Re: Questionable water from spring - Drink it or filter it?
I just started a thread on getting beaver fever a couple days ago. I have the shits right now, but it’s getting better.
Like you’ll learn when you start reading, the only way to be certain water is safe to drink is if you filter and sterilize. Sterilize meaning iodine tabs, bleach or boiling for 3 mins. From what I understand, some of these parasites are resistant to iodine and bleach, so they’ll live through that in their shell and must be filtered out. I’m not sure if filtering and a steripen is 100% effective, but a good filter will get almost everything out. From what I read, the giardia cyst is bigger than 1 micron, so anything with a smaller rating than that will get those out, which is probably the biggest concern.
Like I said in the other thread, my friend bought the msr guardian filter, which is supposed to make almost any water safe to drink without sterilizing, but it’s over $400. Small price to pay instead of getting sick. Full disclaimer though, I haven’t researched that filter myself, so you should double check the specs before you buy.
If I saw worms in my drinking source, I would definitely filter and sterilize. I hate iodine tabs, but maybe bring an extra 1 litre water bottle and two bladders you could filter and boil your water at night for drinking the next day and keep one bladder filtered for cooking and another filtered with tabs for back up drinking water. And put gravvol in your first aid kit, that’s experience talking.
If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.