I dodged a bullet earlier this month!
In My Kind Of Triathlon I wrote about my hike to Dorothy, Bear and Deer on a beautiful summer day. What I didn’t share was that I hadn’t brought enough water for the entire trip, counting on being able to use the water purification I carry in my 10 essentials kit.
When hiking I normally carry two methods, my Katadyn BeFree filter and purification tablets in my backpack. When I hike, I normally have three methods because I carry my stove.
However, as I had traveled to Greece and made decisions about what I needed or didn’t need, I had taken out my Katadyn and left the tablets. I only brought one bottle of water and figured if I needed more for a hike I would just buy another bottle. When I took my backpack for this trip, I had wrongly assumed that I had put it back in my kit for my trip to Canada.
Big mistake.
This can be a forgivable mistake when you normally use more than one method (and this is the main reason I do it). It’s not uncommon for filters like Katadyn or Sawyer to become clogged or simply not work as expected. Including a back-up method such as tablets means you can rest assured that you will be able to drink water safely if this were to happen.
However, in recent years I haven’t gotten into the habit of carefully checking my 10 essentials kit and on this hike I almost paid the price but I well and truly learned my lesson. Fortunately, not the hard way!
So what exactly happened? I decided to share this story at the same time as giving you some ideas for backup water purification methods that you might also want to keep in your backpack. Here I am in REI, but you can also find most of these (and others) online.
Aquaportable
It’s the last line of defense that I’ve been carrying in my 10 essentials kit for a while now without ever having to use it. I’m sure I’ve carried the pills in glass bottles before, but I decided at some point to put them in lighter bags. I probably figured I’d remember what and replace them at some point in the not-too-distant future. The first tablets are basically iodine and you let them sit in water for about 30-35 minutes. The second tablet is a neutralizer (vitamin C) which helps the water taste less unpleasant.
As you can see over time, without the glass bottles, the pills break down. The bags may also have been labeled at some point indicating which came first. I kept them in a plastic wrap box (remember that?) but even protected there, they slowly disintegrated over time. Like I said, I just assumed they were waiting for me in there, intact and ready to go.
Not so much.
On the Dorothy Lake hike, when I knew I needed more water, I opened the film canister and took out the two sad little bags. I debated for a while about how I could still use these crumbles to purify water. I could play and say the reddish was iodine but that was just that, a gamble. How many would I use? Maybe put one then the other, wait and then do the opposite? Assuming, of course, that what made them effective when I bought the package was still true today. It is not recommended to change the packaging and again I would not repeat this “experience”. These tablets do not have an expiry date but this depends on how you store them.
I ultimately decided it wasn’t something to count on and just filled my water bottle with the best sighting flow and hoped for the best. It was either dehydration now or maybe giardia later.
It seems that a little over 3 weeks later, I played “wise” and experienced no adverse effects from drinking unpurified water. However, I don’t plan on making this happen again in the future if I can help it.
Aquamira
When I first started browsing the PCT, my research led me to briefly try these drops as my primary method of water purification. Aquamira is a chloride dioxide solution that kills bacteria and viruses and takes about 15 minutes to be effective. Unlike the treatment above, it does not color the water or add taste. It’s tricky, though, because you have to mix the two separate parts as needed, so a third bottle is needed (not included). I didn’t like having to mix frequently and carry 3 bottles, so this method didn’t work for me. Its shelf life is four years.
Katadyne
These were also available at REI and I have to admit I didn’t give them much time as I could read that they took 4 hours to work and that didn’t seem reasonable for something I considered a need for ’emergency. Some say this leaves it best to home emergency kits. However, if you want a tablet that does all that, this might be the one for you. They have a shelf life of 5 years.
Aquatabs
I decided to go with Aquatabs for my latest updated line of defense. They only take 30 minutes, claim to taste great and come in a lightweight, sealed individual package. The only difference, besides the fact that they are $1 cheaper than the tablets above, is that they don’t have “Crypto” listed as something they are getting rid of. They have a 5 year shelf life, so the trick will be to remember in 5 years to throw away anything that might be left.
All these tablets eliminate bacteria and viruses. This is where they differ that they get rid of protozoa. If you are particularly concerned about cryptosporidium, you can choose Katadyn or Aquamira (which works after 4 hours like Katadyn). If Giardia is a concern (as it should be), anyone will do.
Overall, what you carry depends on personal preference and it’s important to evaluate what you want to eliminate when using tablets. To me, these are all emergency methods because none of them actually filter the water. There were definitely times when I was glad to have a filter, as available water sources can be quite limited in the backcountry. I used a Steripen (and loved it), but it wasn’t a filter either. This just makes germs/viruses/cysts etc. unable to reproduce, it doesn’t actually kill them.
This hike reminded me not to take for granted that I have what I need in my backpack and to double-check every trip. My Katadyn BeFree is safely back in my kit with the tablets, so I’m good to go for now!
And you? Do you have backups? Backups for your backups?
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