This subject has been exhaustively hashed out before---
https://whiteblaze.net/forum/showthr...gazine-Article
I made the decision years ago to filter my water. I don't get overly concerned with what everyone else is doing.
Lonehiker (MRT '22)
HooKooDooKu, you took the phrase filter with bandana out of context. I said that was a precursor to using tablet. I only use that when water has things floating in it. The purpose of that is to get large (not microscopic) particles out. I'm certainly not advocating my water treatment system for anyone else. I was just explaining what I do. I dont care what you think of it and would never criticize your treatment method. I'm done posting on this thread.
I tried out my brand new Hydro Blue Versa Filter on my last outing on March 13th.It was on the end of a 4 foot hose and a 2 liter bag and attached to my Smart Water bottle.The results were impressive for speed and it's just too easy to back flush it with the bottle.Also love the color coded ends.So yeah,I believe in treatment because I like water that looks clean and not stained or full of cysts.
The way I look at it,you got to fill up the bag anyway and it only takes a minute or two to filter into the bottle.No biggee.........
For me, it depends on the location. I carried the "mini" for years and used it a few times, but it always seemed to take so long. I don't know if its all the COVID-19 talk, making me more aware or maybe I'm just getting old, but I bought Versa (faster) for my upcoming hikes. Will I use it? Maybe, it will still be location dependent.
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Thanks for all the opinions everyone! It's really interesting to hear how personal people take this topic.
In my thinking, if a person is acting under their own choices and gets Giardia that's on them; but it sounds like if they are choosing not to filter then they have already accepted that as a possibility and are okay with it.
Filters are designed to trap pathogens within them, resulting in ever greater concentrations over time.Originally Posted by Rain Man
Thru hikers will use one for months— after all, Sawyer claims them able to effectively filter an enormous volume of water.
But if a filter has been densely packed with weeks or months of cooties, I think using one my also be Russian Roulette, albeit with a different weapon.
Just too hard not to cross contaminate or eliminate leaks from the toxic time bomb you have been creating.
Just my way of thinking.
I still use one to keep my wife happy, but now replace them super frequently and am as fastidious as possible using them. Last year I started I using food service gloves when cutting salami and stuff. Whether any of this makes a difference or not, hard to say.
Using your bandanna as a pre filter is a good idea when you are using chemical treatment. Chemical water treatment doesn't work well in water that is cloudy/visibly dirty.
If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.
But if a filter has been densely packed with weeks or months of cooties, I think using one my also be Russian Roulette, albeit with a different weapon.
that's why they are supposed to be back flushed, cleaned, and replaced if needed.....
Which has never stopped us from re-hashing anything!
I'm with the filtering crowd. You just don't know what died or crapped upstream. The weight penalty (and the wait penalty) are minimal.
My apologizes... your post did say "before using tablet". I just got hung up on the words "filter".
So, yeah, like TexasBob points out, some sort of prefilter will improve the job tablets are designed to do.
Back when I used a pump filter (SweetWater), I used their silt-stopper pre-filter. I was constantly amazed at how much silt that thing would filter out of what looked like a clear flowing stream.
The only time it didn't filter out any silt was when I used it at a natural spring high up on a mountain side {one where this is definitely the 1st place the water comes out of the ground}.
What might look like a natural spring at lower elevations can actually be a creek that flows in a combination of above ground and below ground.
Growing up, we had some woods behind our house with a creek running thru it. But the creek wasn't always above ground. In the distance of less than a quarter mile, the creek came flowing out from under a rock, then flowed back into the ground no less than 4 times. If you didn't know about the uphill sections that were above ground, you might think any one of the four was a "natural spring".
Back when I used a pump filter (SweetWater), I used their silt-stopper pre-filter. I was constantly amazed at how much silt that thing would filter out of what looked like a clear flowing stream.
I have a MSR filter that has one of these pre filter things on the inlet-----and wrapping a piece of a coffee filter around this
helps keep the actual filter a little cleaner........it's just for silt and not microscopic.....
so, less needing to backflush and clean filter...
and then just throw away coffee filter....
At 58 years old, I grew up drinking water directly from streams and still find it a bit of a spiritual experience. In that 58 years and as a kid, even drinking from streams flowing through pasture land (although generally without animals present), I've never, to my knowledge, gotten sick from drinking untreated water. In the last 8 years or so, with filter and water treatment so cheap and easy and light, I've started frequently taking a filter or tablets with me.
What I've found is that, when I carry a filter or other water treatment, I carry significantly less water (i.e. less weight) with me because I will fill up more often because I don't have to be as careful about my water sources.
For what it's worth, I also don't know anyone that has ever contracted giardia and not been flawlessly careful to ALWAYS treat their water afterwords.
And, for what it's worth, most, but not all the people (about 6) that I know that have contracted giardia did so drinking water they thought was properly treated before consuming it.
I'm not lost. I'm exploring.
Have never filtered but always treat (with AquaMira) unless it's out of a spigot. I'm an old fart and have done this on the AT, LT, CO Trail, and all around NH. So far, so good.
When I 1st converted to Sawyer, I tried to continue using the slit stopper between the dirty water bag and the sawyer:
Bladder --> hose adapter --> hose --> Silt Stopper --> hose --> Sawyer.
But that was too many moving parts compared to getting an Evernew bladder and screw directly onto the Sawyer.
I rarely treat water. But then, I don't hike much on trails that get the kind of use that the AT does.
If I did, I'd still not add my chlorine drops to what I see coming out of a seep. (my preferred choice for water)
Filter? are they those heavy things I see people pumping? (not for me)
On a side note, many of us who have had giardia are under the belief that once you've had it, you have an immunity to it.
I got it in Nepal on one of my 1st trips there. (and that was from drinking supposedly filtered water)
Anyway, yeah, this has been hashed over a lot but I guess it needs to be every few years as people think things change.
Don't let your fears stand in the way of your dreams
We don't have Giardia here in the Alps, and are lucky to be able to drink pretty much any water flowing anywhere down the mountains without ill effects.
But then, I usually check the map for whats upstream, if there are houses or a farm upstream I'd prefer another source.
The "Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it" argument is common but not very useful as it could be applied to a hundred objects that could potentially save you from harm. Since that aphorism includes no risk assessment in the decision tree, it logically creates 100 lb packs loads. Much more useful is a cost/ benefit analysis. The cost of filtering is obvious - there is the money you pay for the filter plus the cost of weight to carry and the time spent filtering. The benefits are harder to calculate since some people filter and get sick while others do not filter and do not get sick. FWIW I know of only one place where the official policy states that filtering is not necessary, and that is the trails of NW Sweden. That's where I want to go.
do whatever you like its your choice
- for me filtering is so easy -
1.fill bottle
2.screw on filter
3.drink
If i want a mixed drink for electrolytes or flavor, i filter into my clean bottle and add drink mix. simple, fast, effective and simply not worth the risk when filtering is so easy. if i want a bunch of water for a long carry or for camp i fill my vecto bladder and attach directly to my filter when its time to use it.
lastly filtering makes virtually all water sources ok to use, no wasted time hunting for the perfect spring...
Indeed! Thumbs up on this example of smart hiking.
humor is the gadfly on the corpse of tragedy
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