Drinking the water

[Walksalot]

While out for a hike yesterday I filled my water bottle from a stream. Are most hunters/hikers reluctant to drink the water from mountain streams? Granted, if there were signs of beaver or muskrat in the area I would be hesitant to drink the water. Time will tell if I made a poor decision. Maybe an investment in a Life Straw might be a good idea.

[buckshot]

I do it all the time if it looks clean and is running. Never had a bad experience!

[dmuth]

Have drank from streams and lakes all over B.C. for the last 57 years haven't had a problem YET.
I think that there are few water problems in BC if you think about were you get you water.
But maybe I just have a good immune system?

[Rodd]

Not me... I drink it all the time, as long as its flowing, and no problems ever 35 years of it.... Work with guys that bring town tapwater to drink in the Rocky Mtns... blows me away that they think its safer...

[Wentrot]

While out for a hike yesterday I filled my water bottle from a stream. Are most hunters/hikers reluctant to drink the water from mountain streams? Granted, if there were signs of beaver or muskrat in the area I would be hesitant to drink the water. Time will tell if I made a poor decision. Maybe an investment in a Life Straw might be a good idea.

I drink plenty of random water, havn't ran in to issues yet...When I was a kid I even drank out of the Alouette river while fishing....yuck!

I'm sure I may have a gut full of parasites but they havn't slowed me down yet....a life straw is something iv looked at numerous times-probably time to buy one.

[swampthing]

I used to drink out of pretty much anything. These days I carry a water filter while packing. One of those life straws would be easy and handy for day hikes

[adriaticum]

It's not worth it unless it's somewhere high up in the alpine.
Cattle graze everywhere.
For the price of boiling it, it's not worth the risk.

[Gone_Fishin_]

Life Straw, Cambodian tire for 20$ well worth it and use it all the time.

[Brew]

I drink water in the bush 5 days a week and it's fine. Has to be running and look clean. I have a filter for alpine puddles though

[Bugle M In]

I drink water in the bush 5 days a week and it's fine. Has to be running and look clean. I have a filter for alpine puddles though

This^^^
avoid alpine puddles or any puddles unless you use filter.
running water from streams or little creeks have never given me issues.

[351BII]

When we go camping/ hunting in remote places or long hauls i carry a 40 gallon barrel and we will find a stream and pump water from it and fill the trailer that way. Never had a problem. As long as its flowing good you should be good to go.

[Slinky Pickle]

I drink from streams all the time and will continue to do so. However, as has been pointed out to me many times, follow any stream back and you're bound to find a slow moving or stagnant pool. I'm a firm believer in feeding your kids dirt too. :)

As a scuba diver I used to go around the local lake and inspect water inlets for cabin owners. I remember finding one with a dead fish in it. It looked like the fish had got tangled in the screen and had died there. All that was left was a mostly bare skeleton but it was obvious that the cabin owners had been filtering their incoming water through a dead fish for a while. I removed the remaining bits and went back to the surface. The woman that owned the cabin asked me if the intake was ok.... I said "It's fine, no problems." I'm pretty sure she didn't want to hear the truth that day.

[Ron.C]

I treat all my drinking water.

[KodiakHntr]

5 or 6 years ago, while hunting sheep my hunting partner and I found a stream with a LOT of water flowing right out of a crack in the rocks on a cliff. He was lower on the hill than I was, and was standing in the flow cooling down, and drinking the water as it fell from the rock.

I was about 5 meters higher on the hill, and at eye level with where the water was coming out of the rocks, and it was COLD. And CLEAR. And it was also filtered through ptarmigan shit that was about 15cm deep, and 1 meter wide where several of them apparently over-wintered in the tiny overhang.....


He stopped drinking it as soon as I mentioned it to him.


Last year, high in the mountains again hunting sheep, both my gf and my hunting partner got sick from the water (what we figure was the water at any rate, as they both drank from a fast running clear stream) for about 3 or 4 days. Probably nothing more miserable, than having to shit every hour whether its raining or snowing or dark, and being afraid to sleep in case you shit in your sleeping bag.

For the amount of time that it takes to filter water, and the low cost of these options now, there is little reason to not do it. And it only takes one or two microscopic parasites to infect you.

