Drinkable Water from Green Stock Tank

[Mountain Mike]

lot of really bad info here. where to start.
it is impossible to use a filter right and get green water.
bleach washing a filter element ruins it.
water contaminated with gyardia , ecoli and cow spit is fine when treated. fine.
filters are not needed on the AT.
finding contaminated water that appears clear and clean is next to impossible on the AT
suffering dehydration can cause you to slip and fall,get lost and disoriented, cramp up and not be able to hike, and heat stroke and exaustion. given the choice to exit the mountains hydrated and safe but with a bad water issue, as opposed to being unable to exit due to no clean water, but also with no water contaminate issue, i choose to drink bad water, exit safely and suffer in town.

Two of you statements are false:
"Filters are not needed on AT" Most water should be treated on AT. Matter of preferance on how you treat it.

"Finding contaminated water that clear and clean is next to impossible on the AT" Pittsfield,MA & Berlin,NH have had Giardia show up in their public water supplies. Both are close to the AT & in it's watershed.

I know of several hikers that got the beaver bug while on the AT

Yes I have been in places on PCT where I strained water frow a cow pond, filtered & boiled. Then hoped to hell I didn't have to drink. Probably best trail magic I ever had. Ride to a locals place with invite to tent on his lawn & swim in his pond. We did take a break there to swim & tank up on water but hike into the night since next water source was another 15 ormore mile away.

[blitz1]

I advise against drinking from the creeks that run through the valley bottoms on the AT. The water is crystal clear, but those creeks are full of pesticides and fertilizer run off from farming. Unless you are near death from dehydration, there's no good reason to drink from those sources.

+1 to that! But even out of the valleys you can't be sure. I've had times where I drank from a lovely clear flowing stream while hiking up a trail and in another 1/2 mile found a beaver dam! In NE there are often fairly high bogs with lots of moose poop, and a stream running down from the bog can look clear. I try to tell from my topos if the stream I'm planning to drink from comes from a boggy area and I try not to use those, unless it's way upstream.

[tjforrester]

Well, I have used my SW filter system for many years. This was a new filter element. I had it in right. I had a prefilter on it and coffee bags on the end of that. i did get green water coming out. Not as green as the stock tank.

If you wish to give input please do. Remember this is not AT. Keep the reality of the sit on hand (read my first two posts). No comments on need for water. We all know that. Thanks.

Chaplain, I took the time to respond to your post, and you admonish instead of thanking me. I've thru-hiked the CDT. You may not like my response, especially since it rolls its eyes at filters, but there are different ways of doing things on the trail and mine is not the same as yours. I posted my response again, bolded the reference to the CDT, just in case you missed it the first time.

The best thing that ever happened to me hiking wise is my Sweetwater filter breaking during my first long trek. I've used bleach ever since, and that includes water coming out of stock tanks on the CDT. There were a couple of times when the water was so dirty it freaked me out, so I boiled before drinking.
_________

This offers a method of drinking out of stock tanks that worked perfectly well for me. I didn't get sick and my purification system was extremely light, not to mention cheap and unbreakable.

My post about the AT water was in response to a post made by another hiker about AT water. Some hikers who filter think they have cart blanche to filter anywhere, and I pointed out the chemicals in those low lands. Yes, that post was geographically off your topic, but I've seen a number of hikers filter from run off that contains contaminants and thought it was worth mentioning that's not a great idea. The concept can also be applied to other trails, including the CDT, so it wasn't that far of topic.

No comments on the need for water, eh? Because we all know that? Who is we, Chaplain? If you are speaking about experienced hikers I agree, but I suspect there are a number of inexperienced hikers who cruise this site and might find that info valuable.

[tjforrester]

+1 to that! But even out of the valleys you can't be sure. I've had times where I drank from a lovely clear flowing stream while hiking up a trail and in another 1/2 mile found a beaver dam! In NE there are often fairly high bogs with lots of moose poop, and a stream running down from the bog can look clear. I try to tell from my topos if the stream I'm planning to drink from comes from a boggy area and I try not to use those, unless it's way upstream.

Agreed.

I prefer not to drink out of any streams unless I am in high mountains, and the water is glacier runoff close to its source. I will sometimes drink out of the creeks that contain beavers, but I purify first. Without a doubt, the lower a creek is in elevation, the more likely its contaminated in some way.

As an aside, please don't bop me Chaplain, I held a conversation with a hiker this year who believes any water that contains trout is pure. I'm not joking.

