how much water and other gear questions

[JaredJohnson]

If I'm above 12,000 feet I often just fill up the bottle and drink it on the spot without treatment if the turbidity is fine. I may be the outlier though, I get more lax on water filtration just about every time I go out. Not necessarily encouraging this, but high altitude water is usually going to be just fine and tastes delicious.

I can't say I've seen any anecdotal evidence against this practice, but when filtering is so easy with the new lifestraw and sawyer filters, it really seems better to be safe than sorry

[SkaredShtles]

If I'm above 12,000 feet I often just fill up the bottle and drink it on the spot without treatment if the turbidity is fine. I may be the outlier though, I get more lax on water filtration just about every time I go out. Not necessarily encouraging this, but high altitude water is usually going to be just fine and tastes delicious.

Yeah - the odds are likely in your favor above 12K. Even the sheepherders don't *generally* head that high.

However, with the increased amount of human beings sh***ing around the creeks, I'd still opt for filtration.

And as with anything, you'll be fine... until you aren't. Giardia, from what I gather, is a pretty miserable affliction.

[highpilgrim]

And as with anything, you'll be fine... until you aren't. Giardia, from what I gather, is a pretty miserable affliction.

It's not a problem at all if you like sleeping next to the toilet for 4 or 5 days and want to lose some weight while doing so.

Drink up.

[LURE]

I feel like I've been playing with fire for years now. I'm an Aquamira guy too, have never even owned a filter, and I'm not even sure how recommended Aquamira is for full, complete water treatment; half the time I'm even too impatient to let that stuff do its recommended 15-20 minutes of work before drinking.

So really, I'm lazy, really lazy, and probably gonna get sick eventually. I like to think that anyone who spends enough time in the backcountry has a similar chance of getting sick though - between sticking there hands in rivers while filling up, the outside of their water bottles getting untreated water on them, then touching their faces, cooking food, eating food, picking their nose, etc. I'll be sure to let you guys know when I get screwed by my laziness

I drank about 60+ oz of untreated water up by Uncompahgre this past weekend and have been waiting to see how the week plays out ever since lol

[rijaca]

And as with anything, you'll be fine... until you aren't. Giardia, from what I gather, is a pretty miserable affliction.

It's not a problem at all if you like sleeping next to the toilet for 4 or 5 days and want to lose some weight while doing so.

Drink up.

And it takes 1-4 weeks after exposure for symptoms to develop.

[SkaredShtles]

<snip>
So really, I'm lazy, really lazy, and probably gonna get sick eventually. I like to think that anyone who spends enough time in the backcountry has a similar chance of getting sick though - between sticking there hands in rivers while filling up, the outside of their water bottles getting untreated water on them, then touching their faces, cooking food, eating food, picking their nose, etc. I'll be sure to let you guys know when I get screwed by my laziness

As a fellow lazy person, I can appreciate where you're coming from. But you're fooling yourself here.

[LURE]

<snip>
So really, I'm lazy, really lazy, and probably gonna get sick eventually. I like to think that anyone who spends enough time in the backcountry has a similar chance of getting sick though - between sticking there hands in rivers while filling up, the outside of their water bottles getting untreated water on them, then touching their faces, cooking food, eating food, picking their nose, etc. I'll be sure to let you guys know when I get screwed by my laziness

As a fellow lazy person, I can appreciate where you're coming from. But you're fooling yourself here.

Well, a lazy person will probably work harder to justify lazy behavior than he would have if he wasn't lazy in the first place, eh?

[LURE]

Sorry, I'm kinda taking this thread away from the OP, but at least the topic remains relevant to water, hiking, and the backcountry. I want to mention though that I just remembered when I took some outdoor leadership courses at CSU (just for the heck of it, I needed to fill up on some credits my last semester) our instructors talked about a study done by NOLS where they determined that extraordinarily high majority of Giardia cases were the result of poor hygiene in group camping settings, not from the water. Now I have not personally seen or tried to look up this study, but nonetheless, what I heard from some pretty experienced outdoorsman that have both spent time working for Outwardbound and NOLS between the two of them.

http://www.outdoors.org/articles/amc-ou ... -the-risk/

The above article references the scientific uncertainty in where the illness is truly coming from with outdoors activity which made me think of that.

See, I'm already putting a ton of effort into trying to justify lazy behavior.

[rijaca]

I drank about 60+ oz of untreated water up by Uncompahgre this past weekend and have been waiting to see how the week plays out ever since lol

Are they still grazing sheep in the basin between Uncompahgre and Wetterhorn?

[Trotter]

Sorry, I'm kinda taking this thread away from the OP, but at least the topic remains relevant to water, hiking, and the backcountry. I want to mention though that I just remembered when I took some outdoor leadership courses at CSU (just for the heck of it, I needed to fill up on some credits my last semester) our instructors talked about a study done by NOLS where they determined that extraordinarily high majority of Giardia cases were the result of poor hygiene in group camping settings, not from the water.

Since Giardia is a parasite, poor hygiene among other campers will only spread it IF someone already has giardia.

that being said, I've seen some really disgusting hygiene habits by people in the backcountry. Human feces within 2 feet of lakes and streams, etc. And these humans go to the same mountains we do. So its best to filter all your water, as even common bacteria in peoples poop will make you very sick.

[Scott P]

So really, I'm lazy, really lazy, and probably gonna get sick eventually.

Maybe. One of my friends (Michael Kelsey) almost never purifies his water and has never gotten sick. On average he has logged more than 300 days per year in the backcountry for the past. That's somewhere around 15,000 days in the past 50 years.

That said though, if you ever do get giardia, you will be miserable. Filtering your water is like wearing a seat belt. You may be OK most of the time without one, but if you don't have it on when you need it, you're kind of screwed.

Anyway, I don't purify spring water or snow, or water very near the source, but I almost always do at other times. In the US at least, cattle and sheep (especially) are the biggest concerns and the biggest polluters. Beavers come next on the list.

[cory1223oh]

With the life straw being only $20 and 2 oz. it really seems like a no brainer...