Hydration and Water Treatment

Water treatment and purification are as important in cold weather as they are the rest of the year. Protozoa, bacteria, and cysts don’t go to sleep when temperature dip near or below freezing, nor do beavers, mice, deer, rabbits and all the other animals of the forest that can contaminate the …

Many people like to carry a hydration system (reservoir and hose) on day hikes and backpacking trips, but others prefer carrying water bottles instead. While you can chalk up the difference to personal preference, there are definite pros and cons to hiking with a hydration system in different circumstances, depending …

For most hikers, the Pacific Crest Trail begins in a blazing desert without encountering a sure water source for just over twenty miles. The trend continues – for the first 700 miles there is little shade, temperatures often reach over 100 degrees and water is infrequent or several miles off …

When selecting a place to camp at night, most backpackers like to choose a location close to water. At 2 pounds per liter, water is often the heaviest thing in your backpack and you don’t want to have to carry it very far if you can avoid it. Especially at …

I have used hand-pump water filters like the First Need or the Katadyn for years, believing them to be the only “real” option for filtering out cryptosporidium, giardia and other bacteria from the water sources in the Pacific Northwest where I hike. But I’ve been forced to consider other options in an effort …

I didn’t put two and two together when I was experiencing the symptoms of heat exhaustion during a high exertion hike last week, but after a friend pointed it out to me, I realized that I’d had a close call. While I’d taken precautions against the sunlight and heat such as …

When you’re out on a long day hike or a backpacking trip, you will eventually run out of water and need to resupply. When that happens, it helps to understand what’s a good water source and what’s an iffy one. Water Sources to Avoid Here are some general rules of …

I have never been a fan of sports recovery drinks or powders like Gatorade and don’t normally use them for 3 season backpacking because I feel that frequent all day snacking with unprocessed foods provides me with adequate calories and sodium. However, I just finished a book called Extreme Alpinism: Climbing …

If you own a water filter for backpacking or camping, it’s really important to prevent it from freezing in cold weather because it can seize up or crack when it thaws. Either of these conditions are bad news because you run the risk of drinking contaminated water than can make …

Do you see that red stain on the inside of my platypus hydration bladder  in the picture below? That’s mold, like the stuff that grows on our bathroom shower curtain. I only noticed it on my last backpacking trip, and since getting home I’ve tried a few things to get …

When I started using the Platypus hydration system (collapsible bladder and hose), I periodically had leaks where water would seep out of the system and get the contents of my pack wet. The source of these leaks was the connection between the hose adapter and the threads of the bladder …

Most of the water filters carried by backpackers and long distance hikers cannot remove organisms smaller than 3 microns in size. While protozoa such as Giardia (shown below) and Cryptosporidium are about 5 microns in size, water filters miss bacteria such as Cholera, E. Coli, and Salmonella (0.2 – 0.5 …