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Portable Water Filtration & Purification

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Hey guys, so I've been using the MSR Miniworks for years and it's done me really well, I've used it on countless trips and am now at the end of the filter's life. I could simply purchased a replacement filter but within the last year have switched over to the MSR Guardian and wow is it ever night and day. It makes it hard to ever want to use the miniworks ever again as it's just that much easier to use and maintain. I'm also quite familiar with gravity filter's aswell and really do like them alot. I've used the Platypus Gravityworks 4L filter quite a bit and find it's great especially in group settings.

Check out this video I put together on the various Portable Water Filtration & Purification options available and please let me know what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHGegyQxjfY&t=2s

Also, feel free to chime in on your opinions and let me know what gear you use to treat your water while out on trip.

Cheers everyone, and enjoy!
 
I've been using a Sawyer mini filter, even converted my katadyn base camp to use the Sawyer filter because the katadyn was always freezing up in the spring and fall. Will say though that in my BWCA trips I have been drinking lake water straight up for over 50 years without any I'll effects.
 
Funny you mention the MSR Miniworks. I have one I've had since 1990-something, and recently on a trip it started to make a duck call like honking noise. The main mechanism is in translucent plastic, so you can see what's going on in there. One of my companions, an engineer, asked me how often I lubricated the O-ring in the pump. I said about zero times in 26 years. So, after the trip, I found some plumber's grease and did it, and now it's smooth as new.

The new Miniworks filters are less restrictive than the old ones, but you still earn your drink. Another reason to enjoy afternoon tea. One good thing about it, though, is you can toss the hose over the gunwhale and pump water right in the boat.

No question water processing has improved in recent years. I'm a big fan of gravity.
 
I'm glad you said it first, BWCA, because I didn't want to get yelled at for being foolish. It hurts my feelings. Kathleen and I have been tripping since 1990 in northern Canada, and rarely filter. We have never been sick. I can't remember if Bill Mason wrote the following words, or I heard him say them: "I would never paddle on anything I couldn't drink."

That being said, we paddled the South Saskatchewan River in southeastern Alberta in 1996. Lots of cattle along the way. We filtered with an MSR Miniworks, and were satisfied. We filter so rarely, and we are now old enough that we will not be upgrading.

For our 2017 trip in the East Arm of Great Slave Lake, we asked the float plane owner about filtering. He said he didn't for reasons like Giardia, but often did for water clarity. Great Slave is windy, often producing water with a lot of sediment. I got my filter out to see if it still worked. It was squeaking away, and difficult to pump. As you, Goonstroke, I greases the O-ring. Problem fixed. We used it a couple of times to quickly eliminate sediment.

I have a friend who speculates that intestinal problems on group trips might be due more to poor hygiene, rather than water-borne pathogens. Couples tripping by themselves, like Kathleen and me, already share a common germ pool. Even with less than perfect hygiene, we are likely OK.
 
$349??? Did someone misplace the decimal point? This Guardian developed for the military is likely designed to guard against jungle virii and such which tend to be deadly. If I were in the Congo r wherever people defecate in the river or lake I might buy it.

But here . No.. I still have the Miniworks from 1991 and we did buy a MSR Gravity filter which we like very much in general though its pretty useless in filtering from bogs and small streams.. Were we to go back to some of the killer Algonquin portages where it is an advantage to filter from a brook we would still take the MSR MiniWorks

I thought the MSR Gravity filter at some $90 CDN six years back was pricey

But for $349 it better also function as a desalinator.. Then I could use it happily here on the Maine Island Trail and on the Gulf of Mexico

Not yelling at anyone for drinking from a lake.. On the top it does catch bugs and pollen but its all UV treated by natural sunlight.. I partake of my lake while out on it. Some partake of it as their home supply.

I am more wary of bathroom handles than lake water. Humans can carry the giardia parasite without symptoms. I have never understood why we cant have automatic door unlatchers on restroom stalls.. eew.
 
I use the sawyer filter bottle. Just dip and sip. After 2-3 weeks the filter needs to be back flushed with the provided syringe.

I've thought about drinking straight from the lake but the filter makes me feel better when I take water from the lakeside at camp and can see things swimming around in it.

Alan
 
Used a Sweetwater mini pump for years and a Lifestraw when out on the stream fishing. Just got the Platypus gravity system and love it! I also have bought a few silk "Cowboy" bandanas, which are quite a bit larger than a standard bandana, and they make a great filter for sediment screening.
 
