What to do for water while trekking.
Hi,
What do people do for water supply during hiking treks? I hear boiling water, using chemical treatments/tablets and/or filtering system. What's the best method without having to bring or spend lots of money on a system? Space is limited in our backpacks so the less we can bring, the better. I did have two small bottles that cost 17$ that treats water chemically but the taste was horrible.. but I don't know what to expect from just boiling water used from a stream... We're going to be doing a few hiking/camping treks that will last from 2-5 days. SO I'm looking for any tips and advice on doing this.
Any advice is appreciated!
THanks in advance!
Reply to this Hi Lissa,
When I did the Inca Trail I had the collapsable(?) type drinking bottles, and iodine tablets. You could taste the difference, but it was quite drinkable.
I didn't use all the tablets though because they boiled drinking water for us at the start of each day (not sure if every company does).
where are you trekking?
Reply to this yeah i've been on a 10 day hike and used iodine tablets...they do taste weird but hey you're trekking in the wilderness....you've obviously already decided to leave creature comforts like tasty potable water at home 😊
Reply to this While we were travelling last year, we used these the aqua pure traveller (have a look for it on the internet).
There is no taste to the water, no extra filtering is needed, nor any other treatment. The fact that the filter is part of the bottle means that its all together in one place. It's not the cheapest thing, but very useful and no funny tastes
Reply to this Another option is a pump action filtration system - again expensive - but effective (assuming you replace the filters when needed) - should be about $50-100 usd. Available in camping shops.
Reply to this yeah i've been on a 10 day hike and used iodine tablets...they do taste weird but hey you're trekking in the wilderness....you've obviously already decided to leave creature comforts like tasty potable water at home 😊
I was going to get those for travelling, to prevent straining the environment with all those plastic water bottles that get thrown away. I didnt use the iodine tablets after somebody said they do things like irritate your skin and cause some other health problems too.
Reply to this In high mountains I usually drink straight from the source. if you're not sure about the quality then a filter can remove all bacteria but no viruses. Purifying pills will kill the viruses. It's highly unlikely that water high in the mountains will have viruses though.
A good filter brand is Katadyn. They have military quality filters that basically never need to be replaced (or like, every 50,000 litres pumped they do). The best one costs Uk pounds 175, its cheaper in the US though I think
Reply to this if you dont like the taste of purifying pills you can buy other pills you can add to the water to take away the taste of the purifiers
Reply to this We used a great brand of purifying tablets I think were called Micropur, they didn't change the taste of the water as Iodine tablets do. We bought them in Peru and they weren't expensive. I guess you can probably buy them in other places too. Enjoy your trip!
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