A proper way to filter water is pretty much the only thing (piece of gear) that I do not have covered already in my gear (not considering the Micropur MP1 tablets).

I am leaning towards the Katadyn Vario filter... straight forward filter, two filtering speeds, good reviews. The SteriPEN looks like a good idea but for some reason, i'm still not convinced.

The fact that the filter gives you good drinking water instantly is very appealing.

Boiling water looks simple enough, but it can get annoying. Especially after a tough segment where you would KILL for some water when you realize you are dry...

My 2 cents.

Now why on earth would their be any quiescent current draw on something like that? Do they have some sort of sensor on the darned thing that runs continously? The circuit should be completely interrupted.

If it's 30 microamps that's 0.03 milliamps. My unit uses 4 AA batteries, each of which should be around 24,000 mAH. So they should last 80,000 hours, which is about 9 years.

That figure of 0.03 was just a guess and could be off by a factor of several. The batteries themselves will have a shelf life even with no drain. There are probably non-linear effects involved too.

I agree, but I do think it's worth removing them for long-term storage.

(I've cut a plastic insert to break the connection, so I can keep the batteries inside the unit for their full shelf-life.)

Technology sux. Even when I take a pump(Hiker Pro) I still take a small bottle of bleach. 2-3 drops per liter will kills most of what ails you. Prefilter with a bandana. The small bottle that I have will last months.

Boiling still is best

[/quote]If it's 30 microamps that's 0.03 milliamps. My unit uses 4 AA batteries, each of which should be around 24,000 mAH. So they should last 80,000 hours, which is about 9 years.

That figure of 0.03 was just a guess and could be off by a factor of several. The batteries themselves will have a shelf life even with no drain. There are probably non-linear effects involved too. [/quote]

Actually, I inquired specifically about the quiescent current battery drain in the Steripen Journey that runs on two CR123 cells rather than the older version that runs off the AA cells.

Maybe so but I prefer to have several options when it comes to water. The water compartment of my BOB includes a SteriPEN Adventurer with regular and rechargeable batteries (with solar charger), a Katadyn Vario filter, Katadyn Micropur tablets, straw type filters and boiling/fire starting supplies.

At home I keep a 2-4 day supply of bottled water as well as a Katadyn Drip Gravidyn. Knock on wood, our municipal water supply has always been very reliable and the reservoirs that feed it are nearby if distribution is interrupted.

Running out of potable water is not an option.

Coming from a person that likes to boil any unknown source of water. Boiling works well to make water safe to drink, I love and use my Thermette for this; I used it this weekend when camping.

But boiling does nothing to improve the taste of water. It’s nice to have water taste like the water we all are use to drinking. A filter does this. I have and use a Katadyn Hiker filter, it’s going on 4-years old and it works great.


I’ve read several reviews of the Steripen, enough to see it has reliability problems. Before you buy one do a search for Steripen reviews to make sure it’s what you want.

I read a lot of those reliability reports, and it appeared a lot of the issues were due to crappy rechargeable batteries someone had the bad judgment to supply with the units. I don't use 'em; I use quality fresh CR123 lithium cells and have plenty of backups. I also read a lot of bad reports about the filter the company sells that screws onto the top of Nalgene bottles. Following the simple instructions, I find it works quite well to remove larger particulate matter before sterilizing the contents of the bottle. I have not found that the screw on filter is slow as some have (again, used as instructed).

Granted, there are many other nice ways to filter water, too.