Drinking Water Treatment
From Oregon Hikers Field Guide
For some reason, many people have very strong opinions about treating water:
link that argues case that treating water may not be necesary
Buck Nelson's blog debunking theory about not treating
Several common treatments:
- Katadyn Hiker Pro pump filter - somewhat heavy been around forever
- MSR pump filter
- Steripen UV filter - lighter, more complicated, research this before relying on it in the wilderness
- Chlorine Dioxide tablets - very lightweight, you have to wait hours for it to be effective, tastes bad, chemicals
- Sawyer Squeeze filter - new, very light, screw it onto top of bottle and squeeze water into second bottle
What works for me:
- Put untreated water into a 2 or 4 liter Platypus bottle.
- For water that's heated, don't treat it, just bring it to a boil.
- For water that's not heated, use Steripen or Sawyer Squeeze or Fronteir Pro to filter water. Many people use chlorine dioxide, but I don't like the taste and am worried about unhealthful chemicals.
- In an "emergency" don't worry about it. Most water will not make you (very) sick. If you do many trips drinking untreated water, you may eventually get very sick, so you probably shouldn't do this but many people get away with it without problem.
- Some people are more sensitive and need to treat much more carefully.