Walter S

So you would not rely on filtering and chemicals and would still boil it? Even several liters?

staehpj1

I have done a good bit of backpacking and some tours where I used a filter and find it quite satisfactory as an only method of treatment. In some third world countries additional treatment for viruses is recommended in addition to filtering, but is not considered necessary in the US according to all that I have read.

Tourist in MSN

If the water was cloudy, I would be hesitant to only use chemical treatment. But as I noted above, I bring the chlorine as a backup to my filter. Of all of the methods cited here, I think boiling would be the best reliable method for treating micro organisms.

Chlorine is used in almost all municipal water supplies in the USA. There are some breakdown products (trihalomethanes) but compared to drinking untreated water, the trihalomethanes are the lessor of two evils.

I can't comment on the other chemicals cited here, my experience is limited to public water supplies.

MichaelW

In the UK, the best filter is LIFESAVER which filters down to 15 nanometres, that is 0.015microns.
I have drunk wild water in the mountains in Norway and Slovenia, only v high up on v rainy days, from mountain-side springs.
Known safe, marked springs are also good.

andrewclaus

The more I travel in the wild, the less I treat my water. I carry a set of Aquamira drops, but only use them when I'm close to civilization (such as when bicycle touring). On a recent tour across the North Cascades, there was fresh spring and rain water cascading down rocks within reach of the guardrail in established wilderness areas (no livestock). I drank that freely. In pastoral and agricultural areas, I treat the water very carefully or look for a good well.

I chuckle to myself when I see hikers carrying bottled spring water bought in the city into wilderness areas, but when faced with the actual spring, they'll filter it or dump chemicals into it.

I pay more attention lately to personal hygiene, food safety, and hand washing than I do to water treatment.

fuzz2050

Steripen claims that the UV light does destroy the micro-organisms, and viruses and whatnot. It should be fine, even after a few days. I use one myself, and it's pretty awesome. It's trivial to treat water, apparently effective, and doesn't leave the water tasting funny. In my mind, Giardia sucks enough that I'm not going to risk drinking it 'wild,' especially since 90 seconds with a steripen is barely an inconvenience.

The CDC says that boiling is the only way to really sanitize water, and the rest are really just 'Pathogen reduction' steps. Of course boiling takes fuel, time and makes the water taste really funny. Apparently Chlorine isn't that effective against Giardia, I think it requires a longer contact time.

What I usually do is carry two liters with me, and whenever I come across a good source of water, chug a bottle and then top up. I've actually been known to stop just because the water looks really good. The best water comes mixed from a waterfall, of course.

psy

I do some backcountry bikepacking and I always bring my sawyer, iodine tabs, and a means to boil water. Always have a backup plan with something as important as water.

prathmann

Technically Steripen only claims to damage the DNA of the micro-organisms so they can't reproduce, but not to actually destroy or even kill them. But from a practical standpoint it makes no difference since bacteria and viruses only cause a problem in your body by reproducing and creating large numbers of offspring. If they can't reproduce they won't cause you any problems and it doesn't matter how long the disabled non-reproducing organisms might be left inside your water bottles.

SparkyGA

I tend to spend most of my time in mountains when access to water might be a concern. There is enough small mountain streams that I usually just drink directly from them, or at most put a few drops of iodine in my bottle. Never had any issues personally.

Outside of being in the mountains, I also carry a Sawyer filter. Haven't had to use it, but always carrying it for backup. Screws on to a PET (aka Coke/Pepsi bottle) and weights nothing. Should be the product of the decade, water filtration wise. It's cheap, functional and light.

MassiveD

Ray Jardine of ultralite backpacking fame, among others, says that on his long through hikes he has had less trouble with water he did not treat, than with water he treats. Sorta a bike helmet kind of question, where the risks people take with water increase if they think they are protected. Do you still try to get perfect water, or do you rely on the filter to clean out a puddle. A secondary question is contamination. Sure the water that passes through the filter has had treatment, but there are many other ways to get contaminated water into your body. There is the water source, pots, spillage.

Can anyone say what the difference is in swiming and drinking water. I swim in lakes all the time, and one is totally immersed, often one takes in drips of water while breathing. These are popular lakes, and people consider themselves blessed to own cottages along the beaches, but would one be safe to drink the water.

Walter S

I would think that if the water is contaminated that the danger is most likely proportional to how much you ingest.

BigAura

+1 You want reduce the amount of bacteria that you expose your immune system to, so as not to overwhelm it.

staehpj1

Just a few comments that I hope will tie some loose ends together...

First how risky the available water is will vary widely with location. In Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Ansel Adams Wilderness, and there about quite a few backpackers find the risk low enough that they don't bother to filter. Some other places the risk may be much higher.

Next the various methods all have advantages and disadvantage.

Chemical treatment - This takes some time and more so if the water is cold. So there is a wait and you don't get to drink that ice cold mountain stream water while it is still cold. I find that a significant disadvantage.

Boiling - If you were to boil all of your water this would mean a lot of time spent, a lot of fuel carried and burned (unless you are using a wood fire), and either carrying a very large pot or doing lots of separate batches. This is decidedly inconvenient if you want to stop and quickly fill a bottle. It also means that you don't have that cold drink.

UV - I have no experience with this one. It is probably a good method for clean clear water, but I personally like the idea of filtering out particulates and critters. It does also mean yet another thing with batteries.

Filters - The disadvantages seem to be getting to be less and less these days. There are now ones that are cheap, light, and work well and quickly. The water can be drunk while still good and cold. You do have to keep this generation of filters from freezing, but they are small enough to carry in a pocket.