[tjforrester]

Agreed.

I prefer not to drink out of any streams unless I am in high mountains, and the water is glacier runoff close to its source. I will sometimes drink out of the creeks that contain beavers, but I purify first. Without a doubt, the lower a creek is in elevation, the more likely its contaminated in some way.

As an aside, please don't bop me Chaplain, I held a conversation with a hiker this year who believes any water that contains trout is pure. I'm not joking.

Is there an edit button for these posts? I hate spotting grammatical errors the instant I post, then not being able to edit.

[SunnyWalker]

Dear TF Forester: sorry I did not mean to insult you. Thanks for your input.

[sheepdog]

The best thing that ever happened to me hiking wise is my Sweetwater filter breaking during my first long trek. I've used bleach ever since, and that includes water coming out of stock tanks on the CDT. There were a couple of times when the water was so dirty it freaked me out, so I boiled before drinking.

bleach works but I hate the taste of "city water". I guess if you're used to it.....

[SunnyWalker]

tfforessster: did wager squirt out the side/top (can't rmember)? When it does that the filter is finished. If one keeps trying to pump you'll break the thing.

[mweinstone]

i have hiked 7000 miles without filtering or treating on the AT. i dont carry alot of water even though i have a 6 litre msr bag for camp, i walk with enough to get by and drink from each source during the day with the exseption of low ones in new york occasionaly. but i allways drink from a half dozen sourses a day at least. seriose question. is this dumb luck? skill at avoiding bad water? 35 years. think about it. how many of you know a hiker who got sick? on the AT.

[mweinstone]

granted i never got past vernon. but i own every filter and carry one allways on a thru and only use it to reach hard to collect water. by far, a more important use.

[Mountain Mike]

I know of three on my thru. One down south & two up north. Maybe I should give you money to buy me a lotto ticket.

[mweinstone]

or,...maby its all constitution. thats alot of it i bet. id like to see real time monitoring of even one single overused source and then i would eat the filter from the monitoring station and prove its purity. heres a little algerythm im working on to describe the chances mathematicaly of getting sick from bad water on the AT.

size of body of water+flow rate+contamination leavel+dispersion area+time duration of contamination+amount consumed+constitutional streangth of hikers ability to remaine healthy...must all come together just right to create illness in the hiker.

[blitz1]

matthewski, isn't also possible that you've got a parasite from all that unfiltered water that's curled up in your brain right now, eating your neurons, and that it's what's sparking your creative brilliance? or have you always been this way?
no really, i'm serious....

[Snowleopard]

Matty and SBhikes are both right. Some filters will pass anything bigger than the filter pore size. Filter purple gatorade and it will come out purple. Most chemicals will pass through unaffected. The taste will be unchanged. Some filters including some MSR incorporate activated charcoal or have a charcoal prefilter. The charcoal will adsorb many chemicals. The Brita filters used to improve the taste of water, I think, contain charcoal. I've never tried it, but wouldn't be at all surprised if it removed the color from gatorade.

I've never had to drink for such a stock tank and hope to avoid hiking where it is necessary. Horace Kephart describes an incident from the book, Johnson's 'Getting Gold':

" I once rode forty-five miles with nearly beaten horses to a native well, or rock hole, to find water, the next stage being nearly the fifty miles further.

The well was found, but
water in it was very bad for in it was the body of a dead kangaroo, which had apparently been there for weeks. The wretched horses, half frantic with thirst, did manage I filled our to drink a few mouthfuls, but we could not. I took our largest billycan, holding about a gallon, slung it over the fire and added, as the wood burnt down, charcoal, till the top was covered to a depth of two inches. With the coal there was, of course a little ash containing bi-car-bonate of potassium. The effect was marvellous. So soon as the horrible soup came to the boil, the impurities coagulated, and after keeping it at boiling temperature for about half an hour, it was removed from the fire, the cinders skimmed out, and the water allowed to settle, which it did very quickly. It was then decanted off into an ordinary prospector's pan, and some used to make tea (the flavor of which can be better imagined than described) the remainder was allowed to stand all night, a few pieces of charcoal being added. In the morning it was bright, clear, and absolutely sweet."