[panhead]

Was at my doc’s one day and asked him what he thought. He advised the use of a filter of course, but then added ... I can GIVE you some pills to take if you become sick. They are provided free from the BC govt. Take them if you get the ‘runs’ and if they don’t work, get to a doctor. I said ... “OK I’ll take them.” When he brought them out they were in a pill bottle with the BC logo on them but printed on the bottle were the words “for sexually transmitted diseases.” He said not to worry as they were also for my purpose. But I said “I can’t take these home to the wife...” he put them in a different bottle ... True story.

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Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it.

[skuntor]

I have read a couple things about contracting giardia from water being overblown while most cases come from poor handwashing in the backcountry. Many people can be asymptomatic carriers of it. Very easy to give it to others when handling utensils, gear, food etc when there is a lack of proper handwashing. Obviously the same conditions set people up for a whole host of other GI bugs that can cause similar symptoms.

[Wentrot]

Was at my doc’s one day and asked him what he thought. He advised the use of a filter of course, but then added ... I can GIVE you some pills to take if you become sick. They are provided free from the BC govt. Take them if you get the ‘runs’ and if they don’t work, get to a doctor. I said ... “OK I’ll take them.” When he brought them out they were in a pill bottle with the BC logo on them but printed on the bottle were the words “for sexually transmitted diseases.” He said not to worry as they were also for my purpose. But I said “I can’t take these home to the wife...” he put them in a different bottle ... True story.

Good ol' chlamydia pills. Wise choice not bringing that bottle home.

[Fisher-Dude]

I drank from the streams in the Northern Rockies while on an 18 day river trip.

I could shit through the eye of a needle at 10 paces when I got home.

Giardian cysts are vile, nasty little buggers that will cause you trouble long after you go on the meds to kill them.


https://cdn.meme.am/instances/400x/62277306.jpg

[plumberjustin]

Flowing water good, standing water bad. That being said, a life straw is a great $30 investment.

[325]

I will drink water flowing out of melting snow in the alpine as is, but filter everything else. I contracted giardia when I was 17 years old, and over the course of 10 days, lost about 25 pounds. I ended up in the hospital hooked up to an IV. I couldn't hold a drop of water down, and my shit was bright green. I NEVER want to experience that again.

[HighCountryBC]

I have never filtered my water while hunting in the Kootenays. That being said, they are all clear and running at a decent rate. I always consider the source. I do not hunt in areas where there is the possibility of cattle being upstream.

Any slow running or stagnant water I filter. Doesn't take long for that peace of mind.

[vislander]

Life Straw,easy,convenient and fairly inexpensive

[Brew]

Was at my doc’s one day and asked him what he thought. He advised the use of a filter of course, but then added ... I can GIVE you some pills to take if you become sick. They are provided free from the BC govt. Take them if you get the ‘runs’ and if they don’t work, get to a doctor. I said ... “OK I’ll take them.” When he brought them out they were in a pill bottle with the BC logo on them but printed on the bottle were the words “for sexually transmitted diseases.” He said not to worry as they were also for my purpose. But I said “I can’t take these home to the wife...” he put them in a different bottle ... True story.

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Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it.

Gonorrhea/diarrhea are they not the same?:D

[xcaribooer]

double thumbs up for lifestraw, available at any outdoor store for $20 plus tax, drink out of any puddle you want with one of these, they take up almost no space in your pack or coat pocket.

[russm86]

A few years ago I picked up shiga toxin ecoli poisoning. As I was drinking bottled water and keep everything clean, including my hands, I narrowed it down to washing dishes etc with water out of a very large northern lake even though there were no cattle around and the lake was far from a stagnant little pool. My mistake was just warming the water enough to be useful/comfortable for cleaning dishes thinking the dish soap would kill anything else (didn't think about the rinsing out after). So, now, if I can't bring my own water then I treat it or use filtration or boil the crap out of it, even if just for washing dishes. I carry a life straw in my pack at all times, even day trips just in case I get stuck overnight or didn't pack enough clean water.

[Fisher-Dude]

Nothing was flowing faster or clearer than the water I got giardia from.

There wasn't a cow, except for cow elk and cow moose, for hundreds of kms.

Don't chance it. 16 years later and I still deal with the odd gut problem.

Boil it. Filter it.

[Ryo]

If you're looking at the lifestraw, check out the lifestraw bottle that has been release more recently, and still not as widely available as the original straw. It threads onto a standard nalgene cap.

[Red_Mist]

Flowing water good, standing water bad. That being said, a life straw is a great $30 investment.