I've had a few different water filters.......I've given up on all of them!

When I travel in remote areas I generally just drink from the lake/river, if I'm in a suspect area I boil 3 minutes with my Reactor stove and I have a litre of water.

That said, when I travel with others they usually have some sort of gravity filter.
 
When I camp with others I have the gravity filter and they pilfer
One party followed us doen the Yukon for three days
Wanted to dump the bag on her head
Sure is handy though to make one trip down a muddy bank instead of several
 
I bought the Sweetwater back in 1999 and used it for years, I did have a back up filter but after all these years it finally crapped out on me when we did the St. John recently. heck, I even tested it before I left but the filter just decided to not work, may have been the O-ring, I'll have to look at that as it was squirting water everywhere but where it was supposed to go. All in all after using others pumps the is IMO one of the easiest filter to use with my aging hands!

dougd
 
I've also read that poor hygiene while camping causes more problems than bad water. I just don't drink it from shore or stagnant areas.
 
Got sick one time, after I got home from a trip to the BWCA. The one and only time, I drank from a lake (from the middle). I have filtered or boiled every drop I've drank since !

Can't be positive that was it ! But I won't take that chance again, unless I have to !

I've heard of others getting by drinking right from the lakes in the BWCA.

I started with the First Need. They plugged up fast, and were a lot of work to get a quart. Went to the Hiker. Both of those filters were spendy !

Yes, The Sawyer $20 filter has been on my last two short trips. I'm good with the It in the BWCA anyway !
 
Katadyn Pocket Filter with a carbon filter on the outfeed hose and a Sweetwater Siltstopper on the infeed hose.
Very reliable and produces great tasting water. It is heavier than most, but has never failed.
 
Water treatment and handling is one of those things I haven't gotten off the couch and changed yet. Talk about it. Think about it. And stay on the couch.
A new filter for the Katadyn Hiker Pro works great. For just us 2 it's easy to filter more than we need each day quickly. And on lazy mealtime preps or dishes I'll just dip a pail and boil it. OTOH the 4 L Katadyn Gravity needs a new filter. I'm still on the couch thinking about that because I don't miss using it. I love the Sawyer inline idea.
I've yet to be sick on a trip, but have picked up crummy tummy here in "civilization". Something I ate? Someone I met? It's funny because I've become a little more cautious in public places. Not really a germaphobe but I do avoid door handles and shopping carts. Gloves, shirt sleeves or a swipe with an alcohol wipe from one of those public dispensers. Sounds weird I know but it's nice to be rarely ever sick especially during cold and flu season. And for that reason I try to be careful in the backcountry too. My cooking may make you regret it but the water won't.
 
MSR Miniworks since 1991.
Used extensively in 5 provinces- from Algonquin to Bowron-no complaints! Either solo or tandem I like the fact that you can pump as you paddle( ok solo it requires a break!) straight from the lake. Secret is to keep the filter cleaned on a regular basis.

Bruce
 
A note on Giardia. I grew up sipping straight from rural streams and springs, and knew where the tastiest water was for miles around both home and cabin. Never had a problem.

But I have had Giardia, proven by a jejunal tube biopsy of the lining of my small intestine, which was found to be covered by Giardia trophozoites. I have a framed photo enlargement of the microcopy, my only photo from that trip.

Some explanation; I paid for early trips by working when home as a human volunteer (guinea pig) for in-patient medical research studies. On one study a small intestine biopsy was taken looking for E.coli. What they found was Giardia, which I had likely acquired on the N. Fork of the Shoshone weeks before.

The docs were very excited when they identified the trophozoites, and still had me in-patient as a willing captive, so they put a heparin lock in, fed me on measured milk for a day and did hourly blood draws looking for malabsorption. They got published paper out of it; I was referred to as “An 18 year old college student”, which sounded better than “A wandering teenage vagabond”.

One round of Giardia was enough for me, and I was largely asymptomatic (lots of stomach gurgling and weight loss). One of my two companions on that trip was stricken more severely, with many urgent pullovers en route home so he could squat in the roadside weeds. For 2000 miles, from Cody to Baltimore.

(BTW, we were using water purification tablets on that trip, but got sloppy or didn’t wait long enough with ice cold water at some point)

Not just “Beaver Fever”; muskrat, moose, caribou, deer, dogs, cats, cattle, sheep, goats, horses, pigs, beavers, coyotes, primates, rodents, and raccoons can all have giardiasis. crap is dang near universal (pun intended).

