Aquamira Amount on PCT

In the way old days, some people used to buy a Volkswagen bug fuel filter and hook it up in a gravity feed arrangement with a 15 foot head of water. Supposedly, that worked, but I never did see any lab tests on it.

Then one guy tried to use a _used_ VW bug fuel filter. Yuck!

–B.G.–

Yeah, there's certainly room for creativity here.

1. Relying on a filter to do everything — even filtering out viruses — will mean a bigger/bulkier filter.

2. Relying on chemicals to kill everything — even the bigger hard shelled protozoa — will mean very long wait time.

That's why I like to combine both methods — I can reduce wait time by relying on chemicals to kill just the tiny stuff and then using on a simpler/lighter filter to block just the bigger stuff.

And yeah, I haven't had a Frontier Pro fail on me yet — there're no moving parts — and as long as I have clean water, I can unclog the filter by pushing some water through in reverse direction.

I remember the time we treated a whole bucket of water with iodine, and then we started cooking. The meal included dehydrated potatoes.

You can see where this is going.

What did we get?

Purple potatoes, due to the starch-iodine reaction. It doesn't bother the nutrition, but it sure ruined the appetites.
–B.G.–

Using those car filters just sounds crazy! I guess some people will try anything. Must have been ultra-heavy though.
Good tips on here. Will have to look more at the MYOG and everything when its not 1:30 am :) Hikers never sleep eh! Too much energy once there is no weight on our backs. Or little weight that is.
Evan

>>In the way old days, some people used to buy a Volkswagen bug fuel filter and hook it up in a gravity feed arrangement with a 15 foot head of water. <<

Multi-use. I like it.

Bob,
There are actually real purple potatoes!

I made purple french fries out of these once. Odd, but tasty!

Hi Evan,

Although I use the tablets now for my hikes, if I did the PCT again, I don't see any problem with using the liquid Aquamira type. I used it for all water I drank for 5 months on the PCT in 2004, and for other multi-week hikes in CA and CO, and I was happy with the system. I can't think of a single time where I was like "Gee, I wish this was faster, it's really getting in the way of my hiking time." The reality is that you might be doing 10 or more miles (or 30) between water stops, and when you get to one, you'll wanna take a break anyway. The water treatment REALLY doesn't get in the way of your hiking flow, at least for me.

You get some funky water here and there, but in general the risk from water-borne illnesses is VERY low, from the literature I've seen. In the case of Giardia in the Sierra, there isn't really much there, and if you are exposed to it, you likely won't get symptoms. If you do, they will likely be mild. Not to say that a few folks didn't get serious Giardiasis on the PCT that I saw, but they also weren't typically treating any of their water.

Some info:
http://www.ridgenet.net/~rockwell/Giardia.pdf

I'd say buy the cheaper liquid form, use it on all water (or at least all remotely questionable water), and hike. You'll have no problems.

Cool.

p.s. Ben has a LONG history of promoting tablets over liquid. It's sort of become a BPL meme. I think he also does a lot of around the world travelling where I'd be thinking about viruses more too!

Dave,
I really appreciate your post. Sometimes it can be hard to differentiate all the information that comes from one of these threads. Sounds like the tablets are more potent however the risk of getting sick is very low. Most things in life tend to be more hype than reality. This is not to say that Ben's point is not valid. I just dont think the money is worth it for ME at the moment. I just placed an order with Joe at Zpacks for the aquamira. Maybe once I have some experience with the stuff myself I will be able to make a more informed decision. After reading the chapter in Ryan Jordan's book on water treatment he makes a good case for using the liquid form. Thanks to everyone for such great discussion.
Evan

Ben,

What about drop size (for your bleach)? Is a drop a drop? If not, how do I know I have a big enough drop?

— MV

Ben,

As I understand it, kill times for viruses and bacteria are the same for both liquid and tablet ClO2. Why is that? I thought kill time was concentration x time, and you say tablets have 3x-4x the concentration.

I know this next question has been asked before, but I have not seen the answer, nor has Googling found it. Is there a chart or graph of protozoa kill time vs water temperature for the tablets? How do I know whether to wait 30 minutes or 4 hours? The extremes are obvious, but in between is not. We cannot even draw a straight line through the two known data points, because the long data point was for very dirty water.

— MV

Thanks for your post, Dave T. I agree that, while Ben is right that the tablets are more potent, my experience has never been that they are absolutely necessary. I've used Polar Pure, bleach, AM drops, and AM tablets at one time or another, and I've never had any intestinal bugs on long backpacking trips. Except once when I didn't treat my water, but that went away by itself in a couple weeks :)

At least five people that I hiked the Appalachian Trail with never once treated their water, and never had any issues, either. I've met one hiker who did have giardia, and one hiker who told stories of getting it several years ago, but the vast majority of hikers, whether they treat water or not, never get it.

