BeFree Filter Update: Bad News, 3 Days on the Trail with 5 People
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Replacement bottle 402033 is an up dated bottle to the earlier models 2901X that were being sold at original offering I bet.
All you BeFee users look on the seam of your flexible 1L flask and see if the serial number you have is 2901X OR …..?
OKÂ This has (as usual in this community) been a really interesting and informative thread.
Tony I don’t know you; but over the years I’ve come to appreciate your methodical approach and it is well displayed in this thread. I especially appreciate the info on vinegar. BTW what kind of vinegar? Apple?, Clear white, red wine?
Like John Vance and others I’ve got quite a few liters on my be-free with just a slight diminution in the perceived flow rate. That said I used it in the Winds (thanks Lester for some help on that trip planning) with REALLY clear water everywhere, and in the Smokies/Balsams above 4000 (mostly higher) with ditto clear water. I’ve had some clogs over the years and pick my sources carefully.
Speaking of which the 2 posts previous to this one discussing or raising the question of pre-filtering seem to me to hit on the “money” question. What do you do with sediment loaded water? Which (sediment) can result from a wide variety of souces. Like suspended solids in upper Deer Creek in the Grand Canyon coming out of a spring for Pete’s sake ( admittedly coming out like a really big firehose during the spring thaw…. but whatever)
I have a lot of sympathy with Don Burton about moving away from filtration in certain situations and locations and probably wouldn’t have even used a filter on the Winds or Smokies trips but for the be-free’s ease of use and small/light size. In fact I’ll state that if your source is not below some area/trail frequented by pack animals or other large ungulates? or situated such that a smaller mammals fecal discharge could somehow be concentrated there’s almost no way you’re going to ingest enough bacteria to get sick. This sometimes requires a little knowledge of the terrain, especially when you can’t just look up to determine the ultimate source; but the bacteria has to come from somewhere and my understanding is that just a few random bacteria won’t get you sick.
There’ve been some threads on this subject and possibly articles but everyone understandably has to tap-dance about making any flat out assertions. There’s always the possibility of some weird exception; the filter “industry” is fairly robust/well-capitalized, and no one wants to take even the most remote chance of getting sick.
Fear: Curse of the human existence, root of selfishness: original sin. Haha another thread for chaff?
Anyway I did have this experience shown in the photo below. Evidently I had a bunch of gear thrown together before post-trip sorting and re-organizing and the only thing I can figure that could have happened is some strong deet leaked onto the bag. How does everyone organize their gear anyway? That might be another good thread!
Whatever it was burned a hole right through the bag; both sides, and even “welded” the edges of the hole together. So don’t store your bag anywhere near your deet! It that’s what it was? Irony is I didn’t even use the deet, using Picaridin instead, in part because of worries about deet’s solvent type characteristics. Picaridin Worked great. There were lots of mosquitoes in the Winds right up to 12000 feet! My treated clothing was maybe my most critical piece of gear but again another thread.
I’m going to try and get Hydrapak to take a look at it. Maybe they can determine if it was in fact deet. Katadyn replaced the bag no problem; even with me explaining that it hadn’t really “failed”. Meantime I bought another and now have 2!
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