Water purification - what's popular? What works?

[take-a-knee]

<sarcasm>Oh no, don't you see, chlorine is chlorine, which is why everything with chlorine is as deadly mustard gas. Basic chemistry man, basic chemistry.</sarcasm>

I should attempt to enlighten you as to the difference between ionic (salt) and covalent bonds, and the fact that many pesticides are some sort of cyclic hydrocarbon ring bristling with covalently bonded chlorine atoms, each of which has three pairs of unbonded electrons, seeking to screw up whatever chemical equilibrium exists in the neighborhood. After all this is just basic chemistry, so I'm sure you know all that.

[Tinker]

I'm not a fan of chemicals, even trace chemicals, so right off the bat I'm opposed to that.

However, I'm not so mule-headed as to think that I can have everything perfect whilst hiking through 6 mths' worth of wilderness.

So - what kind of purification do you guys use? What brands, what methods, and what positive/negative feelings and experiences?

Thank you all SO much!

As of a few years ago there was only one registered "purifier" for hikers being made, the First Need www.generalecology.com (I believe that's the website). That's what I use - heavy and clumsy but easy to pump with a good flow. They use some sort of secret matrix type of filter that kills viruses, hence the term "purifier".
Other filters are just filters unless they say otherwise.

[scottdennis]

My favorite ad for a water filter is the one where there's a pic of a wolf peeing in the stream and the caption says something to the affect of "are you sure you want to drink that unfiltered water."

[leaftye]

I should attempt to enlighten you as to the difference between ionic (salt) and covalent bonds, and the fact that many pesticides are some sort of cyclic hydrocarbon ring bristling with covalently bonded chlorine atoms, each of which has three pairs of unbonded electrons, seeking to screw up whatever chemical equilibrium exists in the neighborhood. After all this is just basic chemistry, so I'm sure you know all that.

Wow, it's like you know enough about chemistry to say really dumb things about it. You've brought a knife to a gun fight. Not a good idea.

First of all, you challenged Tree Fingers when he said chlorine as part of chlorine dioxide is not the same as chlorine by itself. This is basic first week chemistry kind of stuff. If you can't get that simple thing, then stop reading because the rest of this post is going to be way above your head.

Secondly, if it was your intent to say that chlorine dioxide may be harmful you would have instantly recognized that it has an odd number of electrons. Which makes it a what? I'll give you a few clues. It starts with an 'r' and is 7 letters long.

Thirdly, unbonded electron pairs has nothing at all to do with instability in that ring complex. The instability in the Cl-O bond comes from the ring.

Lastly, if you really intended to keep it in basic chemistry, you might have pointed out the low electronegativity difference between chlorine and oxygen.

[Sassafras Lass]

Chemistry aside, thank you everyone for your comments, I truly appreciate them!