Touring - Steripen UV C water purifier on tour

Has anyone used a steripen uvc water purifier while on tour. was the battery life acceptable? we are doing the himalayas from next month, and am wondering if i have to carry loads of batteries to make this reliable over an extended period of time.

:thumb:
I used one on my Thur-hike of the A.T. and used lithium batteries and I only changed batteries twice in six months and that was with every day use.
I highly recommend the Steripen:thumb::)

Do carry backup tablets or filter. The silt laden Himalayan streams limit the effectiveness of UV treatment unless you allow the water to stand for several hours to let the silt settle out.

Knowing that each system has its drawbacks and pluses is essential to effective planning.

A good filter, like the MSR Miniworks, physically filters out bacteria and chemically binds organic chemical pollutants. The Steripen, like iodine tabs, just kills bacteria and does nothing to remove mud, debris, or chemicals. When you start thinking about drinking out of a roadside ditch, you'll wish you had a filter.

When I wrote the above post I used a word that begins with ret- and ends in -ard to indicate that effectiveness was reduced or limited. There is apparently a word police system operating on the forum that I did know about. The R word was replaced by ******* completely disrupting the flow of information unless I changed the word to one less offensive??? Is there a list of prohibited words that we all should know about?

Well, this forum is privately owned, so the First Amendment doesn't apply. But rather than political correctness, I think the censor should be limited to words that ONLY can be used as racist or sexist perjoratives. Otherwise, we have this sort of situation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niggardly

Eloquence should be encouraged and members should not be penalized for paying attention in High School.

Do carry backup tablets or filter. The silt laden Himalayan streams limit the effectiveness of UV treatment unless you allow the water to stand for several hours to let the silt settle out.

Knowing that each system has its drawbacks and pluses is essential to effective planning.

+1 on this advice.

I picked up a Steripen, haven't used it in the field yet though. ;) I highly recommend you get a basic filter and a small chemical treatment kit, as a backup.

Some of the Steripen kits come with a filter, and they're also sold separately: http://www.steripen.com/steripen_products.html#fitsall and http://www.steripen.com/steripen_products.html#prefilter




Is there a list of prohibited words that we all should know about?
Yes, it's very common for web forums to automatically censor a variety of words. It's not a big deal.