Water filtration and carrying systems is another facet of backpacking that has evolved since I was backpacking years ago. 10-20 years ago, Water filters were relatively heavy. Two of the more popular filters were the Katadyn Hiker and MSR Mini Works. The Katadyn Hiker weighs around 11 oz and the MSR filter weighs a hair under 1 lb. Back then, I opted for the MRS filter because you could repair it in the field and it also worked well with MSR brand hydration reservoirs or bladders to hold your clean water. A reservoir is essentially a water tight bag for porting and dispensing water.
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| Katadyn Hiker |
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| MSR Mini Works |
These are both decent filters, but there are other options on the market today that are as fast or faster to filter water, but much lighter weight.
Also, water reservoirs were the go-to choice for many backpackers for carrying water. The reasoning wasn't bad either. Water is one of the heaviest things you carry in your pack. Many backpacks at that time were designed with a pocket at the center of your backpack, near to your back. This is the ideal place to carry heavy weight. The fact that it is centered on your back helps to keep you balanced. Reservoirs also have a tube that comes out of your bag through a port, over your shoulder with a valve on the end that you can bite to open and hydrate on the go without stopping.
With the MSR filter, I was able to screw the filter directly onto the hydration bag, pump the filtered water straight in, put the cap back on, jam it down into my pack, and I was good to go again.
This sounds great! Why did everyone move on from these hydration systems? There are several reasons.
Weight
These filters weren't super bad, but lighter weight alternatives came on the market. The popular filters now are squeeze type filters that use a dirty water bag or bottle that you squeeze to force water through a filter and into a clean receptacle (usually a bottle). The squeeze filters are not even half the weight of the pump filters. The preferred water bottles are also lighter than the hydration reservoirs.
My MSR Mini Works filter and a 3 liter hydration reservoir weighs around 24 oz. To carry a squeeze filter and the equivalent water capacity with my current system would be 7.65 oz.
Cost
Squeeze filters cost a lot less than the pump filters. The water bottles also cost less than the reservoirs. Squeeze filters can cost as little as $30. Pump filters can be found for around $90 on the low end. The reservoirs vary in price quite a bit. The MSR brand that I was fond of because they worked well with my MSR filter cost between $30-50. The bottles favored by backpackers today are re-used Smart Water brand 750ml or 1 liter bottles and can be bought for as little as $2 each with water included.
Availability
Even if a squeeze filter fails, big box stores in small towns are carrying them now. The most popular water bottles people use in combination with these squeeze filters are also available in stores and gas stations. This means, if your filter or water bottle fails, gets lost, or broken, you can replace them relatively easily without much problem. If you are on the Appalachian Trail or some other high traffic trail and you are passing through a town with an outdoor supply store, you can probably find a pump filter and/or hydration bag to replace one. But in a small town with not much more than a Walmart and/or a gas station, your odds of finding a replacement are slim. Could you change over to a squeeze system at that point? Probably, but it's not the best idea to be trying out new untested equipment on the trail if you can avoid it.
Ease of use
This is most true after your reservoir is filled up and it is time to stow it back in your backpack. Wrestling a floppy bag full of water into a small pocket in a full backpack can be frustrating. Getting it out isn't quite as bad, but you still have to unscrew the hose and/or cap. Screwing the hose and cap back onto the floppy bag can also be a bit of a challenge. Credit to the Greggory company. They have a bladder system that actually addresses many of these ease of use issues. Here is a link to a review. But they have not cracked the weight or cost issues. Still, if I was determined to use a hydration reservoir, I think this is the system I would choose today.
Failure consequences
If your reservoir leaks, it is inside your bag. If you are smart, you can avoid a complete catastrophe by having a liner to protect your "must stay dry" items, but even so, you will likely have a puddle inside your pack that you have been carrying for however long, you may not know you no longer have drinkable water, and you may be out of luck if there are no water sources nearby. Assuming that you can find a water source, you are in more trouble if your reservoir has actually sprung a leak and failed. Sometimes a leak might just be user error because you failed to seal a connection or screw your cap/hose on properly. But if your reservoir has failed, you may not have anything to carry water in. It would probably be a good idea to bring a water bottle with you in case your reservoir fails, but that adds to your weight.