Really can't go wrong with a life straw. Something like 1000L per straw. I just carry extra bottles to fill up at the water source. Then simply switch the straw from container to container.

[Jhors]

I am with Fisher-Dude. I drank water dripping off the ice of a glacier. I also got giardia from that water. It is a nasty disease where you will feel fine for weeks and then feel sick for a period of time. It does leave lasting effects. Now I carry an MSR filter pump or purifying tablets. I never drink directly from the water source no matter how clear, or how fast flowing.

[Timbow]

It's best to experience "beaver fever". Only then you will fully understand and what it is and what it does. I got it years ago drinking from a creek. Some people are not affected as my buddy drank from the same creek and was unaffected.

Midway through a sheep hunt, my hunting partner personally decided a particular creek was clean to drink and said I was foolish to continue to filter my water. Less than two days he was holed up in the tent and I hunted solo.

[Whonnock Boy]

One time, out of desperation I drank from a single bovine print in the mud. Luckily nothing ever came of it. I have drank out of creeks numerous times, but now I filter as a precautionary measure. Better safe than sorry.

[Bugle M In]

Giardia, yup, had that one, and yup, my guts have never been the same since.
And the medication, Flagyl?, oh my god, "RAT POISON"!, especially when they don't tell you that you shouldn't
drink alcohol while taking that stuff.
Didn't get the giardia from hunting however?! don't know how I got it (syphoning the aquarium possibly?)
There are people I know who catch a "gut type parasite/bacteria" and they are never the same again.

[MichelD]

Wife and I got giardia drinking what looked like clear stream water up at Thone Lake off the Kettle River one time.

there were cattle grazing above the stream we took water from only we didn't know that at first.

Got dehydrated extremely fast from constant elimination.

Ate charcoal out of the fire pit and felt a bit better and when we finally got to a doctor in Osoyoos we were pretty much over the worst of it.

[longwalk]

Had it before as a young fellow on the farm. Drank out of creeks that range cows were constantly milling around in. Suffered no long term affects. Still drink from below the surface of moving water occasionally. Carry an MSR water filter for everything else.
Back packed the Stein Valley years ago. Forgot my filter in the drop off vehicle and ended up drinking directly from the river and creeks. Ran into Gordon White, who was the author of the Stein Valley guide book as he was taking a group of hikers through the opposite direction. He saw me drinking directly from the river and told me I would contract giardia. Never did.
One of the advantages of growing up on a dirt farm is that you are exposed to a multitude of bugs that those with cleaner more affluent lifestyles will never see.

[ruger#1]

A few years ago I picked up shiga toxin ecoli poisoning. As I was drinking bottled water and keep everything clean, including my hands, I narrowed it down to washing dishes etc with water out of a very large northern lake even though there were no cattle around and the lake was far from a stagnant little pool. My mistake was just warming the water enough to be useful/comfortable for cleaning dishes thinking the dish soap would kill anything else (didn't think about the rinsing out after). So, now, if I can't bring my own water then I treat it or use filtration or boil the crap out of it, even if just for washing dishes. I carry a life straw in my pack at all times, even day trips just in case I get stuck overnight or didn't pack enough clean water.
I think you can get Ecoli from goose crap.

[jonz]

Don't drink it unfiltered if there is any algae on the rocks.

[warnniklz]

Not me... I drink it all the time, as long as its flowing, and no problems ever 35 years of it.... Work with guys that bring town tapwater to drink in the Rocky Mtns... blows me away that they think its safer...

In the similar boat. I drink cold fast moving water all the time, or if it's seeping out the source. But I'd much rather drink water in the wild than tap water any day. I just don't trust water lines.

However I do carry some treatment tabs for the "iffy" stuff

[nature girl]

I used to drink from streams then a few years ago deer hunting I saw that someone had taken a crap in the stream on a rock that was in the stream. Now I just bring water.

[ruger#1]

I used to drink from streams then a few years ago deer hunting I saw that someone had taken a crap in the stream on a rock that was in the stream. Now I just bring water. People like that make me sick. Some stupid ass shit on one of the trails I was hunting. Yes I stepped in it. Didn't know at first until I sat down by a tree. What a stink. I seen where it was on the way back to camp. Put branches on it so no one else would step in it.

[jtred]

I filter all surface water before I drink it, seen way too many dead animals in creeks and rivers.