Horace Kephart, 'Camping and Woodcraft'
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27285794/C...Horace-Kephart

What would worry me more than agricultural chemicals is streams that used to have a lot of industry upstream. From PA through NH there are a lot of rivers in the valleys like this. I grew up along the Naugatuck River in CT before the EPA and, believe me, no one was tempted to drink from it. I wouldn't drink from the Housatonic River or Hudson River which the AT does cross because of the possibility of really nasty chemicals remaining from 50 to 150 years before. An activated charcoal filter would remove some of this, but I wouldn't trust it.

[tjforrester]

Dear TF Forester: sorry I did not mean to insult you. Thanks for your input.

No worries, Chaplain. Thank you for your kind words.

[tjforrester]

bleach works but I hate the taste of "city water". I guess if you're used to it.....

I seldom purify water. When I do, I don't use enough bleach to taste it.

[tjforrester]

Matty and SBhikes are both right. Some filters will pass anything bigger than the filter pore size. Filter purple gatorade and it will come out purple. Most chemicals will pass through unaffected. The taste will be unchanged. Some filters including some MSR incorporate activated charcoal or have a charcoal prefilter. The charcoal will adsorb many chemicals. The Brita filters used to improve the taste of water, I think, contain charcoal. I've never tried it, but wouldn't be at all surprised if it removed the color from gatorade.

I've never had to drink for such a stock tank and hope to avoid hiking where it is necessary. Horace Kephart describes an incident from the book, Johnson's 'Getting Gold':
Horace Kephart, 'Camping and Woodcraft'
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27285794/C...Horace-Kephart

What would worry me more than agricultural chemicals is streams that used to have a lot of industry upstream. From PA through NH there are a lot of rivers in the valleys like this. I grew up along the Naugatuck River in CT before the EPA and, believe me, no one was tempted to drink from it. I wouldn't drink from the Housatonic River or Hudson River which the AT does cross because of the possibility of really nasty chemicals remaining from 50 to 150 years before. An activated charcoal filter would remove some of this, but I wouldn't trust it.

I wouldn't drink from any river on the east coast, wouldn't even swim in some of them.

[tjforrester]

i have hiked 7000 miles without filtering or treating on the AT. i dont carry alot of water even though i have a 6 litre msr bag for camp, i walk with enough to get by and drink from each source during the day with the exseption of low ones in new york occasionaly. but i allways drink from a half dozen sourses a day at least. seriose question. is this dumb luck? skill at avoiding bad water? 35 years. think about it. how many of you know a hiker who got sick? on the AT.

I know a hiker who came down with Giardia while hiking the AT, a medically diagnosed case, but I think this is fairly rare.

On the AT I'm more concerned with sharing finger food than I am getting the disease from the water. There are so many springs along that trail, a hiker can walk for days and never drink from a questionable source.

I become more wary when there are lots of people and lots of dogs on the trail, given people and dogs are carriers of this parasite. I've walked up on a hiker who was washing his nasty rear end while standing in a spring, and I've seen plenty of dogs cooling off in the water. If I can't get water directly out of the mountain, I sometimes wait for fresh water to replace the old.

[tjforrester]

tfforessster: did wager squirt out the side/top (can't rmember)? When it does that the filter is finished. If one keeps trying to pump you'll break the thing.

It was seventeen years ago and I can't remember exactly what broke on the filter. (I think it was the handle.)

[Dogwood]

The worst water(taste, floaties, dissolved solids, soda ash, minerals, cow urine, livestock feces, etc) I have ever experienced on hikes that I HAD(one place I did not) to drink from was on the CDT in NM and Montana(thanks to livestock, MOSTLY cattle!, most people don't know how destructive livestock are!), the Hayduke Trail in southern Utah, and the PCT on Hat Creek Rim. Drank from cow ponds and foul water tanks on the Hayduke, CDT, and PCT. The cow pond I drank from during the heat of summer on the northern section of Hat Creek Rim on the PCT was probably the worst though. I drank from that slime covered cow shart and urine floating flies abuzzing cow pond on the PCT because I failed to have an adequate up-to-date water report informing me that a trail angel had set up a water drop only 2 miles ahead! PCTers GET AN UP TO DATE WATER REPORT, ESPECIALLY FOR CALIFORNIA!!!

Just as bad tasting is minerally soda ash laden water of the southern Utah canyon country desert. You drink it and it makes you thirstier.

When confronting such water sources I strain with my bandanna and treat with a heavy dose of Aqua Mira just as Garlic does. If I have it(I usually do), I'll add some lemon-lime MSM Emergen-C to mask the taste and smell.

The AT has GREAT water compared to some of the other trails I've thru-hiked.