Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Modern water treatment

I just bought a Steripen ultralight. My question is for those of us that don't have clear mountain streams to source water from, do you ever prefilter with like a coffee filter or something for particulates before using the pen or just go with it?

Turbidity definitely reduces the effectiveness of UV light. If you don't want to pre-filter, another alternative is to carry an extra water bottle, fill it, set it aside and let the sediment settle. Then decant the clarified water into another container for treatment.

Solar water treatment is being used a lot in many parts of the world where there is no water treatment available. Simply fill a clear bottle with water and set it in the sun all day. Ol' Sol does the rest.
Home UV water treatment systems do nothing but channel water past a UV bulb. There's nothing elaborate about them.

Yeah, thanks, Cap'n.

Buddy bought one of those when it first came out. His was a dud right out of the box.

I have a Sawer mini in the panier on the motorcycle that I hunt off of.. I keep another in my backpack/canoe camping gear.

Here on the desert stock tanks àre your main source of water .

Bleach

YUK!! been there done that.

Old school.

Two(2) drops/Quart.




GR

Mike- Almost same experience as you. I ordered a SteriPen Ultralight from Backcountry, charged it, treated 1 liter, when I started to treat the 2nd lite, the"needs charging" light came on.
I called Katadyn customer service and was told that I needed to charge it for at least 6 hours to begin with, regardless of what the indicator light showed.(It probably charged 3 hours, before the full charged light came on)
So, I charged it overnight and near the end of treating my 1st liter, the needs charging light came on. I called customer service and was told a new SteriPen would be on it's way to me. They are also sending a mailer to send the defective one back.
That was day before yesterday and I haven't received it yet, but will let you know the outcome.

Yeah I definitely would like to hear how the next one goes. Knock on wood, I’ve had a few more trips since I last posted and still working flawlessly. Hope the same goes for you.

For 2 or more people, platypus for the win. It's all I carry now. The basic setup gives you 4 liters of water storage, it filters quickly and passively, so you don't have to camp exactly next to a water source. Fill it, hang it, get on with other chores. You can fill the reservoir in the evening and have water for drinking and cooking until the next morning. I also carry tablets in case the filter goes south. Problem with all the tablets is they are hell on your GI bacteria.

Steripen is cool and I have one I used for travel in 3rd world so I could drink hotel water, but they take a long time and you still are limited to the nalgenes or whatever that you brought for water storage.

I don't know that I would call it modern but I have been using Aqua Mira drops since they came out and I've never been sick as a result

you guys have me worried about my steri pen now. I'm heading for Utah in a couple weeks. Think I'll take the Sawyer as well.

unless it's a brand new Ultralight, you should be fine; if it is a brand new Ultralight- you can test it at home, that's what I did with my second one- treat 10-15 liters and you'll know if it works as it's supposed or not

I always bring Aquatabs or MicroPur tabs as a backup- that's using a Steripen OR a filter, it's with the 0.1 oz of weight

When reading this thread I think back to all my years back home , Grand County, Co. I never treated my water in the high country, but I new where all the wallows and beavs were residing, usually, and I always got replenished as close to the water coming out of the ground as possible. Never got sick all those years. Incredible! These days, way too many people in the high country for me anymore!

There are a lot of animals besides beaver that carry giardia. It's true that most high mtn water is clean. Most. This whole water treatment thing is just playing the odds of a stream being infected. The higher you get, the lower the odds. However, the odds rarely get down to 0.
The thing is, there's a certain % of streams that are infected and there's no way of knowing which ones they are. It's a low % to be sure. Drinking from them is playing roulette. The more you do it, the greater the chance that you'll get one of the infected ones.

So the new SteriPen showed up yesterday.(Along with a mailer to “recycle “ the defective one)
I charged it overnight then tried it this afternoon.
It purified 6 liters in a row, then flashed low battery on the 7th.
I think I’ll charge it overnight again and tomorrow test the purifying spread out over several hours like I would in real life.
If I get the same results, I’ll send it back to Backcountry.
I don’t need 20 liters on a charge but 12-15 would make me more comfortable than 6.

yeah I did my "test" spacing them out a bit, couple of liters and then an hour or two later a couple of more, etc

definitely need to be getting more than 6 liters on a full recharge!

That's what I did. Tested at home yesterday. I got through about 4 cycles before the needs charging light came on. I charged about 16 hours. I got 6 cycles before the needs charging light came on. What a PITA. I leave on the 6th for a 10 day hunt. Sure hope I can get this fixed/replaced before then.

ETA - what CS # did you call? It says call your local support office. Closest one to me in in Canada but it looks like they have a couple in California?