gabby
Trail Wise!
Posts: 4,536
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Post by gabby on Jan 18, 2020 20:32:31 GMT -8
ETA: but in the NZ huts, where they now have signs saying that “we all drink the water, but it isn’t tested, so make your own choice,” I drank the water. Yeah, on a desperately thirsty day long, long ago, I actually drank water out of a local river (Pedernales, as it happens - not the cleanest, or even cleanest looking, little country rivulet) without treatment. The river was actually crowded that day, with both hikers and swimmers. I believe I was quite foolish as well as quite lucky. I wouldn't do it again, esp. given the 5 decades intervening and the changes that have occurred since that day, not the least of which is a lot of population growth. And, yet, I understand what HSF is saying too. There's no guarantee, but I involuntarily step back when someone sneezes at the grocery store too - even if it is probably an ineffective prophylactic. I admit to not wearing gloves when opening doors at public buildings, though I occasionally think to use some part of my body other than a hand to do so - sometimes. There's no guarantees: I try to keep smiling and hope I continue to be reasonably "lucky".
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Post by High Sierra Fan on Jan 18, 2020 21:43:22 GMT -8
As a habitual solo my risk is environmental water and not companions: underlined moderately early in my ttaveks with a trio around the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne in an early May. Tioga was still closed and the high country still very much locked in winter (I’d traveled from Hetch Hetchy over Rancheria Mtn on an unbroken snowpack until I dropped down into Pate Valley. Anyway I got turned around by an unbridged very whitewater crossing and was back down at the Tuolumne riverside when I just couldn’t stand the chemical taste of my current water sanitizing method anymore: so I calculated with no one upstream for probably seven months the River was a safe bet. I was wrong. I’d neglected to consider the implication of Giardia’s nickname: Beaver Fever: meaning animals are a naturally occurring reservoir of cysts (I’ve since read that’s another common route: our pets). Three weeks later I was in full Giardiasis symptoms and that was confirmed by a lab test and the disease being knocked down by the specific pharma for it. Though not until I’d lost 15 pounds over that very uncomfortable week. This was early 80’s and I was lucky in my doctor choice as that was early enough intestinal parasites weren’t a usual goto when a patient hadn’t traveled overseas, and lab positives were iffy and the appropriate drug only given for a lab confirmed case as it had side effects iirc.
So I habitually filter (though that’s now more for the speed as there are chemical treatments that don’t have that awful taste available now: I carry some as backup, but I’m not a fan of the wait times. It would mesn carrying more water than I need to when filtering and st 2 lbs the quart a 9 oz filter has math on its side. Imho
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toejam
Trail Wise!
Hiking to raise awareness
Posts: 1,795
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Post by toejam on Jan 19, 2020 5:21:26 GMT -8
I'd drink unfiltered water before using a Sawyer Mini again.
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toejam
Trail Wise!
Hiking to raise awareness
Posts: 1,795
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Post by toejam on Jan 19, 2020 5:27:09 GMT -8
There is nothing - literally nothing - manufactured by mankind that fails to get through the necessary handling in the manufacturing process without producing a "failed product" here and there. Tp be clear - the Hyperflow is a fantastic filter until the element starts plugging. I used it for a couple of years. Once it started to clog backflushing didn't do any good. The reason it broke was me trying to force water through backwards. Apparently the path of least resistance was through the plastic body, rather than through the clogged filter element.
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almostthere
Trail Wise!
putting on my hiking shoes....
Posts: 696
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Post by almostthere on Jan 19, 2020 9:11:17 GMT -8
I know of 30+ confirmed giardisis cases due to backcountry water sources, many in the search and rescue field. Some of them were dogs, most were people. You can't argue that someone who was infected and treated 3-4 times over the past five years was due to poor food handling practices, when it was more likely that they were pulling a victim out of water and literally had zero control over all the water pouring into their body through whatever orifice it could -- water rescue has certainties, and it's absolutely the case that you aren't going to filter a river. They drove back there to get kayakers and unfortunates who fell in high country water. They weren't backpacking at all...
I also know folks who never filter and say they choose their sources carefully. But to my mind, there are no little signs that say, no bacteria here... and there is a really huge upswing in backpacking as a summer vacation option. People are going out there more. I don't think those 30000 hopefuls are applying for the JMT permit, failing, and just sitting at home -- some percentage are getting other trailheads. (Only 3000 +/- actually get permitted.)
Places I would only drink the water straight out of the source if I were dehydrated and no way to treat it -- anywhere in Yosemite. Anywhere near the PCT. Anywhere livestock is roaming aka the National Forests. In other words, pretty much nowhere in the Sierra Nevada, save off the trail faaaaaaarrrrrrrrr out in the granite, the untraveled off trail reaches....
The Merced River tests positive for E Coli some years, and thinking about all those people in Little Yosemite Valley near the campground bathing in it, and all the people at the trail bridge above Nevada Falls just dipping their bottles in.... well, there's a reason that YOSAR will station someone with a big filtration unit at that bridge in summer. Aside from all the people who just don't bring water, there's that pesky bacteria problem due to sheer numbers of hikers going in the water.
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