Sawyer Mini Hydration System w/Smartwater Bottles

[Robert Wyler]

I am transitioning to an UL setup, and "needed" a new hydration system for this weekend (I'm not ready to give up the hydration tube, I love it). I'm a longtime Camelbak user, but I want to get my water OUT of my pack, for a number of reasons:
1. It's a huge hassle putting the reservoir in and out of a loaded pack.
2. I hate "guessing" at how much water I have left and possibly mis-timing a water resupply point. Being able to see how much water I have is crucial.
3. I have never had a blowout, but the last thing I want to have is a soaked pack because of a water bladder.
4. The bladders are "all or nothing", meaning that if the 3L bladder fails I don't have any backup. I wanted a setup that uses multiple containers.
5. I want the ability to filter "on the go" so I can just stop, fill up, and move on.

I looked into all of the normal "bladder" systems as well as the SmarTube setup and wasn't in love with any of them. I decided to go with a new setup that incorporated a little from each. I was inspired by the thread here and my new Sawyer mini:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=100770

My final setup looks like this:

It weighs in at 141g (5oz) for one bottle with the filter and tube attached:

For the bottles, I knew that I needed some kind of 1-way valve to keep them from collapsing. My 1 year old daughter has been experimenting with sippy cups, and we've found that she HATES the Tommee Tippee brand ones that look like this:

Inside the top of these, there is a valve setup that looks like this:

If you pull the clear silicone part out, there is a little "bulb" that acts as the one-way valve (duckbill valve, check valve, etc):

I cut that part off with a pair of kitchen shears and trimmed it a bit, which ended up looking like this:

Then I drilled a 1/4" hole near the top of the bottle:

After some deburring, I rinsed it out good:

Then I simply stuffed the valve in the hole. It has a little "lip" on it that keeps it tight and waterproof. I might end up gluing these in later if they pop out, but for now they seem to hold just fine. I made two bottles like this since I had two sippy cups:

For the drinking tube part, I ordered an Osprey bite valve and hunk of tubing off Amazon (about $9 each) to start. I love the magnetic bite valve that clicks to a sternum strap magnet. Here is the complete setup:

I simply cut a length of the Osprey tube and stuck it on the "in" side of the Sawyer mini to act as a straw into the bottom of the SmartWater bottles. To keep big chunks of crud out of the Sawyer, and to keep the tube pickup at the bottom of the bottle, I stuck a little plastic screen onto the end of the tube that I repurposed from my pressure washer (it was on the soap hose inlet to keep crud out of the pump, never used it):

My old setup weighed 7.9oz for the Camelbak with hose, 2.2oz for the sawyer mini and 0.9oz for the included squeeze bag (with cap and rubber band), and 18.2oz for the Costco spare water bottle (0.5L) I carried in case of a leak. I always carried 3 liters of water in the reservoir at 105.8oz, mostly because I couldn't see it so I erred on the side of caution. My typical total weight was 135oz (almost 8.5 lbs!), and I couldn't filter on the go.

The new setup weighs 5oz for the main 1L setup empty, plus whatever you want to add for capacity or reserve. I currently carry a second SmartWater bottle (sometimes empty at 1.6oz, sometimes full at 36.6oz) as well as an empty 1.5L Evernew bag at 1.3oz with the cap and cord to be used on long stretches or for camping. I plan on going out with 2 full bottles and the Evernew bag for backup. I can still carry 3.5L this way, but my typical water load is now only 2L, one on each side of my pack for balance. The total weight of this setup (with 2L of water) is 78.3oz. This weighs roughly half of my old setup, it's on the outside of my pack, I can see it, it is easy to fill, and I can filter on the go.

So far I'm pleased with the setup. I'm about to head out and do some more testing with it on a hike this weekend. The only things I might change are to add some Camelbak quick-disconnects to the hoses on each side of the filter so I don't have to pull the hoses off each time I want to use the Sawyer with a squeeze bag, and to make back flushing the filter easier.

[Robert Wyler]

The system worked well, except for two things:

1. The valve fell out of the "spare" bottle as I was hiking (the one not connected to the sawyer). I think it was spinning in the pocket and rubbed up against the compression strap. It didn't leak much, and the valve fell into the mesh side pocket and I recovered it, so it wasn't a huge issue. I got some Krazy glue today and glued both valves in. I'll have to see if this happens again but I think the glue should work.

2. The valves work fine when sipping through the filter, but when you first draw the air out of the system it collapsed the bottle and it stayed collapsed. I think I can prevent this from happening by just sucking the air out more slowly or pre-filling the line with water. It never happened when I was drinking.

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