[wideopenthrottle]

i used to work in the ubc research forest and part of our research was to monitor lakes and streams for giardia through all 4 seasons...one time after many many clear samples at a creek right near a bit of a muddy lake, i accidentally put the sample line in too deep and drew up some mud from the bottom of the creek...sure enough that sample had some cysts in it...if you have to drink from smaller streams, do not disturb the bottom mud upstream of your drinking spot and look for a spot where there is enough turbulence on the surface to prevent floaties from accumulating as a way to reduce the risk as much as possible

[Jrax]

drank many times from running creeks if I thought they were from a good source and I was reasonably close to the source. Then my dad and I got giardia from an alpine creek, had cramps and shits for days. I followed the creek up from where we drank to the base of the peak where it started and it was full of sheep, moose, goat, mouse, and grouse and ptarmigan poop. Now I drink from springs only and filter the rest.

[Gateholio]

I've drank from BC streams my whole life, and I've always been fine. A few years ago PG66 and I were on a sheep hunt and we were at the top of a mountain and out of water. I noticed some drips from a rocky, moss covered outcropping and I literally "milked" the moss into my water bottle. The water was brown and gross looking but I drank it anyway. MAybe the dirt/moss filtered it anyway?

I did filter some water when we were camped near Redfern and our water basically came from a mud puddle with lots of elk and moose tracks around.

When I was about 12, I was on a 2 week summer hike with my older brother who was about 14 at the time. He got really sick at one point, but I was fine. Same water, same genetics, so who knows?

I try to drink from fast flowing streams and ignore what may be dead or defecated above. Large volumes of water "should" diffuse bacteria reasonably well. And I try to get my water from the top,. not the bottom of the stream.

I will never dissuade someone from filtering, boiling or treating their water, but it's never been a priority for me.

I assume my cavalier attitude will catch up to me at one point, but it hasn't yet....

[GoatGuy]

Never had an issue, but a few friends have gotten giardia over the years. Generally ok if it's fast moving water. Some areas with high human use (R3/R8) where water quality is poor and there are other bugs to be concerned with.

Figure it usually takes a few weeks to incubate and by that point you're back in civilization.... Having to take a day off hunting sucks, work maybe not so much.

[Fisher-Dude]

Figure it usually takes a few weeks to incubate and by that point you're back in civilization.... Having to take a day off hunting sucks, work maybe not so much.

A day would be okay, but 6 weeks of all night cramp/crap sessions that would last 1 - 2 hours per session is a deal breaker.

And the lingering effects years later on the gut really suck - watching you guzzle Franks Red Hot and knowing that would kill me, when I used to eat hot peppers by the jar...

[Iron Glove]

double thumbs up for lifestraw, available at any outdoor store for $20 plus tax, drink out of any puddle you want with one of these, they take up almost no space in your pack or coat pocket.

Just picked one up at the local outdoor store in Hope.
It'll go into my pack whenever we head out for a hike or quad trip.
Bought a new can of bear spray too, was looking at the one I have and it expired 10 years ago. :shock: I'll use it to spice the stir fry.

[gmachine19]

"Tastiest water" imo is a glacier runoff! I drink it all the time. The water has to be running though. Also, taste it before drinking it. If it tastes funny, leave it alone.

[Fisher-Dude]

"As long it's flowing..."

http://ep1.pinkbike.org/p4pb5233849/p4pb5233849.jpg

[Rotorwash]

I pack a sawyer mini filter. Not much money and takes up little space in the pack. Better that getting diarrhea in the bush.

[Glenny]

Got lost once and sucked dew off tree leaves and drank from mud puddles. Made a jug of orange koolaid with Tunkwater (Higher urine content than Corona I'm sure) Still here. Antibodies? I give you antibodies.:mrgreen:

[Bugle M In]

A day would be okay, but 6 weeks of all night cramp/crap sessions that would last 1 - 2 hours per session is a deal breaker.

And the lingering effects years later on the gut really suck - watching you guzzle Franks Red Hot and knowing that would kill me, when I used to eat hot peppers by the jar...

And you thought it only "burns" on the way in!

[Seeadler]

I don't worry about animals, it is people I worry about. I grew up around cattle and horses, hunting and fishing and drank a lot of creek water.

People are nasty. I'd rather drink water downstream downstream cattle than go swimming in some of these lakes that see thousands of people over the summer.