Dondo:

Right indeed. Most alpine mountain streams are pretty clear... but in the lowlands, river water can be completely brown!

Is the tent in your avatar a MontBell Hexagon? How do you like it?

Edited by ben2world on 03/27/2007 22:00:58 MDT.

Sometimes that brown color is nothing more than iron. I see that all over the rocky Chebucto Penninsula near my hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The water is fine... but it doesn't look that appealing!!!

I also often hike an amazing penninsula in the province called Cape Chignecto. It's pretty remote with a lot of fast running streams. All of the headwaters are not more than a few K away at the high points of the plateau which the trail circles. No settlements. No livestock. This water is probably fine... and I've hiked that trail with people who just drink right from the streams. I've done it myself actually. Beautiful clear, clean water. But you know... you never know if some small animal may have died upstream or something... so I use Aqua Mira (Pristine) now... just in case.

>>Is the tent in your avatar a MontBell Hexagon? How do you like it?

Ben, the tent in my avatar photo is actually a Montbell Diamond and I like it a lot. It's one of the two most frequently used shelters in my collection, the other being a tarptent.

Dondo,

Do you find the lack of a vestibule limiting in any way?

How is condensation? Do you switch to the tarptent for the warmer, wetter times of the year?

I see snow. Do you need to melt snow, or is flowing water still available where you hike?


What are the three things you like most, and least (if there are three?) about the MB Diamond?



Many thanks in advance,
pj


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EDIT:

Oops. Hijack. My apologies. Dondo, feel free to PM me or reply in a new Thread.

Edited by pj on 03/28/2007 07:51:20 MDT.

pj, good hijack, I was gonna ask him the same question. Actually, I'd love a thread on tent colors - you know, everyone's preferences and reasons. Me, I'm a pirate camper...

Old Goat here did get sick from wilderness water one year when she trusted a boyfriend to purify water from a beaver-inhabited lake. Never again. "Lost" the giardia only after multiple rounds of Flagyl (metronidozole); "lost" the boyfriend more easily. *WHEW* Still, backpacking alone gets old fast.

This is a great discussion and rather well-attended for something that has supposedly already been dealt with. I'm looking seriously at the Steripen and thinking that it would be smart to have more than one method in the arsenal, hang the weight. Well, not hang it but maybe worth a few ounces. He, keep it going.

Hi pj & Mandy, I'll start a new thread on this.

OK we have discussed how various treatments are less effective against certain nasties.

So how do we know what we are facing in a given AO? What are the viruses present? Bacteria and giardia are pretty given... is crypto even around?

Surely they test the waters.... surely someone has this sort of info. Should we call BLM/Rangers Office/DOW who?

"Surely they test the waters.... surely someone has this sort of info. Should we call BLM/Rangers Office/DOW who?"

If you hike in truly wild areas where few people have ever been -- you shouldn't have to worry about viruses.

But if you hike on trails -- which by definition means that enough people hike on them to warrant building and maintaining them -- then I don't think you can assume that any tests done at specific points in time would still be applicable to you at the moment you are drinking.

Crypto is alive and well and present in some water sources.

According to FDA/BBB in ~80% of the adult population of the USofA it can be demonstrated through serological testing that protein specific antibodies to Crypto are present.

Fortunately, most strains produce mild symptoms in healthy individuals. Most of us may never really have know we were exposed to Crypto. There are supposedly some strains that can put an otherwise healthy individual down however.

A lot of people talk about using the BPL droppers for their Aquamira - do you use the same number of drops as recommended by the directions? Has anyone actually checked whether this produces the same amount of liquid?

My recollection from past posts that RJ made is you need to increase the drops from 7 to 11 in order to get the equivalent amount.