The pages of discussion here have been very good. I have one or two questions/comments.

If anybody has one of these straws that do filtration - could you actually give us a field test report. I'd really like to know how easy it is to suck water thru the straw. For example, if I place the end of the straw in a puddle of water (cloudy water) and suck on the other end - how fast does water come through?

I have generally used filtration, and especially like Katadyn. The main drawback is that the water needs to have dirt/mud removed first or the pores in the filter will clog quickly.

Iodine tabs and other tabs are probably fine. In a pinch if I was desperate ... bleach too. It's just that the water tastes bad afterwards. You need some discipline to drink a lot of that stuff.

There's nothing wrong with good old fashioned boiling. Can't argue with that. I keep seeing different numbers for how long the water needs to be at a rolling boil.

Pete2

The boiling times are relative. The answer should really be "it depends". It depends on altitude for one. Water boils at 200F at 6,000ft elevation. It boils at an even lower temp as you climb higher. You would need to boil longer vs. shorter at higher altitudes to kill off the nasties.

Particulate matter will also change the formula. If you have some tiny pieces of "stuff" floating around, you basically need to cook these so the internal temperature of that little piece of wood or that little conglomerate of sediment rises to the level needed to kill off the nasties inside that particulate. Think of it as cooking a piece of pork. You need to cook a pork roast longer than a piece of bacon in order to get the internal temp up to a sterilization temp.

" Think of it as cooking a piece of pork. You need to cook a pork roast longer than a piece of bacon in order to get the internal temp up to a sterilization temp."

Good advice. Thanks for that :-)
In my head I'll think of it this way ...
"you're not boiling water - you're boiling soup. Make sure the soup is well cooked."

I'm still hoping someone can report back with a firsthand account of these straws that filter water. It seems like they would clog easily - if there is any suspended dirt or organic matter in the water. But let's see what the folks here say.

Pete2

True, altitude does indeed change the boiling point of water, but I am seeing evidence that water heated to significantly below the boiling point will adequate disinfect same. Let me quote one of my favorite authorities - James A. Wilkerson, MD, Medicine for Mountaineering, 6th ed. , p. 65 - "To eliminate Cryptosporidia, CDC and the EPA recommend boiling water for a full minute (three minutes above 6500 ft or 2000 m because water boils at a lower temperature at higher altitude). [/b] [emphasis added]However,simply bringing water to a boil is just as effective.[b](Milk is pasteurized, which eliminates most organisms, by heating it to only 160 [degrees] for twenty to thirty minutes. Many cookbooks also recommend cooking meat until the internal thermometer reaches 160. See a trend here? If my memory serves me right, 160 F is about the temperature of boiling water on the summit of Everest.

I typically will either just drink the raw water, or bring it to a rolling boil. I have a filter, which I rarely drag around with me, and somewhere in my junk I have various potions and pills to drop into questionable sources. But if I am really concerned about the quality of the water, it's "boil, baby, boil."

A couple of extra comments.
Just for the mountain streams.

I would usually drink the water from fresh streams at high elevations - coming from the snow melt. Just natural water ... no filtration. I never had any problem with that.

I was always suspicious of the water once it descended to the altitude where there were cows grazing. Sometimes they are up quite high - in the high pastures. I didn't usually trust the water at that stage ... without purification. I thought it was probably a personal quirk on my part - I had no evidence that such water was bad. So I found the recent comments on this thread that giardia is coming from the cow patties to be quite interesting.

Finally, I had an offline conversation with Ron Hood one time. It's too bad that he is gone. He was a really good person for survival techniques. I should have taken one (or more) of his courses. Anyway, he told me that it it possible to adjust your stomach to become "resistant" to the giardia. Over time you can condition your body so it does not cause sickness. I would say that it's true - because he didn't give such advice without trying it himself. But also I think that medically it's not good to have a lot of exposure to the giardia - it can cause long-term problems (somewhere I remember reading that).

SO: you can drink from high mountain streams where the water is fresh snow melt. And if you have been thinking about taking a survival course from somebody really good - put it on your Bucket List and GO and do it! These people are not around forever :-)

Pete2

Have you considered UV? Either a pen type or built into a waterbottle

I've looked at those, Teacher and one is definitely on my wish life. Just not in my budget right now.

Picked up a Pristine Pioneer filter straw for my son today. I figure it's the easiest method for him. Water tabs are something I don't think he's ready for yet. (He's nine yo with ADHD.) This way, all he has to do is pre-filter water with a bandana, into his water bottle and let it sit for a while to settle. Then he can drink it with his straw or, if he has/we have one, he can use a fire to boil the water before using his filter straw. We're going to practice tomorrow. It's a pretty simple piece of business, just like my Frontier straw, but better to practice with and get familiar with it before he needs it.

http://www.frontlinewater.com/products/pristine-pioneer-filter

Thanks for all your help guys!

Stealing this for use with my kids and my Scouts. Thanks!

My preference to to filter first then treat with the micro pure product.

I am very lucky in that the water is really good where I live.

Blake