Date: 2014-10-30
To: Water Treatment and Falling
Miles today: 0.0

I just got an email from Laurie at ATC, who had received a request from Carol, who is planning a thru hike for next year. Carol had heard me speak at the ATC event a couple of weeks ago and wanted to know what I used for water treatment, and what I meant when I mentioned learning how to fall. Here's my response in case it's useful to others, too: Hi Laurie and Carol!First of all, keep in mind that I¢ve read testimonies by several thru hikers who never treat their water, or only treat pond water, and never had any adverse consequences. I¢ve also read of other thru hikers who treated all their water and still got giardia. If the water came from a clear spring near the top of a ridge line, I usually didn¢t treat it. The rest of the time I did. It¢s a risk management decision.I started out using my old SteriPen to treat my water and had a new Sawyer Mini as my backup. Both of them allow you to treat/filter your water immediately at the source, so you can treat a bottle and drink it right away. That can save you 15 to 20 minutes of waiting time or a couple of pounds of water weight for the next 15 to 20 minutes of hiking. I like the SteriPen as it is quick and easy to use and kills everything, however it is a bit heavier and depends on lithium batteries. I¢ve used it successfully over the years on short section hikes. Not long into my hike, my SteriPen was intermittently failing to work to the point it wasn¢t worth carrying for my thru hike. So I sent it home and used the Sawyer Mini as primary and Aqua Mira as backup. What I didn¢t like about the Sawyer Mini was the slow flow rate and how hard I had to squeeze the bag to get the water to flow. I later learned that the regular Sawyer Squeeze has a much faster flow rate [thanks AZ Cruiser!], and I switched to that. I think the faster flow rate is easily worth the slightly larger size and heavier weight. Toward the end of my hike I mostly used the Aqua Mira drops unless I wanted a drink right away, in which case I¢d use the Sawyer Squeeze. Sometimes, to keep from standing around the 5 minutes for Parts A and B to mix together in the cap, I¢d carry the cap in my hand along with that hand¢s hiking pole while hiking until the 5 minutes were up, then add it to my water bottle.An advantage of a filter vs SteriPen/drops/tablets is that the latter ones don¢t treat the water around the outside of the top of the bottle, which has been exposed to the untreated water and which you put in your mouth to drink. I just wiped off the top of the bottle - don¢t know how effective that was. With a filter, the filtered water comes out the drinking end of the filter which has not been exposed to the untreated water. I saw a lot of Sawyers on the trail. Several folks put them in line with tubes from their water bladders so they could just fill up their bladders and suck on the mouthpiece. I like to chug my water, so I prefer water bottles. I tried putting the Mini in line with the Sawyer bladder, but found I had to suck harder than I liked to get the water out. I suspect the regular Sawyer Squeeze would have worked better. I also saw a couple of hikers who just had the Sawyer screwed onto the top of a Smart Water bottle in their side pocket. They would simply drink straight out of the Sawyer. I think you have to loosen the Sawyer from the bottle periodically to let air get back into the bottle.As to falling safely, what I meant is to recognize early that you¢re about to fall and just sit down if you can. Most of my falls were due to my foot slipping out from under me on sloping wet rocks or wet wood. I think you¢re apt to injure yourself less if you can sit down or fall on your pack rather than falling forward. Regaining you balance with a backpack on is much more difficult to do than without a backpack. If you trip and are falling forward, then let go of your poles and try to use your hands and arms to absorb the shock.Have a great hike, Carol!