Anyone gravity filter on the move?

I used to do this on most backpacking trips, until I picked up a BeFree filter. While I like the gravity pack setup, the big downsides are having to carry the weight of the water while it’s filtering, and having to wait a little while before drinking. There’s a picture of my gravity setup on a gray GG Gorilla backpack toward the bottom of the following thread:

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/advice-needed-for-fast-water-treatment-on-long-days/#post-3462550

That’s an awesome looking setup!  I don’t quite follow your comment about the “downside”.  If you filter water you are going to have to carry the same amount anyway.

Not if you filter and drink at the same time. With the Sawyer Mini, it’s really too slow to stand there and squeeze while drinking immediately IMHO. So you end up gravity filtering on your pack, which may take 10 minutes depending on how recently you backflushed. Plus it does require taking off your pack to affix the gravity filter system to it. No big deal at all to do this, it just takes an extra minute.

In contrast, with the BeFree filter, it’s so fast that you can drink immediately and not carry any water, if you have frequent water sources. Here’s the process I used last weekend while testing out a 1.0L BeFree:

1. You stop along the trail at a water source and retrieve the BeFree filter from your side or shoulder strap pocket.
2. Fill the bladder with water (made easy due to the wide mouth) and screw on the filter/lid. 0.5L at most if you will have water sources along the trail soon.
3. Squeeze and immediately drink the water (up to 0.5L at a time ideally) while standing there or slowly hiking.
4. When done drinking (10-15 seconds for half a liter), stow the empty bladder/filter in your pack’s side or shoulder strap pocket and keep hiking.

You can do all the above without ever taking off your pack, which I really liked. So you end up never carrying water, never taking your pack off to get water, and never stopping longer than it takes to fill the wide mount bladder. Again, this is assuming you have regular water sources along the trail. Otherwise, you’ll want to carry enough water to keep you hydrated until you reach your next water source, which usually is not much if you can immediately “camel up” half a liter before you leave your last source.

Wow that sounds like a great system. Do you bring aquamira or anything for a backup?

So far, no backup, but looking at options now. A 3 to 5 day supply of Aquamira in small dropper bottles only weighs an ounce, so that may be a good backup option, especially on short trips. For two ounces, one could buy the 0.6L version and have redundant reservoirs and redundant filters – this backup option would make sense on a longer trip. There are at least three other threads on BPL recently about the Be Free filter system you may find informative:

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/love-my-befree-filter/

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/katadyn-befree-aftermarket-bottle-question/

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/new-katadyn-befree-filter-bottle/