Once was enough, I filter everything, even cooking water that I may prefer to bring to a boil only briefly.

Used a Sweetwater mini pump for years and a Lifestraw when out on the stream fishing. Just got the Platypus gravity system and love it! I also have bought a few silk "Cowboy" bandanas, which are quite a bit larger than a standard bandana, and they make a great filter for sediment screening.

We have a couple of manual pump filters, including two Sweetwater Guardians with silt stoppers and some DIY accessories*, and I still sometimes bring one of those on group trips or long solos as a back up to the gravity filter, or in case pump filtering somehow proves easier.

*DIYing connector adapters and pre-filters and non-OEM replacement filters for various manufacturer’s filter units is well inter-net documented. Simply being able to screw X company’s filter end onto Y company’s canteen or dromedary bag, or replace the OEM filters with something more efficient and less proprietary costly, helps with any system.

My wife got me a LifeStraw years ago and I think it is still in the original package. I have thought about taking it as a minimalist backup, but I’d rather have a means of producing at least a canteen of filtered water that didn’t involve sucking. Or spitting; I could bring my morning oatmeal and coffee water to a rolling boil for several minutes (3 minutes at 6000 ft, where’s my watch) and then wait for my coffee to cool, or suck up mouthfuls of filtered water with the Lifestraw and spit that in the JetBoil. Hey, anyone need a refill on coffee?

Since getting a gravity filter pumping has yet to be necessary/easier, and I haven’t used one of the pumps since. In part because I am naturally lazy and a gravity filter takes no effort, especially if I need to filter a quantity of water. I do carry a replacement (Sawyer) filter for the (Platypus) gravity bag, just in case; anything else on a simple gravity set-up I could patch in the field.

Part of that quantity is the “we”. On a family or group trip our water needs are X times the number of people and gravity filtering multiple liters of water effortlessly makes more sense. For a solo traveler a filter bottle or mini-pump may be fine, provided there is always a good source of decently filterable water available.

Part of that quantity is that on some trips, desert rivers and the like, un-silty sources of filterable water can be few and far between. I can alum settle the silt before filtering, but would rather not unless absolutely necessary. Even without adding alum simply waiting 30 minutes with water in a collapsible bucket helps settle particulates (OK, some floating on top) from small stream and boggy waters. Tannins excepted, and I’m OK with that naturally flavored peaty taste (except in soft-water concentrations, where it makes coffee taste like crap)

But when using alum the vigorous stirring required, waiting, settling, careful dipping to not disturb the bottom silt layer on the bottom of the bucket, carefully pouring that precious extract into the gravity bag and etc becomes a time consuming chore. And, while filtered potable, the resulting water often isn’t that dang tasty.

If I’m in a spot that has a freshwater spring or pool I will fill up a dromedary bag, sometimes two depending on the next known source along the way. Two dromedary bags equals 5 gallons/20 liters of water. No way I am pumping that quantity of filtered water when I could be relaxing, rising only to refill a gravity bag and occasionally backwash the filter.

Also no way I am carrying 40 lbs of water much further than from source to camp, and before loading the canoe in the morning I’ll fill every canteen I have, and my belly too.

Like anything else gear and equipment-wise there are too many variables for any one universal choice.

But it’s a gravity bag all the way. Smiley Face.
 
Sorry to hear, Mike, that you contracted Beaver Fever. I had a friend who contracted it from shallow well water on a southern British Columbia ranch. A very painful experience for him, but seemingly easily cured with proper treatment.

You probably read that Kathleen and I don't generally filter. But I suspect we are playing a game of Russian Roulette. Spin the cylinder and pull the trigger so many times, and you eventually shoot yourself.

We have read that the symptoms take a while to develop after initial infection. We have thought that we would be home from a trip before symptoms began. We could then go in for treatment. On our longest trip, planned for 40 days, my GP gave us a prescription for pills to take with us.

Why not just filter, you ask. Because I love the ease, casualness and luxury of just dipping my cup or pail into what I like to believe is pristine water. Foolish, I suspect. But I have only a couple more trips left. Foolishness gas been gentle with me so far.
 