Of course, water sources on the AT and PCT are pretty different from what I hear, so here's my plan. I'm taking AM drops, but I've also got a pile of tablets that I have left over from last fall. I'll carry 5 to 10 tablets with me, at very little weight cost, and keep the rest in my bounce box. Use drops on water sources that look fine, tablets on those that look less fine. And in general, not worry about what's in the water once I treat it.

Great discussion, all.

Ben,
I have been using the Frontier Pro in gravity mode, in combination with chem treatment. I am happy with the bulk/weight of the system, but the filter seems to slow to a drip while out in the field.

I think I would like to try your current method of chem treatment, then using the Frontier Pro in "suck" mode. How do you have your bladder/hose/filter setup?

bladder -> hose -> frontier pro -> hose -> bite valve?

OR

bladder -> hose -> frontier pro w/ mouthpiece?

Also, does the filter reside in your pack? Attached to the shoulder strap? Just hanging loose at your chest?

Thanks!!

Evan,

I used iodine from the 60's until last year, when Ben convinced me to switch to the Aquamira. I use the tablets because they are more convenient, and being older I can afford them.

You are going to need treatment until the high Sierras. Not all water is safe in the Sierras, so do your research. Water in the San Jacinto and San Bernadino needs to be treated.

Filters cost you weight, require maintenance, and "break" in the field.

So for you, I would go with chemicals. But crucial is your Water Management System, that is, how you are going to time and manage water acquisition and treatment strategies.

Regarding wait times… you are going to find a lot of cold water in the San Jacintos and San Bernadinos, since you will be hiking in the spring time. You need a strategy. When you get to your water source, you need to have about a liter of water left. Just in time strategies are potentially dangerous should you miscalculate or there is a problem with your water source. Here is what I do:

Try to hit water sources in late afternoon. I cook my meal near the source, so I don't have to carry cooking water. My cooking water does not have to be treated, because I am going to boil it. It does not make sense to boil treated water. So after I cook my dinner, I then fill up all my water bottles and treat that. Keep in mind I still have my one liter bottle that has been treated earlier. Now I hike to my campsite. My one liter reserve bottle will support me until my 4 hour window arrives and all the water has been competely treated. Just repeat this every day as best you can. Same strategy if your camp is near water, and you can use the method for breakfast too. Ofen you may need to hike a couple hours to water, and then prepare breakfast near the source (if you cook breakfast).

Hope this makes sense.

Bob:

Droplets come in different sizes, but there is no need to be scientific about it. My understanding is that most instructions given regarding the number of drops (4-6) and the treatment time (15-30 minutes) are both higher than really necessary — to allow for that margin of error. I am sure this applies to the liquid Aquamira as well.

As for whether treatment time for the more potent AM tablet vs. liquid — one would think that the tablet should work faster — but AM instructions state the same 20 minutes. Why? Don't know. I didn't ask as I was focused more on protozoa.

Finally, I have yet to see any chart that plots treatment times vs. water temperature. All I know is that 30 minutes is good for water at room temperature — and treatment time goes up from there as water temp decreases — all the way to 4 hours for water just above freezing.

Truth be told, I am not a big fan of either due to both high expense and long treatment time.

Evan and Dave:

We all have our own risk tolerance — and water treatment is unfortunately one of those things where "no bad news" doesn't necessarily equate to "treatment efficacy". We can't see the baddies, most all of us don't have our own labs, and there are too many other variables besides.

But if protozoa are a factor along PCT water sources, then know that your AM liquids are completely silent about them — whereas the same company that makes the tablets advertises their efficacy against protozoa pretty loud and clear. If liquids work well, why do you think AM keeps silent about that?

We are all enticed by cheap, light and compact methodologies, but regarding the liquids, methinks there's an element of "wishful thinking" on your part. Not saying you will get sick or anything (Dave clearly didn't), but…

So, do you think there is a difference between the chemistry of the tabs and the drops?

Also wondering how you handle half liters. Do you use half tabs, and if so are there any precautions about maintaining their efficacy, or do you over treat the water.

thanks,

Joseph:

There is no difference in the chemistry of the active ingredient — chlorine dioxide is chlorine dioxide. But if you look at the concentration — the tablets is 3X higher (don't know why the AM rep kept saying I needed to quadruple my liquids to match the potency of the solids because 3 times seems to be mathematically correct but who really knows…).

