Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Best Water filter?

Currently use a katadyn hiker. It works well but is a bit slow, and only fits certain water bottles.

What is the easiest, simplest, safest, and fastest filter to use?

Really like the Sawyer 3-in-1 inline with a water bladder hose. It's worth checking out.

I've been using a Sawyer squeeze and like it better than my prior pump type filter. It's small, simple, lightweight and works well.

There was some discussion here before with a poster having a filter quit working. I don't recall if a cause was ever diagnosed. The filter is small enough and cheap enough, you could carry an extra filter for a big trip no problems. I actually have two filters so my daughter and I can each carry our own.

I'd like to try the 3-in-1 Jordan mentioned as gravity feed is nice when you are filtering several liters.

Another vote for the Sawyer squeeze filter.

as long as gravity is available I'm not planning on pumping or squeezing nada

I like the sawyer set up as gravity feed. If you are not filtering glacial silt, they work awesome. If you are, or might be, bring the backflush kit or a backup filter. They do better than most pump filters I've used in silt, but they will clog up, and the only way to clean them is to backflush, whereas most pumps you can take apart and brush out.

Filter killer (and free tickets!):

MSR Autoflow.




Travis

I like the Sawyer mini also except for certain situations.

On a hike in PA a couple of months ago, the source of water was a very shallow and barely moving creek. I could not get the water bags (that the Sawyers come with) filled and expanded at all. It was a PITA to fill the stupid plastic bladder bag with a trickle from a cup so that you then squeeze a trickle through at a time. A buddy with an MSR pump just stuck a filtered hose in the water and pumped his fill lickety-split.

For a few ounces more, I'm thinking of packing a Katadyn mini again or picking up a Platypus zip bladder for easier filling for those types of situations.

Sawyer fan here as well....been using them since 2011. Hard to go wrong with its simplicity.

I'm sure those bags that come with the sawyer are good for something, but damned if I know what.

This setup works nicely (stolen from AK Lanche):


Platypus big zip "dirty bag" to filter to clean bag. Always bring some kind of hard bottle for seeps.

It starts to get less "ultralight", but never pumping water is so worth it.

The mini is effective but very slow as a gravity filter for me. Add in that for me it has clogged really easy from what seemed clear water and it has been retired for me. Perhaps I got a bad one ?

I weighed my gravity system I took last year on a week long trip on the CDT and it weighed almost as much as the Platy system by the time you factored in bottle / hydration bag / filter. Sorry, I prefer not to squeeze, and I've had two of the squeeze bags go belly up when squeezing on trips, which is frustrating, so the bags are a NO for me.

Recently, I timed several filters, all back flushed well before hand, and the mini took 8 minutes to fill a glass, meanwhile the platy took just over a minute and new Aquamira Green Line Frontier took 1.5 minutes. There are faster solutions than the mini, and while maybe they don't have a million gallon rating, I really view the million gallon rating as something that would require more time than I am willing to commit to (at 16 oz per 8 min, roughly 114 years for 1 million gallons )

Recently, I was on a trip, with folks using the sawyer squeeze / mini combo. Guess what ? They borrowed several tabs from me and ended up throwing them in the 64 oz sawyer bag after squeezing enough to get by for a little while and letting tabs doing the bulk of the work.

For the most part, I have moved back to a bottle (Aquamira Frontier ) and tabs solution. It is less hassle , and generally lighter. For more group situations , I would take the Platy filter system. For a more UL gravity solutions, I'd probably just downsize the Platy and carry tabs or drops to augment it.

There is another filter I am interested in trying called the Rapid Pure. I just have not got around to trying / testing it yet, but probably will in the next few weeks. We (meaning Seek Outside) do carry the Aquamira Green Line bottle (which can be adapted to gravity) and the Aqua Mira tabs.

Bottom line for me, no filter is perfect, and personally, I have used the Sawyer a lot , but found them a bit frustration , and when configured as a gravity system , still heavier than need be. Tabs are not free, but boy they are easy when you have the time to wait. A lot of filters are faster than the sawyers, and work well, and if I need to replace one for $20 every year for the speed , so be it.