Visible supply
You don't know exactly how much water you have in your reservoir when it is buried in your pack. Do you have a liter left? Half a liter? Will it be enough to make it comfortably to the next source? It's hard to know when you can't see your water. You don't want to stop constantly to pull out your reservoir and check. That takes time and effort, but you also don't want to risk running out. In my experience, the result is stopping and refilling more often than necessary just to be safe.
What have I chosen?
Filter
The filter I have chosen is the Sawyer Squeeze. Along side from the Katadyn BeFree squeeze filter, the Sawyer Squeeze is probably one of the two most popular squeeze filters.
As with any filter, the Squeeze filter gets slow eventually as the material it removes from the water builds up behind the filter. This slows the filtering and eventually the filter will stop. Depending on how clean your water source is, that can happen quickly or more slowly. However, you can expel the material and clean your filter by "back flushing". You are basically forcing clean water through the clean end, backward through the filter to flush out the dirt and grime that was filtered out. You want to detach your filter from the dirty bag or bottle and just flush it onto the ground or wherever. You don't want that concentrated yuck in your container. The filter comes with a syringe for that purpose, but there is a hack that many people use that I will explain below so you don't have to carry that extra tool.
With that back flushing, the Squeeze can supposedly filter as much as 100,000 gallons of water. I believe back flushing regularly and properly is important to maintain the filter for that long, but Sawyer also offers a lifetime warranty.
The Sawyer Squeeze comes with some dirty water bags that you can use to fill and squeeze the water through the filter, but those bags have a very small opening to fill. I would not recommend them. Instead, a water bag made by a company called CNOC, called the Vecto is a great option. Upgrading does increase your cost, but you are still under the cost of the pump filters and still saving weight (compared to pump filters). The Vecto water bag weighs 2.75 oz.
The CNOC Vecto bag has a large opening at the top that you can use to easily scoop water from a pool or gather from a dribbling spring etc. Once you have filled your bag with dirty water, you close the top by folding the the opening over on itself and then sliding the locking mechanism. You can roll this down to squeeze the water through the filter.
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| Gravity filter setup |
You can also use the Sawyer Squeeze and CNOC Vecto bag in combination with a $2 coupling adapter to gravity filter water. On my recent trip, I knew I would be dry camping at the shelter I hiked to, so when I was at my last creek crossing on the trail, I filled both my water bottles as well as my Vecto bag. The Vecto can hold 2 liters of water. It was unfiltered, but when I got to camp, between cooking and drinking water on the way, one of my water bottles was empty. I hung up the bag and filter and let gravity pull the water from the dirty Vecto bag down through the filter and into my water bottle.
This freed up time for me to do other things while I was doing some camp chores. I did figure out one thing that I have not learned from other people regarding gravity filtering this way. If you tighten the coupling down completely between the filter and the water bottle, air cannot escape from the the bottle as it is displaced with water. The pressure then prevents water from coming through the filter. However, if you loosen the coupling and get the water flowing, once the bottle is full, water will continue to pour through the filter and overflow down the side of your bottle. If you are camped near a water source, that may not matter, but if you are dry camped and water is not easy to get, spilling water can be a problem. Keep an eye on your gravity filtering system if you are short on water.
I have seen some people carry 2 Vecto bags. They make different colors, so you can distinguish between a clean bag and a dirty bag. If you do that, for your gravity filtering setup, I suspect it would eliminate the problem with air displacement, as long as you squeeze all the air out of your clean bag ...and assuming the bag capacity for each of the bags is the same. They do make different sizes. I have the 2 liter bag.
If the CNOC water bag fails, I can also use one of my water bottles as a dirty bottle and attach the Sawyer filter directly to the water bottle. You can even simply drink from the Sawyer filter.
Water bottles
As I indicated above, Smart Water bottles are easy enough to find, not super expensive, they save weight, and they are relatively easy to access (as long as your pack has an easy to access water bottle pocket or two). I have 750 ml bottles and 1 liter bottles. The 750 ml bottles sometimes come with sport caps that are handy to have. You can squeeze them to create a more focused stream of water. Having that nozzle allows you to clean wounds, for hygiene (I would not try to bidet using a nozzle or bottle you drink from), and you can also use these Smart Water sport nozzles to back flush your Sawyer Squeeze filter. It fits right on the filter head. Squeeze your clean water through the clean end and you'll have a fresh filter.
