What does /out/ think of most water filters sold in stores? Safe for emergencies or would you use an alternative?
>>2786078None of them are safe. If you don't have your own home made reverse osmosis filter you are essentially a city slicker moron.
>>2786078Yup, they'll work. Proven by NOLS.>>2786079'Tarded.
>>2786078I've taken my squeeze as my only water purifier for several years of camping, over a dozen 3+ day trips. That said, I'm drinking water from mountain streams, not ditches or stagnant ponds. They'll filter out pathogens, but won't neutralize heavy metals or chemicals from heavily contaminated water, you'll need activated charcoal for that. You can buy more robust filter systems with charcoal for around $100+ if that's a concern. But if you're planning on using it in relatively clean water that you just want to make sure you're not drinking giardia or other water born bacterial infections or parasites, they work great!
>>2786078Sawyer or katadyn are pretty safe, anything no name is a bit of medium stakes roulette. They are decent to use and pretty safe, except for viruses and chemicals, which are not big issues if you just plan a hike around finding a spring around halfway through the day. If you need water from more downstream, you should probably add a UV stage for the viruses and some charcoal filtration to reduce chemicals, but that's above my paygrade.I use a no name sawyer clone and haven't gotten sick, but my most frequent hiking buddy is raw dogging the spring water without any filtration and hasn't gotten sick either, so realistically the water I drink is spring water and thus safe to begin with most of the time.Two simple pieces of advice: Add a cotton bandana or something as a prefiltration step if the water has a lot of sediment so the filter doesn't get overwhelmed and when getting water from a stream, point the opening of the bottle downstream, that way less sediment gets into it to begin with.
