UKC

Afternoon, 

We're off to this area next weekend and it's looking hot! We're planning on heading over the 5 sisters ridge, along to hopefully as far as aonach meadhoin, then ciste dubh and down the the yha in Glen affric.

I can see a couple of little tarns after saileag, and we'll have filters with us. Are these reasonably reliable for filling up, or are we likely going to need to drop off the ridge, or just carry loads! 

Any local knowledge much appreciated 

In reply to GDes:

I have no area-specific knowledge to offer. But  from experience I wouldnt drink water from lochans, even with a filter, except in an emergency.

Carry or stash extra water would be my advice.

In reply to Andy Johnson:

Why? I've drank from all sorts of ponds, pools, puddles and even bogs using a filter and never had any issues in best part of 20 years. 

In reply to GDes:

Even though it's been very dry, there's still water running in the burns.  You wouldn't have to make massive detours/descents.  From the Ciste Dhubh bealach, it's not far to reach running water.  Even if you had to descend to the main stream, it's only 150m of descent.  Someone takes all the bottles to refill, and they get dinner cooked for them/extra dram.

In reply to Jamie Hageman:

Thanks Jamie that's really helpful 

In reply to Andy Johnson:

Whys that Andy? Modern filters are pretty effective aren't they, including Giardia? 

In reply to GDes:

I was up there on Sunday. You'll find water although we did use a very esoteric route to be fair.

In reply to GDes:

I know it's a different risk situation, but there was a news article about many people on the WHW getting ill from drinking from burns around Balmaha using a filter. Obviously, so much livestock around there puts it into a different risk category. However, I assume that lack of rainfall means any pathogens are more concentrated so less likely that all of them are filtered out?

In reply to GDes:

I've camped on the ridge near Saileag summit, it was a very wet summer I even had snow overnight on mid-summer's night. I had to go a long way down to find water. 

I've also camped at Bealach a Choinich between Aonach Meadhoin and Ciste Dhubh there was plenty of running water there. 

In reply to GDes:

I agree that they should be effective. But small lochans and the like tend to accumulate a lot of nasty biological stuff, and I can remember at least two occasions when I've been ill from (I strongly suspect) drinking filtered water from non-flowing sources - both times in Scotland. Distressing and uncomfortable when youre on your own in a remote area.

I can't remember which filters I was using back then: probably a Lifesystems and an MSR. Filters are great to have, and I'm not knocking them, but I also think its worth being conscious of their limitations and choice of water sources. I wouldn't drink from a static source unless I really had no choice.

Just my opinion, obviously, and the downvotes seem to indicate its an unwelcome one for some reason. But its based on a lot of experience of backpacking in the uk - mostly in Scotland and the north of England.

In reply to Andypeak:

I'm pleased for you. My experience, in thirty-odd years of uk backpacking, has been different - see my reply to @GDes. I was just contributing that to the discussion, which is actually the point of this thing.

In reply to Andy Johnson:

Sorry if my reply to you came across as a bit shirty, it certainly wasn't meant to be (the joys the written communication), I genuinely wanted to know what issues you'd had as I've been absolutely fine for years. I was also just trying to contribute to the discussion. 

In reply to Andypeak:

No problem Andy

In reply to girlymonkey:

Or a lot of people drinking the water - obviously that'll mean more people becoming ill through a filter not working properly, or accidentally contaminating the 'clean' water with dirty hands or something.  Perhaps enough people getting ill to be newsworthy, whereas the odd one or two over a larger area somewhere else wouldn't be?

Another thought is perhaps some of the people filtering the water are using older or less effective filters that don't stop viruses.

In reply to Andy Johnson:

Cyanobacteria perhaps?  (ie: blue-green algae)

https://help.lifestraw.com/article/176-can-lifestraw-products-protect-again...

It says here that the activated charcoal filter in some (not all) Lifestraw products will remove 80-85% of the cyanotoxins excreted into the water by algal spores.  (While the hollow fibre filters in all of them will remove hopefully 100% of the spores themselves.)

It occurs to me that if there's enough blue-green algae in the water, whatever quantity of cyanotoxins have been excreted into the water and are not contained within the spores, 15-20% of it might be plenty!

In reply to GDes:

Many years ago I camped near the top of Sgurr Fhuaran, and I *think* I got my water 100m or so down to the NE.

The photo was taken around 11.30pm, so that's my excuse.

In reply to streapadair:

Sgurr Fhuaran translates as "Peak of the Spring". You might have filled your bottle from the water source which inspired the locals who first named the hill. 🙂

In reply to Andypeak:

And I've drunk from hill streams, tarns, lochs, rain water puddles and tiny moorland becks, but for about 60 years and without a filter and absolutely no issues or problems.

In reply to Andy Johnson:

Thanks for your replies, useful stuff 

In reply to Billhook:

Me too (well 40) but the risk is clearly there, particularly in static water. I've also always been fine with glacier melt but others seem to have problems.

We had a great day on this ridge yesterday. It's really dry, but found water just below bealach na lapain (north side), and also the big bealach just below ciste dubh.