the ocean during the Roman times.

As for the water I suppose you could purify it after you recovered it if you were worried.

Yankee Dog