My $80 water filter was a mistake on the JMT last summer

I spent $80 on a new lightweight filter for the John Muir Trail and it clogged up on day 3 from a murky stream near Evolution Lake. Had to borrow a friend's old school pump filter the rest of the trip while mine sat useless. Anyone else ditch the fancy stuff and stick with something basic out there?

3 comments

3 Comments

lucasw827d ago

Blame the murky water not the filter, most of those lightweight ones can't handle heavy sediment. Next time try letting the silt settle in a bottle first before running it through, or grab a prefilter sleeve if your model supports it. Evolution Basin is beautiful but that glacial flour will choke anything that isn't a proper pump.

the_wyatt7d ago

Nah, I gotta push back a bit on this. I've taken a sawyer squeeze into some pretty nasty looking water out in the sierras and it handled it fine, just took a little longer. People act like a bit of grit is gonna destroy your whole system but really you just backflush it and move on. The whole "let it settle in a bottle" thing sounds like a lot of extra work for something that's maybe a minor inconvenience. Is it really worth all that babysitting when you could just be hiking and drinking straight from the stream?

elliot_johnson316d ago

You ever notice how that same thing plays out in all kinds of stuff, not just gear? I've watched people drop a fortune on the latest backpacking stove, only to go back to a simple alcohol burner because it just works. Same with tents - everyone wants the ultralight DCF shelter until they're dealing with a zillion stakes and a saggy pitch in the wind. My general rule of thumb now is, the more moving parts or proprietary pieces something has, the more likely it is to break or frustrate you when you're miles from anywhere. That $80 filter probably had a bunch of fancy design features that look good on paper but can't handle a little real-world mud. The pump filters that have been around forever might be heavier, but they're built like a tank and you can usually take them apart to fix them on the trail. It's like we have to re-learn the old lesson every time: simple and rugged beats light and clever, especially when you're relying on it for water.