purifying water on a camping/hiking trip?
We are somewhat inexperienced hikers that are in charge of a scout trip for older kids. When we have talked about filtering water from a reservior for an overnight canoe trip and hiking trip everyone keeps saying "well I suggest you take as much water as you can" or "I don’t know about those tablets, I wouldn’t trust them" or "I wouldn’t trust those filters". We have potable aqua tablets and new but older models of sweetwater walkabout microfilters. Am I being naive or are these people just being critical? None of them hike or camp without a full kitchen in tow. I would like the kids to learn how to do these things and take a step closer to truly "roughing it", but I do not want to put them unnecassarily at risk for illness.
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the tablets and filters are both safe and effective. those are the people that couldn’t survive if they didnt have air conditioning and curling irons.
you need to boil water for 10 MINUTES.
boil it
Well, I think that the filters are fine, just as well as the tablets… but if they’re that freaked out, then boil the water. It gets rid of any bacteria and if there’s stuff in it, just use a strainer. Boil it for like 10-15 min. to insure them that there can be nothing living in the water anymore. Tell them that it’s either the tablets or filters, or the boiling of water.
Well honestly what you would do in really roughing it is boil the water in a container and place a leaf or tarp above it and help funnel the clean water that’s evaporated and condensed on to another container. The tables work to an extent i have had some friends use them and ended up with bad diarrhea for about 2-3 days. The filters are nothing more then chlorine and a type of stone or sand.
Purification tablets are very good and very safe, but make the water taste horrible, I would still recommend boiling water in addition to using them. Very low risk of illness. There are new gadgets on the market that use UV light to purify water which are supposed to be very good.
You could use the tablets and then run the water through the filters. I would probably guess that this would be pretty safe as long as you aren’t drinking anything that has sewage or toxic waste that runs into it. I wouldn’t use this as your only source of water for the whole trip, but you could show them how to do it. You can also boil the water over a campfire.
The potable aqua tablets work really well. Its better to take a small bottle of tablets than taking 3 gallons of water for each person going on the trip. Trust the pills, they work!
Check out some reviews on the tablets. I’d probably trust them, but not for a whole lot of water. Everything in moderation. Safest bet is to always boil your water for at very minimum 10 minutes. But then you have to wait for it to cool off.
If you have the time though (like over the course of a very hot day) you could set up a distiller in the gound http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillation. I don’t think I’ve EVER seen a scout handbook that didn’t mention how to make a simplified version of one (with a hole, two different sized bowls, and a trash bag).
Went to Philmont 5 years ago and they didn’t like the pills or filters they were 100% for iodine purification system.A small bottle that has pellets in it that you won’t come out , you fill the bottle with water and 2hrs later 2 ozs treats 32 ozs of water, all the crews use them