Backups - Most bike touring is in places where you would not be in too bad of a situation if your treatment method failed. Seems like overkill to me to carry multiple methods for treatment on most tours. Heck, much of the time the first method is already not completely necessary.

I used to consider my pump type filter to not really be suitable for most bike touring since water was frequently enough available on most tours and it was seldom that you needed to carry more than half a days worth of water. When I did need to carry more water it was usually one day out of many. Now with the Sawyer Mini (and the Squeeze before that) it makes sense more of the time. In the Sierras it was worth it just for the chance to have ice cold water from the snow melt streams.

djb

a family member had giardia many, many years ago and went a few years with it not being diagnosed, so I'm certainly in the camp of being extra careful. That said, all of my bike trips have been along populated routes so getting water from houses or whatever has really never been a serious issue.

Walter S

Great summary and perspective. Thank you.

Campagnono

I really don't "tour" per se, but we followed the Tour for several stages this year, and when you need water and there's cold water pouring out of a mountain, voila.

My girlfriend treated hers with iodine tablets. In my opinion, it only makes yellow water into terrible-tasting orange water. My gut seems to be cool with giardia. But as you folks love to say, "YMMV."

.mikeonbike.

I relied on a Katadyn Pocket for a few years, but as someone said above, the ceramic filter can't tolerate the stress of being frozen. Mine got icy in China (my own fault) and developed a tiny fracture. I didn't even notice it until I mysteriously came down with giardia in Laos. I spent almost two months with my pants around my knees, which isn't nearly as fun as it sounds.

Since then I've used a combination of methods and haven't been ill again. In tropical countries I found it wasn't even worth the potential risk of treating water because every shop and bamboo stall sells bottled water for next to nothing. In more developed places I boil water (from a fast-moving source) for at least three minutes. For large volumes I use iodine tablets. Also, I never take water from areas in and around farmland. In theory, filterless treating would kill the bacteria, but it's not much good when it comes to chemical runoff.

Thanks for posting this thread. Since the death of my Katadyn, I've often wondered what filter I should use as a replacement. I appreciate all the great info.

[HR][/HR]
mike on bike | cycling around the world | 2009 - 2014

pdlamb

You think backpackers have improved in the last 30 years? I ran across a spring on the Appalachian Trail back then on which some (expletive deleted) had artistically deposited his stool 5 feet from the mouth of the spring on a rock in the middle of the stream. I've been treating backcountry water, or carrying it in from a known good water source, ever since.

staehpj1

Just to be clear I was not advocating forgoing water treatment. I typically filter unless I collect the water right where it is bubbling out of the ground, but there are quite a few folks who do not filter at all in much of the Sierras. There has been some data quoted on the backpacking forums that is claimed to show very low risk levels for drinking untreated water there.

I used to have a canoeing buddy who always dipped right out of the river and drank when in remote wilderness areas like the St John River in Maine. He claimed to never have a problem resulting from the water in a lifetime of doing that. Again I filtered all of my water on those trips.

Given that the Sawyer mini weighs only 2 oz and is pretty quick and easy to use, I am not inclined to push my luck. A lot of folks do however. Either they are quite wrong or the risk is fairly low. I figure that it isn't worth chancing it.

Tourist in MSN

When I was a kid backpacking above timberline in Wyoming or Colorado back in the 1970s, I drank out of the creeks or lakes. I also drank out of the lakes in the boundary waters canoe area. Everybody did it. Back then filters did not exist. And few people got sick. But the few that got sick got really sick.

Regarding drinking water in pristine areas, it is a risk reward thing. It is like buying fire insurance for your home. What is the risk of a fire? Probability of a fire is really small, but you still buy insurance anyway because if you had a fire it would be really bad.

I will continue boiling, filtering or using chemical treatment on all water I get that did not come out of a potable water fixture.

When I am concerned that it will get cold at night, I drain the water out of my ceramic filter and put it in a plastic bag (to avoid leakage) and bring inside my tent. I have on a few occasions put it inside my sleeping bag to make sure it stayed above freezing.

A friend of mine was telling me that when he was in Russia several decades ago he only bought the brands of bottled water that he saw locals buy and then he only bought it in the stores where they bought it. Apparently some bottled water was unsafe but only the locals knew what to avoid.

Shimagnolo

+1
I was considering getting a portable disinfection kit so I could use stream water when climbing mountain canyons here in CO. Many canyon roads have an adjacent stream.

Then one day I got into a conversation with a local amateur historian who had compiled maps of all the old gold mines in the CO mountains. He was appalled at the thought of drinking stream water, and told me about the water pollution caused by mining such as arsenic, lead, mercury, petroleum byproducts, acids, cyanide.

I decided to stick to carrying my water.

grampa.sjb

Correct - the UV light scrambles their DNA so that they are unable to reproduce. But they are eventually able to repair the damage, so storing the treated water may not be the best idea. I haven't seen any studies that say 24 hours is the critical period, but I generally consume my treated water long before then!

prathmann

The UV messes up their DNA so they don't reproduce and if they're not reproducing they don't present any health risk. There's no "day or so" time limit to this.

fietsbob

The headwaters above every Other creature that pees/poohs . is a requirement , then again Fracking for hydrocarbons can screw that up too.

Bicycle365

I always treat my water by, Coarse filter+ steripen at absolute minimum, boil if at all possible even if inconvenient, and have pUr tablets in emergency kit as line of last resort, no matter how "pristine" it looks. Every time I pull water from a river or stream I handle it like this is just around the corner out of my view...


EDIT: Here is a prettty good round up of options for AT thru hikers. They are probably even more dependent on "wild water" than we are due to the speed and distance restrictions they have.

https://appalachiantrials.com/water-purification-trail/