UKC

High up in mountainous areas, I tend to drink river water so long as its fast running, not many sheep around and nothing very dead looking upstream. Walking through farmland valleys where agro chemical run off goes on is much more of a worry and I wondered what other people might use for multi-day trips?

In reply to FrankBooth:
Probably more worried about biological contamination in lowland watercourses than agrochemicals, which are mostly fairly diffuse. Animal waste, sewage, surface water runoff etc

In reply to toad:

Well, I was looking at MSR/Katadyn water filters (for upcoming cycle trip through Europe) but was put off because although they handle bacteria/ptotozoa they cant deal with agro chemicals, which put me off (hence wondering what other people might do short of boiling water every time)

In reply to FrankBooth:

I use a combination of a sawyer mini filter for bacteria and nasties, and a camel back carbon filter for chemicals. This system doesn't deal with virus', so if I was heading to a country where waterborne virus' are likely to be a problem, I'd use chlorine tablets as well.

In reply to FrankBooth:
I use a Sawyer Mini as a filter, but this doesn't kill off virus or remove pollutants etc. If in lowland, I'd add chlorine tablets or similar. Unfortunately I didn't on the Spey recently (canoeing)...even after filtering the water smelt dodgy in one spot and the smallest part ingested before spitting out when the smell hit me had an unpleasant effect 24 hours later.

High up in the hills, I still don't use anything normally. Remoter lochs I tend to just boil the water.

In reply to FrankBooth:

I have to admit, I just use chlorine and have never worried about chemical contamination!

In reply to FrankBooth:

I'm pretty sure the only thing that will get rid of agrochemicals is activated carbon. Anything else requires microfiltration/boiling/chlorine or iodine.
surely if there's farming then you can get water from a tap somewhere?

In reply to FrankBooth:

I have a katadyn mini, have put it through its paces and not (yet) died. The first time that I used it was on top of some Lakeland peak where, late at night, I ran out of water. Since I was hitting the whisky and didn't fancy a massive headache in the morning, plentiful water was required.

We were way above any obvious water sources or anything marked on the map, so I set off with a headtorch and the only water that I could find was a puddle on the main mountain path. It had footprints, dog paw prints, etc through it and was about 2 inches deep.

After pumping out a litre, I pulled out the hose and disturbed the silt at the bottom. Countless dead worms floated up from it, illuminated by my headtorch into ghostly silver forms.

The lass in Blacks reckons that this thing does viruses, so I went for it and didn't get ill.

With regards to lowland water sources, I'd trust this thing to a large degree, but would probably be open minded about where I gathered the water.