I was reading this article at REI's website regarding the debate on filtering or treating your drinking water while out in the wilderness.

I must admit, I very rarely filter /treat / boil water and have never had any problems...yet.

How about you, do you filter / treat / boil your water while out in the wilderness?

ALWAYS

Hiking in the Utah mountains I never know what (let alone who) may have urinated in the stream I'm using so I always,always (did I mention always?) filter my water.

Mike

Mesopotamia, the birthplace of civilization; writing, the first codification of law- and beer. Beer was invented largely out of a need for a safe drink in a land already suffering polluted water.

Always. Unless I can see a high-altitude source, such as the glacier it's coming from.

As you gain elevation, you need less and less filtration IMO. At least in my Rockies. Something that filters out Giardia is enough as far as I know. I have set up siphon rigs that go through gallons overnight with no effort on my part.

Sometimes I'll get an opinion from park staff, off the record (just ask: what do you do?). That's pretty safe for them. If it's on the record, they have to follow what the legal department decided, in an office tower someplace, to prevent lawsuits.

In an emergency, with a source you believe to be reasonably clean, you might choose to drink deep and let medical science deal with the fallout. Or you could boil tea in a steel canteen.

It's a fact that dehydration will knock you down very quickly. But bad diarrhea is no joke.

Yes

i'm lucky--canoe country is at the top of the watershed for Hudson's Bay.i have been drinking out of the lakes for 25 or so years with no i'll effects.there are places where i filter water thru a Pur Hiker but thats to get out the heavy stuff like pollen or the tiny daphnia,water fleas, that are found close to shore.on the BWCA canoeing site this is a subject that is beat to death--filter,no filter,boil,chemicals,UV light...
closer to home,paddleing on the St Croix river i filter all my water. it's designated a "wild river" in the upper part that i make float trips on but with a village or farm here and there i don't trust the water quality.

I tend to boil everything.
Not always, but if it is not from a known well or spring I try to make tea.
I do still keep a small pumped type water filter (Fits Nalgene bottles) for emergency use, but I have never bothered to use it.

If I was dieing of thirst and had no way to treat it I would drink it untreated.
Better to be getting treated for sickness than be dead of dehydration.

If I treat it with chemicals I usually just use a bit of bleach and leave it uncovered overnight.
A little bit of bleach treats a lot of water so long as it gets the exposure time.
I like to leave it about 6 hours, but some people figure anything from less than an hour up to 4 as a minimum, the longer it gets to work the better I think.

Being uncovered overnight lets most of the extra chlorine evaporate off as a gas.
A gallon of household bleach should be able to treat about 4 thousand gallons of water, but that depends on how dirty the water is.
Running the water through a coffee filter first the bleach has far fewer solids to try working through. Even a cloth will trap a lot of dirt and silt.
It is surprising sometimes how much silt can be in what looks like clear water. With dirty water it is just ridiculous, even a thin cloth can help as a pre-filter.

Note from the EPA:
http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/faq/emerg.html


Edit:
While I will drink clear water sources like lakes when I am not too close to the shore,(and there are no pollution sources like cottages) I am pretty careful about other sources and drink tea.
I am not worried about Giardia, but there are some other ones that do worry me.
Tularemia is one that worries me a bit, algae poisoning is another.

Edit 2:
If these guys who wrote that article saw the crap that comes off a lot of glaciers they should be a bit more cautious about drinking from glacier fed mountain streams.
You also have to be careful about the ground up stone particles in a lot of the higher streams.

One other small point.
Life in the water is a good sign usually. If any surface water has absolutely nothing living in it you should be wondering why.

last edit:
There are an awful lot of drops of bleach in a 4oz Nalgene sample bottle. Just be careful it does not leak.

Yes, even at home.
Home water system

I could tell you all about it, but I would be getting dangerously close to breaking more than one rule. PM me if there are any questions. I don't sell the product, but I use enough to qualify as having a relationship with the company.

Unfortunately I don't get out backpacking as much as I'd like any more, so mostly day hikes for me. hus I carry water from home. However, my emergency kit has supplies for chemical treatment and boiling. I do have this little "Survival Straw" filter thingy, but I would only use that in a pinch (not sure I trust it to do much).

i have the counter top model of this.

when hiking, if i can see the source, no.

but in my area, for much of the year, i usually have to carry my water. up to 6 liters at a time.