CLO2 tabs & SteriPen

Pretty good system there. I like your combination as the Steripen provides quick access to water when needed while the tablets save you from the tedious job of treating water liter by liter.

I sometimes wonder if some of the folks using chlorine dioxide tablets aren't really giving the chemicals the proper, multi-hour treatment time — esp. when collecting water along the trail during the day???

Curious, when at camp, do you use different bladders? Methinks you can conserve on those expensive CLO2 tablets by treating just drinking water — leaving water for cooking and washing untreated.

"Yes, the addition of the SteriPen is not as "UL" as the tabs alone and on strenuous high altitude hikes I only carry the tabs."

I've found that for me and the way I hike the steripen has been more ultralight than aquamira or tabs.

With chemical sterilization, since I had to wait 30 minutes before drinking, I always had to carry more water, typically 2 liters, drinking from one bottle while the other was being treated. With the steripen, since you can immediately drink the water, I generally only carry one liter. Weight savings is almost 2lbs.

Daniel, you have a good point on saving water weight by using only the SteriPen. I'll try that on my next week's Escalante, Utah backpack. I'll still have several CLO2 tabs for backup to the SteriPen.

Ben, I boil my otherwise untreated cooking & dish washing water. No sense in wasting good treated water for cooking (unless it's a "dry" camp).