Outdoor Clothing, Outdoor Footwear and Outdoor Equipment

In urban settings, finding clean drinking water is a easy: Just turn a tap or grab a bottle and drink up. Treating water in the backcountry, hills and mountains is not quite that convenient, though the process keeps getting simpler and speedier.

There are a number of filtering and purifying options that ensure you get clean drinking water. Which one is right for you? Do you even need to treat water at all? the market consists of water purifiers (they kill ALL the nasties) and water filters (they remove most things EXCEPT viruses) the most primitive and often the best way is to simply boil your water, this however is not always convenient. Since the EU banned the sale of Iodine for water purification the best replacement is Chlorine Dioxide ( they use this alot in commercial water prurification so it must be good) the chlorine dioxide will kill all the bacteria and viruses etc but obviously not filter out any suspended matter, this is the job of a micro water filter.  So, once you’ve decided on a filter or purifier, which of the above treatment options are best? It ultimately comes down to personal preference, I personally prefer to filter using an MSR Sweetwater microfilter as its very easy to use, small, compact and gives a great flow rate, the resultant water is then treated with chlorine dioxide tablets, which I prefer as you just use one per litre. The MSR Sweetwater purifier is so called because it is a filter and comes with a bottle of chlorine dioxide.