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.

Another Sawyer fan here.

I like what people are saying about the Rapid Pure system but there only a few reviews on Amazon.com for the Rapid Pure water filter and the reviews are mixed. One review says don't buy it. Another says it's five-star. I think I'll wait and watch until there are more reviews of the system.

KC

That's interesting. I just went and timed the Sawyer 3-in-1 just to see how it stacks up to the Mini. Just under 9 minutes to filter a gallon by gravity, even considering the bottleneck adapter fittings that allow nothing more than a trickle to enter and flow through the filter.

EDIT: BTW, looks like Sawyer now calls the 3-in-1 filter the PointONE...

I hate to be "that guy" who veers a thread off course, but I am done with filters. They are too damn slow, the straws are too tiring on my throat and cheek muscles (don't even think about saying it Deflave) and too much crap to carry.

I am going back to drinking straight out of springs (never, ever had an issue but have heard too many giardia stories) but probably also will carrying coffee filters and an eye dropper full of bleach. The coffee filters get the big stuff out and the bleach works pretty well to kill anything in there. I've heard the bad stories about drinking bleach, but I use only a drop in a 32 OZ bottle and I would rather suffer those effects than giardia.

A filter is especially important to a hunter who has to fly. Can you imagine a gut bug attack while you're in the airport security line?

I use a steripen and a bandana filter, never had a problem even from somewhat questionable sources. I carry a week's worth of tablets in case something happens to the steripen but so far it's lasted over 2000 miles of hiking use with just routine battery changes.

When I was in the Congo we used bleach to purify the tap-water. 6-8 drops per gallon. We boiled too, in big commercial coffee pots.

We still had the shzits all the time.

Gamma Globulin, and Chloroquine were staple items.

I have a pump filter...worked good....but SLOW! It is the katadyn hiker before katadyn bought the company. I recently got the Camelbak All Clear (a deal too hard to pass up). I just used it on a quick trip and it did great. I used it right next to the steripen my BIL owns and both did well. I probably did 7 gallons of water and the battery didn't really take a hit. Showed 3/4 after a long spell of using it, but then showed 4 bars on the one bottle I sterilized on the trip out. I personally won't go back to the pump. My FIL has a sawyer of some type and it does fine. Me I'll have some coffee filters on hand if there's lots of sediment. This last trip was a clear stream and no pre-filtering was done. I was very pleased with how it worked.

I don't know about "best" ... I start out trying to be selective about what water source I start with and the filter is just ... baggage. I use one anyway.

For backpacking I use a MSR "hyperflow microfilter" .. packs small. It is fast enough for solo use.

Tom

Sent my son to the Chugach for 2 weeks with a steripen. Been using a Sawyer with good results. Be interested to hear how it worked.

Used the Katadyn 6 liter Base Camp the past few days and I liked it plenty.

Very fast and I've not schit my pants. Yet.




Travis

Lie.




Dave

I have been using a Sawyer mini and despite some limitations it works good.



And naturally boiling works.

The hiker has served me well, but I do feel that a gravity filter could be put to work while i was setting up camp.
I'm not really out there to spend my time pumping water.

I'm old, overweight, and sweat like a fat man. And I stay close to water out of necessity.

The hiker is handy for stream side breaks and filling water bottles. Got a deal on some nalgene liters that fit the end on the discharge hose . Probably good to go...

Last year on our elk hunt in Colorado, my son and I spent seven days in the mountains. We used the Steripen exclusively, I think we strained it through a coffee filter or something. But it worked fine, and nobody had any stomach problems.

I can't swear it's the "best," but I'm completely happy with my MSR Miniworks EX. If mine was stolen, I'd probably buy another one w/o doing much research.

Between my hunting buddy and myself, we've tried 4 or 5 of the most popular filters (won't mention which ones), and we both now have MSR Mini-works EX filters. They are simple to set up, and easy to use. More importantly, they are as fast as any of the other filters we've used.

My MSR Miniworks sits in a box collecting dust nowadays...

Just got back from 7 days of filtering straight silt through a sawyer mini. At one point we were backflushing after every bag (3 liters [which is about 3 quarts in 'merican]). But they work, and I still greatly prefer them to anything non-gravity fed.

Just got back from 4 days of using the Camelbak All Clear in the White Clouds. Still liking it and no Hershey squirts!

Just got back from using the Rapid Pure in the Arctic for a few days and it worked well. It did freeze once but worked fine once thawed

I've used the Sawyer the last couple years. Have been happy, but I did freeze it pretty good once, and the bags are well worn. Not sure I am confident I won't tear a bag, and they state it should not be frozen. So, now I don't know if it's really working.

Edit: for under $20 I just picked up a new Sawyer mini.

Can anyone elaborate on how what components they're using to set up a Sawyer Mini as a gravity filter? I've used the Katadyn Hiker for years, so I'm not really up on this stuff...

I bought the Mini hoping to squeeze from a Platy bag through the filter and into a Nalgene bottle or another Platy bag for more storage. The threads on the Platy bag don't exactly fit (well, sort of...not really).

Can I just use Platypus drinking tube from the dirty bag to the filter and another from the filter to the clean bag? Another $25, but should work and uses the bags I already have a bunch of.

Yes, you can.

Glacial water or dirty needs to be settled first if you want any filter life. Visit your local water treatment plant and ask if you can have some of there coagulant. Add 5 to 10 drops per gallon let it settle then filter the top clear portion. PM for more details.

How do these stack up against salt water? I am planning on graduating from lakes & streams to the big water, and was looking for something other than carrying water along in any form. Thanks.

I used this http://shop.katadyn.com/product/8019160?catalog_id=1&language_id=1

2 weeks in AK with no problems plus a couple 3-4 day backpacking trips.

At 11oz my katadyn hiker is heavier than I like. But for over the last 10 years it's been flawless in every aspect of the word.

Been around MSR pumps that broke or didn't like. And twice now I've watched guys trying to suck start gravity fed filters. (Go ahead)

How do you attach the KH to other bottles? You talking about hooking the hose up to a nipple or something? Never tried it. I just unscrew the cap and fill it. 3 litre platy zip the best.

Hey Ed,Where do you find those filters ?
Tim

I have used a platypus system for years after using a pump before.

Love the platypus. Have never had a problem with plugging or speed.

I use it in the bush in Canada every year for some time now and it works great.

I need to get a spare bag, but otherwise no complaints.

It probably wouldn't be ideal if there was just 1 person. But, if you are procuring water for a couple or more people, it's the [bleep].