One thing I did notice with the smart water bottles on the trail is that they don't always want to stand up while you are filtering into them. I also have not fully figured out a system for dealing with the caps while I am filtering. I had at least one full bottle fall over and spill out all the water inside.
Downsides of my chosen solution
Every system for treating water has pros and cons. Here are some of the downsides of my chosen system.
Balance and positioning of the weight
Carrying water bottles on the side pockets instead of near your back in the center of your pack is not ideal. If you can balance things, by putting a bottle on each side. I have been taking these water bottles on longer hikes and even day hikes recently. It hasn't been too bad. I plan to continue to do more. It does make me curious if someone put a loaded pack on my back with other items the same, but one had a reservoir and one had water bottles, could I tell the difference and if so, how much different would it be? Obviously if one had a hydration hose coming over the shoulder, that would give it away, but I think it would be a fun experiment. Maybe I will give it a try. If I do, I will report back on it.
Less convenient to drink (slightly)
It is easier to drink from a hydration hose than by reaching back into a pocket, even if the pocket is well designed and makes extraction and replacing the bottles easy. However, even with my Osprey pack, which has pockets that were frustrating to fish the bottle out of, and even more frustrating to put them back into, it wasn't so bad. I didn't go thirsty because I couldn't get the water out and I didn't have to stop or take the pack off my back just to access my water. With the Greggory brand pack that does not have water bottle holster pockets, I would not opt for this system. That pack is really designed specifically for use with a hydration reservoir.
Freezing ruins the filter
If you are backpacking in freezing cold weather or the overnight temps might dip below freezing, you need to make accommodations for your squeeze filter. These filters work by pushing the water through tiny fibrous chambers. If ice alters the spacing between those fibers, you can no longer trust it to filter water properly or safely. You now have a wet paper weight.
If freezing temps are a possibility, you will want to bring a ziplock or other water tight bag and sleep with your filter over night. If freezing temps will continue during the day, you probably want to keep it close to your body as you hike to keep it warm.
Water taste may not improve
Some filters have a carbon component that helps to remove taste from water like iron or chemicals. If you have a spring that has a lot of iron content, your water may not taste the best. I am curious if using a flavor neutralizer tablet (like the ones discussed in the "Have a Backup section below) might help resolve that issue. There is at least one spring like that on the Ouachita Trail. I may experiment when I get to it.
Most squeeze type filters do not have carbon, so this is not unique for the Sawyer Squeeze. I believe there may be one squeeze type filter that does have that, but you will pay extra money and it will weigh more.
No virus protection
Viruses can be found in some water sources around the world. In the US, this is not currently an issue. The Sawyer Squeeze can filter out bacteria, protozoa, and most suspended materials in your water, which is sufficient for where I am currently planning to backpack. But for international travel, you will either need a filter that can filter out viruses, or get a secondary means of treating to kill viruses after your primary filter. Katadyn makes a UV treatment device that kills viruses within a few minutes. That is probably the route I would go to supplement protection if I ever take an international trip.
Have a Backup
No matter what system you use, it is a good idea to have a backup way to treat water. If my filter fails, I can boil water using my stove or other fire and cook pot. I have a secondary water treatment option, iodine tablets. With 2 tablets, I can treat a liter of water. The Potable Aqua tablets can also be found with a secondary treatment tablet that removes bad taste from the water (like iodine that you just used to kill the critters in your water). These treatments can also be found in just about any department store, outdoor supply, or online vendor.
To purify water by boiling, you need to boil water for at least one minute or up to 3 minutes if your altitude is above 6500 feet. That isn't going to happen for me in the Ouachita mountains. Boiling water is faster. Treating water with the iodine tablets requires 35 minutes before it is safe to drink and another 3 minutes with the neutralizing tablets to make it taste better.
These water treatment methods are not ideal because they take considerably longer, but in a situation where you need it, you can stay alive by boiling or chemical treatment. This is weight I am definitely willing to carry for the added safety it provides.
These water treatment methods are not ideal because they take considerably longer, but in a situation where you need it, you can stay alive by boiling or chemical treatment. This is weight I am definitely willing to carry for the added safety it provides.
Well, I hope this was helpful to someone. Do you have thoughts or questions? Drop a comment.
Thanks,
Gavagai
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