Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Camping out for elk

Melting snow takes a lot of fuel and fuel's heavy. If you can filter from a creek, you'll be better off. As far as boiling water to sterilize it, ignore the Boy Scout manual. They're wrong. You don't have to boil water 5 or 10 min to kill the germs. There are no harmful bugs that can survive above 160F. Milk is pasteurized at 160. If you get it to 170 or 180, you're totally safe. If you're unsure about when it reaches 180, you can go up to boiling but anything beyond that is a waste of time and fuel. If you want to be sure, you can carry one of these folding thermometers. They're pretty cheap and work well.