Kevin,

Have you tried the Sawyer 3-in-1, or just the Mini?

I've used the mini, point one and bottle.

I have not timed the point one and old bottle filter, but the point one is not speedy

I started with the 3 in 1. Last year gave the mini a whirl....not overly impressed....went back to the 3 in 1.

Usually just dip the 3 Liter platypus big zip and filter as it drink. But when stocking up on water or making camp water I will use my drinking bladder to filter into a clean 6L MSR dromlite.....seems to work well.

That way through out the day you are never actually stopping to filter, but rather just fill up the bladder and go.

^ Yup

johnW:

Best? Everyone has their own opinion about which filter is best for them. So I'll give you my opinion.

For over thirty years I drank directly from clean fast-flowing streams. I boiled water when it looked less than pure and used iodine tablets when I had no other choice. I never had a problem. Not even common diarrhea. Then a friend got Guardia. Big strong guy and it knocked him down for three months. I've used a filter ever since.

You asked about speed. I think you've already got the fastest system. The Katadyn Hiker Pro is the fastest. It's been the standard by which all other filters are measured for over a decade. It's reliable and you can clean the pre-filter (that fabric wrapped around the primary filter) which gets clogged and keeps the primary filter clean. It will fit any container because you can remove the Katadyn/Nalgene adapter and drain the hose directly into any container. But a lot of people, including me, have gotten tired of pumping.

I own a Sawyer Squeeze Filter. I squeeze the first couple quarts to get dinner started then gravity filter more water while I'm eating. It's slower than the Platapus as a gravity filter but faster when you can squeeze the first quarts then have lots of time to wait for gravity to work on the rest. The syringe makes back-flushing quick and easy. The 2 liter bag is kind of small.

I also own a Platapus Water Works gravity filter. It's prone to clogging, even with super clean water, and I have to back-flush it a lot. But I like the bigger bags. You have to gravity-flow clean water backwards to back-flush the filter. After a recent trip, I discovered that there were some bubbles inside the inlet side of the in-line filter that were reducing the flow rate. After shaking out the bubbles the filter ran much quicker.

I have finally setup the Sawyer squeeze filter with the Platapus bags and like that system a lot. This combines the best features of each system.

I had a Katadyn Base Camp gravity filter and I sold it. The filter is inside the upper bag and I think that is a design flaw.

I hate the taste of iodine tablets and don't like waiting 20 minutes before the water is safe to drink.

Boiling always works if you have lots of fuel.

I read an article which stated that the Steri-Pen didn't always work effectively.

KC

Quick Update

I have a couple of the Rapid Pure filters. I plan to do some testing, but at least initially it is pretty darn fast, and seems to not have any issues with freezing as long as you take a little care.

I use a Base Camp. We pack with llamas. I take along a couple of empty 1 gal jugs. When we reach camp, I first get the filter going to fill a jug. By the time the llamas are tethered and the tent's up, I have a gal ready to use.
During hunting season, it's important to drain it at night so it doesn't freeze.

+1 on the Rapid Pure.
You can freeze them, thaw them out and they still work.

MSR has a new filter as well that even removes virus's and is self flushing.
Only drawback is the $300 price tag.

I just purchased 2 sawyer mini's for use this fall in the Wilderness here in New Mexico. I plan on using one inline and filling up the camelback bladder and going. The second one is going to be used as a gravity for base camp.

I filled a one liter bottle of water ( with the bottom cut off to help the gravity test) this weekend and measured the "speed" of how fast it filtered water. It took 15 minutes on the dot to filter one gallon of water. I have no idea if that is fast or slow, but it seemed to work very well. Now this was clean tap water it was filtering.

I plan on carrying two empty water jugs or bladders into camp and gravity filter while setting up camp, making dinner, etc.. One dirty and one clean. That way I have clean water at camp all the time.