Quibble time and directions on alum.
.
But when using alum the vigorous stirring required, waiting, settling, careful dipping to not disturb the bottom silt layer on the bottom of the bucket, carefully pouring that precious extract into the gravity bag and etc becomes a time consuming chore. And, while filtered potable, the resulting water often isn’t that dang tasty.
ah ah ah... You've erred. Here are directions from Cliff Jacobson.SLOW is the key word. One direction only.

Fill your bucket with the silty water.
  1. Add about a teaspoon (the measurement isn’t critical) of alum or one per cent liquid Chitosan to one gallon of water. Use less Chitosan if the concentration is higher, more if it’s lower. A tablespoon of either is usually enough to settle a three gallon pail of silty water.
  2. Use a long stick to very slowly stir the water. Stir in ONE DIRECTION only. Continue stirring until a “flocculant precipitate” (it looks like snow) forms on the surface of the water—it takes about five minutes.
  3. When you see the snow-colored precipitate, STOP stirring. Allow the water to settle for about 20 minutes. At the end of this time the water will be clear and all suspended matter will have settled to the bottom.
  4. Use a Sierra cup or ladle to gently dip the clear effluent from the top of the bucket. Do notdisrupt the sediment on the bottom with the ladle—doing so will cause the sediment to re-suspend.
  5. You can now boil, filter or chemically treat the clear water to make it potable. I’ve used this method to remove silt from river water on the Green River (Utah) , Rio Grande (Texas), San Juan (Utah) and Little Missouri (North Dakota) Rivers. It works great!

Back to me. Do I know if it works. Nope. I have wrassled with alum and I suspect brought my Eastern seaboard speed with me.. It did work but not that great.. And the water still tasted like crap and ruined the coffee; it was palatable only when a load of Crystal Light applied or buried in oatmeal. Next time we will bring the filter a big pot, the alum and see if the CJ method works.

There are downsides to a gravity bag. Others steal your water when you are twenty feet up a cliff on the Yukon RIver. The mouse trap comes along next time.
 
I started using the Katadyn BeFree last year and love the size and convenience, but the seam on the bag gave way on my last Algonquin trip. Fortunately, I had a second larger bag as a backup. But my confidence in the BeFree system was shaken so I'll probably also be carrying a Sawyer Mini as backup. I was disappointed in the Mini's flow rate despite back flushing it quite often, not to mention the need to carry the kit to back flush it.

I'm not content with just boiling or using a chemical treatment because...sterilized frog spawn is still frog spawn. ;)
 
Quibble time and directions on alum.
ah ah ah... You've erred. Here are directions from Cliff Jacobson.SLOW is the key word. One direction only.

Fill your bucket with the silty water.
  1. Add about a teaspoon (the measurement isn’t critical) of alum or one per cent liquid Chitosan to one gallon of water. Use less Chitosan if the concentration is higher, more if it’s lower. A tablespoon of either is usually enough to settle a three gallon pail of silty water.
  2. Use a long stick to very slowly stir the water. Stir in ONE DIRECTION only. Continue stirring until a “flocculant precipitate” (it looks like snow) forms on the surface of the water—it takes about five minutes.
    /LIST]


  1. Ah, ah, ah, there are a LOT of various recommendations on how to flocculate water using alum. Western rafters, Grand Canyon private boaters and others disagree with Cliff, and I assume they spend more time on silty western rivers.

    Most (all) recommend pre-mixing the alum with clean water in a Nalgene, and the mixing technique varies, from “Be sure to mix it thoroughly” to more detailed mixing instructions.

    “Mix vigorously for 15 seconds, then swirl gently for about 1 min”

    “In a bucket treatment situation I would recommend at least 15 seconds of rapid mix and 3 minutes of slow mix. The slow mix should be more back and forth across the bucket rather than swirling.”

    “The rapid mix disperses the treatment chemical so that all the water is treated with no localized overtreatment and the slow mix brings the particles together so that they will grow in size and settle out quicker”

    A western paddling friend insists that mixing vigorously, first in one direction, then immediately swirling in the other, is the best technique. There is probably a recommendation that the mix be counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere ;-)

    Using a pre-dissolved solution of alum and water in a container seems a consensus opinion and that is what I have done, along with vigorous swirling and even some back and forth frothing. The settled water has come out very clear, with a thick layer of alum bound silt on the bottom of the bucket.

    It is very easy to disturb that bottom sludge of alum trapped silt, and trying to pour the settled water out of the bucket unsettles the slit layer, so I carefully dip the clean settled water from the settling bucket.
 
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