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Old timer on the PCT told me to ditch my water filter and just drink straight from mountain streams
I ran into this guy near Crater Lake back in 2017 who swore he'd been drinking untreated water for decades without getting sick. I was carrying a heavy pump filter at the time so I figured I'd give it a shot. Three days later I was curled up in my tent with the worst giardia of my life, barely able to keep water down. Did anyone else get burned by bad backcountry advice from someone who seemed way too confident?
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park.abby12d ago
At least your water was filtered by your own digestive system rejecting it.
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casey1623d ago
Man that sucks. I feel for you. I had a similar run in with some old timer's advice about fording a river in the Sierra and ended up soaked and hypothermic.
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Honestly I get why people say that but I think it's way overblown. @casey16 sorry you got hypothermic but that's a totally different thing than drinking a little stream water. I've been drinking from mountain streams for years and never had a problem. Maybe your gut just wasn't used to it or maybe that particular stream had a beaver upstream or something. People act like every drop of untreated water is poison but millions of hikers have done it forever with no issues. Ngl drinking straight from a cold stream is one of the best parts of backpacking, I'd rather take my chances than carry a heavy filter.
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