I'm between purchases, which is where you'll find me most days. My Katadyn Hiker Pro pump still works well despite it's age. Based on that several years ago I purchased a Katadyn gravity bag filter, using the same filter cartridge. How handy is that?! I was so pleased with the easy 10L gravity system I started leaving the pump at home. Stupid me I also left a new replacement filter at home as well. They don't back flush worth a darn btw. Curiously the old filter worked fine with the pump but not with the gravity system. Makes sense if you think about it, pump pressure being greater than mere atmospheric pressure. Anyway, I seem not to have been the only dissatisfied consumer, because soon after they introduced a new and improved filter cartridge for the gravity bag. And so here I am, fairly happy with a pump and filter that'll give me a few more years of dependable clean water, but a filterless bag system needing a replacement cartridge. Do I splash out the cash for the "upgrade"? ( $ 46 cartridge for 1500L water filtration). Or maybe slip an in-line filter from say Sawyer? ( $ 30 "squeeze" cartridge for 100,000 gals water filtration). Platypus also has a gravity similar one. ( $ 55 for 1500L water filtration). My wife likes the idea of installing the Sawyer(s) in-line with our camelbacks and leave the gravity filter at home permanently. They're bulkier than anything else but would be so convenient to use. We'll see. I won't be leaving the pump at home anymore. I don't mind boiling water for cooking or whatever, but having cool potable water easily available is so danged nice at the end of a portage, and so damnably depressing when it isn't. Ask me how I know.
