Drinking Glacier water

[Arthur]

Are there any Gastro issues with drinking straight, cloudy glacier water?  I am not asking about filtering it or getting diseases. This would be water at its terminus or close to it that is full of silt and cloudy.

[Roger Caffin]

We have often taken water from the outflow from a snow bank, with zero effects.

Any cloudiness is likely to be either organic silt or ground granite dust. You get a lot of the latter in places like the Himalayas. Once again, these particles are unlikely to have any effect on the gut.

The big danger for gastro has always been a lack of hygiene. “Oh, it’s too cold to wash my hands …” Happens all the time with young males.

Cheers

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

I prefer not to. But if I was super thirsty, I would. Otherwise, no.

[SIMULACRA]

I’ve never had an issue that can be contributed directly to drinking straight from the source, no filtration or purification. I do it all the time and it’s quite refreshing. The best you’ll ever taste. As Roger stated, hygiene is paramount. Wash those hands!

[Jerry Adams]

I don’t drink silty water for aesthetic reasons

I drink alpine water untreated all the time. I haven’t noticed any illness but some of them can have minor symptoms

It’s so easy to treat water though it doesn’t make much difference.

[David Thomas]

Glaciers grind up rocks to a very fine “glacial silt” which stays suspended for a long time (and give glacial lakes that beautiful turquoise color).  They also grind up any ore veins into very fine particulates so heavy metals get transported and redeposited downstream.  In my area, that’s most commonly arsenic, but cadmium and other heavy metals are found in some drainages in concentrations you shouldn’t drink all day, every day, for 70 years.  I don’t fret about it while backpacking, but I do treat the water at home.

Back to the normal glacial silt: I’m not aware of any gastric issues from the silt itself.  It complicates filtration, UV and chemical treatment – none of those are impossible, just more involved and with more caveats.  Boiling always works.   OTOH, it’s million-year-old rock in 800-year-old  fallen, compressed, then melted snow; and so while animals (and humans) occasionally traverse glaciers, I’m less concerned about meltwater right from a snow field or glacier than with most surface waters.

[AK Granola]

We recently camped on a glacial river, and the very silty river was the only water source nearby. We used it for cooking, drinking, for several meals and a couple liters a piece for our next day hike. No one had any issues. We used a BeFree filter and also prefiltered through a cloth, but that one overnight of filtering glacial water pretty much killed the BeFree. I’ve tried cleaning it and it just doesn’t flow well at all any more. If I were to do it again, I’d boil to treat instead and just drink all of the silt instead of only some of it. It was also a bit of a challenge to get the silt out of our socks, shoes and pants, since we had to cross at thigh high water; took about 15-20 minutes to cross. That stuff really sticks. So consuming the silt itself, no issues for us. Couldn’t taste or feel it in our noodles or coffee either! “Camping clean.”

There is a mountain stream on a nearby trail (not glacial) that is notorious for causing gastrointestinal problems regardless of treatment method, and the issues appear fast, within 20 minutes of drinking it, and everyone gets hit. I don’t know what it is in it – some kind of minerals, or a chemical? But it’s a known water source to avoid, I just don’t know why. So I suppose there are other issues to be concerned about in water beyond the bacteria and parasites that are the most common culprits of illness.

[Roger Caffin]

Well, it is not gastroenteritis.
The most common kind — the one caused by a virus — makes you feel sick 12 to 48 hours after you’re exposed to it, and it can last up to 3 days. If it’s caused by bacteria or parasites, it may last longer.
https://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/ss/slideshow-stomach-flu

And it is not Giardia either – that takes up to 10 days to appear.

Cheers

[Barbara O’Donnell]

If we were camped by heavily silt laden glacial rivers with no other option we might fill pots or waterproof stuff sacks with water and let the sediment settle out if possible and decant the clear water off the top. Sometimes the only option is to boil or treat or just drink it.

[Terran Terran]

Bottle it and sell it to the hipsters.

[jscott]

Here’s an abbreviated movie script:

camera come up on a sunny Alaskan meadow “5,000 years ago”. suddenly, a comet falls out the sky. Birds begin dying. Two Wooly Mammoths are shown browsing in the grass. One of them falls ill and lies down. “Save yourself, Gladys!” he trumpets from his snout (in my script there’s translations of Mammoth trumpets on the screen down below.) “Howard!! cries the other Mammoth. I’ll run and get old doc Thomas from down in the valley.” “Too late!” cries Howie. “Save yourself! the moon rock is cursed! Run and never come back!””

Blackout. The camera comes up on Dustin Hoffman, dressed in surgical scrubs, entering the operating theatre. Suddenly, two men in black suits appear. They drag Hoffman away to a scene up in Alaska. “Glacier silt water!!!” I knew it! Cries Hoffman. “I’ve been screaming for years not to drink glacial silt water, but no one would listen…” “And now” intones one of the guys in a black suit, “Now, we have a global outbreak that threatens humanity”.

etc etc.

Me? I’ve drunk glacial silt water to no ill effect. But beware the frozen Wooly Mammoth parasite taking life in your belly! (cue, the Alien monster.)

[Barbara O’Donnell]

I’ve also seen moose carcass’, smelled newly exposed mammoth bones in cutbanks and plenty of rotten salmon in our Alaskan rivers. There can also be mining debris and run off even near glaciers.  Giardia is transported by people although beavers get the bad rap. There’s not much beaver activity on a Glacier.  I’m going to Pakistan soon and definitely curious/concerned about the conditions along the Baltoro Glacier. Human fecal contamination is now a concern in remote areas everywhere. Silt and glacial flour doesn’t bother me too much.

[AK Granola]

I want to say magnesium sulfate was the cause of that bad water on a popular trail up here, that I mentioned up thread. But is that naturally occurring here in Alaska? Or something else like that, some mineral – people drink from that source and have to … run for it. The State has never put up a sign at the water source; you just have to know not to take water from there. Typical for Alaska, tbh. I’ll take glacial silt water over weird funky water like that. We routinely filter out of tundra ponds though. I used to use my Steripen on those, but the filters get rid of the wiggly things too (that are probably edible, but ew).

[Barbara O’Donnell]

AK Granola, I will ask my friend who was the DEC Water Quality engineer here in the Northern Region. He’s been retired a long time though. And they don’t test other than municipal/villages.

Where is this pond or river you speak of?

In my work traveling to villages in the Tanana Chiefs Reguon we would run into all kinds of water-high iron, high organics, high calcium,high sulfur. It depended on the source point. We always hand carried distilled water for our dental equipment-usually 10 gallons-very expensive to ship and possibility of freezing. Some coworkers actually shipped personal bottled drinking water!

[AK Granola]

Ermine Hill trail off the Kesugi Ridge Trail.

[Barbara O’Donnell]

Ok, If I get info I’ll post. I went down to hike Coal Creek to Ermine Hill this summer, but there was too much dead fall on Coal Creek so I hiked the Curry Ridge trail.

[AK Granola]

Oooh, thread drift. How was Curry ridge? I want to get down there! Maybe we’ll get some sun one of these days, before winter hits.

[Barbara O’Donnell]

Curry Ridge trail from Kesugi Ridge Campground is great. 40 years ago we would run the Anchorage Midnight Sun Marathon and then hike up to Curry Ridge on the same day! Now it is a well maintained switchback trail. What’s the same? The VIEW is always fantastic.

[Arthur]

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