Yes, use half a tab to treat half a liter. No need to over treat (just follow directions — more is not better).

As for maintaining efficacy, the tablets come in individual bubble foil wraps. The packaging may look huge on the screen but they are actually quite small and easily rolled up.

Unless you know for sure that your water contains only bacteria and no other baddies — IMO, there's no reason to choose liquids (counting drops, extra waiting time for A and B to mix and react, less efficacy, chance of spilling, etc.) over tablets. It's likely why A.M. followed suit after Micropur came out with them.

Of course everything is a calculated risk. I know folks who NEVER treated water on the PCT and never got sick. I know folks who used bleach, filters, Aqua Mira, and lots of other things. Most folks were fine.

As far as Aqua Mira (liquid) goes, I'd love to see the stats on how many PCT, AT, and CT thru-hikers used it in the last 5-7 years. I'm sure it's in the thousands. I wonder if there was a single case of people who correctly treated their water but got sick anyway (and it wasn't from their own poor bathroom hygiene!). I really think the risks are SERIOUSLY overblown by people, at least along the PCT where I know the water sources.

I have never, ever heard of anyone waiting 4 hours for the liquid action to work (I'm sure people do). Everyone I have every hiked around using it, me included, gives it 15 minutes or more. I know that's maybe doing nothing about cryptosporidium, but I guess that has been a risk everyone is okay with.

My usual approach was to have some water left coming into a water resupply. Mix the AM right away, as much as needed. Drink the rest of your old water. Refill bottles. After five minutes, put the AM into the water. Depending on the next water (not too far?), I'd hike out, and could start drinking >15 minutes later. Or take your shoes off, have a snack, wait 15 minutes, drink LOTS of water, and either head out or treat up another round and then hike out as above. Of course, when you fill up 4-5 liters in SoCal and hike out, only the first sips are 15 minutes, and most of the water in those bottles is being treated for 1+ hours (maybe 6-8 hours by the time you get to the next stop).

I know someone will freak out about risks, and four hour wait times, and cold water, and ebola, and whatever, but in the real, actual thru-hiking world on the PCT (as distinguished from speculative talking on an internet forum), this approach has, is, and will work fine for most folks.

Also Evan, make sure to read up on choosing proper water sources (probably in the Jordan book), and MOST IMPORTANTLY practice good trail hygiene, including bathroom stops and Purell and all that.

And feel free to "Search Forums" on Aqua Mira for MANY similar discussions in the past. I hesitated to post here to contribute to yet another one, but I wanted you to get an alternate viewpoint about using the liquids for YOUR needs.

"As far as Aqua Mira (liquid) goes, I'd love to see the stats on how many PCT, AT, and CT thru-hikers used it in the last 5-7 years. I'm sure it's in the thousands. I wonder if there was a single case of people who correctly treated their water but got sick anyway (and it wasn't from their own poor bathroom hygiene!). I really think the risks are SERIOUSLY overblown by people, at least along the PCT where I know the water sources."

And there's the rub. We don't know and stats are hard to find. Who's really spending the time and effort to poll individual hikers, etc.? Nobody.

We know that AM (and other) marketers would love us to buy the stuff and use them each and every time we drink. OTOH, we also know if they can get away with advertising that their liquids too can treat protozoa — they absolutely would! Indeed they do with their tablets — but not with their liquids — because the EPA forbids them doing so!

In the end, we don't know. Are we "over medicating"? Or are we just giving ourselves a false sense of security? Prolly somewhere in between — depending on your eau du jour that day. But I don't think any of us hikers can come out emphatically saying it is OK not to follow AM's own directions…

> And there's the rub. We don't know and stats are hard to find. Who's really spending the time and effort to poll individual hikers, etc.? Nobody.

Of course. But if 1 in 4 hikers of the 300 PCT thru-hikers using Aquamira were getting sick with Giardiasis every year, somehow I think we'd hear about it. The hiker community on the PCT is pretty tight-knit and god knows they talk, on here, on PCT-L, at the reunions, on Facebook, etc.

All I'm saying is that it seems to work for most people on the PCT. If you have hiked the PCT and used it, along with everyone around you, you might think so too.

We never mitigate our risks while UL hiking to ZERO in any category (food, shelter, weather, stream crossings, injuries, steep snow fields). We get to a level which seems safe FOR US, given many factors.

Anyway, I try to stay out of these USE THE TABLETS! threads, but it seems like there's never much response from all the people who have and do use Aquamira successfully, especially in the confines of a PCT thru-hike.

