Some gear ideas for water purification, whether for hiking fun or survival.

In a recent post, I touched on some of the basic platforms for survival that must be considered, and used the rule of 3's which I was taught through the years in military, Wilderness Search and Rescue with the Civil Air Patrol, but primarily through a Vietnam Veteran, Green Beret friend of mine.

https://steemit.com/homesteading/@drwillwho/survival-foundations-with-the-3-s-your-brain-on-disaster

(http://www.skilledsurvival.com/survival-skills/)

One of the rules of 3 is that we lose functionality and approach succumbing after or as we near 3 days without water. This kind of situation can happen if you get lost hiking or hunting, if your well or spring fails and you have to draw from an unclean source, or even if you're on city water but a disaster situation creates an outage.

Many people will store some water, but few store enough for any length of time. So if one is faced with a lack of clean water to drink, we suddenly are facing one of the rules of 3.

So if we're stuck collecting water from pond, creek, or stagnant pool/stock tank... how do we prevent it from being poison. Microorganisms thrive in water, and much of our natural resources are contaminated with bacteria, viruses, and protozoan parasites that can cause extreme illness. It does not help ward of the effects of dehydration to have raging diarrhea.

On a survival camping trip with a group of youth years ago, we had planned and taught and prepared them, teaching them techniques and providing advice for gear to purify water. One camper, who knew better than the rest of us dipped his face into some clean looking running water and 4 hours later had stomach cramps and was starting with diarrhea. Survival Camp fail.

(https://solvingtheibspuzzle.com/diarrhea/)

@fernowl13 provided a fantastic post detailing with specifics the methods for pre-filtering and purifying water with simple, homemade filters and calcium hypochlorite. https://steemit.com/foraging/@fernowl13/purifying-water-with-calcium-hypochlorite#

As an addition to the topic, I wanted to throw out a tool that I have become enamored with and have recommended to all my search team members as part of their 24 hour gear and to everyone I know who takes survival and preparedness seriously.

Initially I had purchased an MSR Sweetwater pump. This was done with much research and was a balance between what worked with good reviews and what I could afford. I've never regretted the purchase and my son will be leaving on a 76 mile hike next week and has chosen to bring it along as "team gear." For a group of 5, this is fairly light, expedient, and will serve them all well. Problems seem to be that it can become clogged to the point that backflushing doesn't restore usage and it's somewhat big and pricey.

So then LifeStraw came out. A fantastic personal filter that is designed to filter enough water for one person for one year.

They are lightweight and disposable. At $20 dollars, it was a great buy. The downside is you needed to drink directly from the contaminated water... it's a straw. Which means if you wanted to carry water for ongoing hiking or to cook with later, you had to put contaminated water into a container to carry with you, soiling your CamelBak or whatever bottle or canteen you use. Obviously in a survival situation, where ongoing drinking of contaminated water is expected, this is not a huge deal. However, we wanted to be able to use them hiking or adventuring, and weren't quick to have to thoroughly disinfect our gear after each hike (although probably should anyway). LifeStraw did come out with a family version for hunkering down and providing larger quantities of potable water through gravity filtration, but this was a separate tool, not back packable, yet still reasonably priced.

Community version for $329

LifeStraw family for ~$60

And the LifeStraw Mission version, ~$129.

These vary in filtered volume and portability and are excellent tools that could be part of anyone's home preparedness kit.

We, however, decided to move on to another player in the water filtration game made by Sawyer.

(~$29.00 at Walmart or found online)

The one we chose, although there are a host of products by this company, is the Sawyer mini. At 2 Oz it is very small and light and compact if you plan to use it on the go. It is rated at 100,000 gallons, meaning that at a gallon per day, it would last a person ~274 years. It is back flushable. It can be hooked inline with a CamelBak or other hydration pouch. It is designed to screw into any soda or similar bottle, and comes with a pouch if you want something your can roll up and pack. It also has a straw tube if you don't want to squeeze the fresh water into a clean container, but want to drink straight from the water source, bottle, or squeeze bag. It filters to 0.1 microns removing microorganisms that cause disease. They also have filters that go to 0.02 microns, which will filter viruses. Further, they have adapters that will allow one to turn a typical 5 gallon bucket or other water container into a reservoir for filtering with the Sawyer.

Please understand that I am in no way affiliated with any company or retailer looking to sell you anything. I just know that as my knowledge in Search and Rescue, survival, and disaster preparedness has progressed through the years, I have been thrilled to learn of advances that can replace the good ole iodine water purification pills we got back in the day in the military, with things that make delightfully good tasting and safe drinking water, and are still versatile and dependable.

Would love to learn from you what your favorite gear is. I'm an old man but still learning, and passing information down through the Civil Air Patrol and other mentoring opportunities to the next generations.

Thank you and steem on!