Nick,
I am consistently impressed by your reasonability and "living ease" comments. Seems like many people talk about weight, cost, etc. while you are concerned with the ease of living either out of a pack, in a shelter, with a pad or with treatment options. Just so happens that this is usually the cheapest, lightest, most efficient way as well. It is always nice to hear your thoughts on these topics as coming from that point of view. Thank you.
Benjamin,
You are obviously very intelligent and your methods are well sought out. You definitely did your research on the water treatment!
Dave,
I would like to see those stats too if they existed. However risk is usually 90% perceived and this seems to follow suit, as you mentioned. It is a balance between weight, cost, and our ability to take a certain amount of risk. I feel that the drops are a good compromise for me. Concerning the hygiene, how would you suggest taking Purell? Ryan mentions how important it is and also the use of baby wipes. He says that the wipes are water based, so a little heavy, but Purell is not light either. How much do you use? Sorry about the duplicate post, but thank you for still commenting!
A better informed Evan

Evan:

'Ben' is fine. :)

Since you've hitchhiked through Africa and all — curious, have you learned to do your business like the majority of "third world" denizens? Yeah, meaning cleaning your bottom with hand and water — sans toilet paper?

It's what I (and many others) do — and that eliminates weight and bulk right there — esp. over the long haul. I wash and then sanitize my hands with a few drops of Purell. Cleaner (most important) — simpler, lighter and better for the environment too. Sorry if preaching to the choir.

Ben,
Yeah I have learned to "do my business" with hand and water :) But I will probably choose something else for the PCT to save on water weight and using lots of later on. There might not be times when I will be near a water source and I will want to eat soon after, so I dont know if its the best for my on the PCT. How do you deal with that? Does save on weight!
The purell would be good for that technique however I usually want to use water as well, and I dont know that I would want to carry it. That would be increasing more weight than TP I believe. So many things to think about!
Evan

As someone who has hiked the PCT, aquamira drops should be more then fine. The only people I know who got Giardia last year on the trail was one of the occasions that they chose not to treat their water with anything. For the most part, most water sources are fine without treatment. The iffy areas are mainly due to the cattle grazing around the springs.

All the intestinal disorders on the PCT that one hears of is usually Giardia and it does't seem that common. I can only think of one guy in the past few years who claimed to have gotten crypto on the PCT, but it was a self diagnoses and he was still hiking with whatever symptoms he had.

I used a frontier Pro filter set up as a gravity filter (Anitgravitygear.com) for SoCal with Aqua Mira Tablets as a backup. The huge water carries needed in SOCal require treating water in bulk so the time waiting on a gravity filter wasn't an issue since it was nice to have at least 1 long break during the day. HOwever, for the Sierras onto Canada where getting water was no longer an issue and I wanted to treat just a liter at a time, I switched to Aqua Mira drops. The only places I didn't treat at all was near the passes of the High Sierra which were still covered in snow. Otherwise, I always treated with a half dosage and waited more then twice as long as the instructions called for. As most people have a certain amount of Giardia in their intestines already, my intention wasn't to kill everything in the water, just most of it so that my system wouldn't be overwhelmed by anything so while I've read the disclaimers about the drops, it still suits my purpose. The whole half dossage thing I actually picked up here on an article from a couple of years ago by one of the uber light guys. It's my personal choice (so don't bug me about it), and I've never regretted it thus far. I also tried to be somewhat selective in my water sources even with treatment as disgusting water is still digusting water even treated. I ended up using about 2.5 full size packages of Aqua Mira drops for about 1900 miles with this half dose method.

If you want to use Aqua Mira drops over the tablets for hiking the PCT, just be aware that the majority of thru-hikers use the drops and never have any problems. But ultimately its your decision and you are the one who will have to live with the consequences.

Evan:

Don't know how hardy you are, but I am actually something of a princess. The three months I spent going almost everywhere in China last year had their challenges. YMMV, but it was instantly easy for me to time my business to the mornings and nightfalls — where I had access to my own clean hotel bathroom — with extremely few exceptions.

I haven't done the PCT — but I assume the majority of the time, your camp selection will be reasonably near water sources? Time your 'business hours' accordingly to avoid carrying any "washing water".

Methinks like water treatment and most everything else, a combo of different methods will work best. Maybe cut down on carrying wads of TP by using them only at locations where water is scarce and far between — while relying on water when reasonably available?

Purell sanitizes instantly — so yes, it is safe to eat and shake hands and all that right after. And you only need to use a tiny amount each time.