[Philmont]: Re: Aqua Mira / filtering

Bob

Our Troop went on a backpacking trip to Colorado in 2002 and chose to use Aqua Mira with a filter backup. We had all heard horror stories about how horrid Polar Pure tasted. The Aqua Mira tasted fine, but the real drawback was the time involved. To treat a quart you have mix several drops from the bottle A and bottle B together and then let them sit for several minutes before you put the mixture in the water to be treated. We had only taken 2 sets for a crew of 8. It didn't take long to figure out that even though it took 1.5 minutes a quart to filter the water, filtering was much faster than to treating it with Aqua Mira. Plus with filtering it was immediately ready to drink. (water was hard to find that year)

In 2003 we went to Northern Tier. I knew that their standard was Polar Pure. Again, fearing nasty tasting water, I lugged along the filter, but I thought that since I have the Polar Pure anyway, I would try it. Everyone tried it. It had very little noticeable taste and was not objectionable. The crewmembers that were on both trips agreed that the taste difference was not an issue. Also it is fast. Just scoop water, dump in a couple of capfuls of Polar Pure, flush the threads, and then set the bottle aside to allow for the prescribed contact time. We still filtered a lot but only to just give the guy riding duffer something to do to pass the time.

We are going to Philmont this year. I purchased a couple of bottles of Polar Pure to take on our training trips and hikes. None of the new crew members have complained about the taste. I am considering leaving the filter at home.

The only way I would consider Aqua Mira is if each person had their own set, but that is pretty expensive.

On filtering - knowing that prefiltering would greatly extend the life of the filter, I used a Sweetwater Siltstopper prefilter. A little on the pricey side. You can back flush them and I found that if you are careful you can peel off the dirty layers to make them last longer. For those two trips and a few other short training trips I have had the same filter in my Pur Hiker and you can barely tell the difference between the used filter and a brand new filter.

YIS
Allen Jones
SM Troop 168
Oklahoma City
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Rsafl61660@aol.com
  To: Multiple recipients of list philmont
  Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 6:56 PM
  Subject: [Philmont]: (no subject)

  I've been hearing talk about using turkey bags for cooking. What is the method in which you use them. Are you pouring the dry food and then the hot water into it? or lining the pot with the bag(I am aware you can't have the bag contact direct flame). Also we have a scout master who just purchased a bottle of Polar Pure from Campmor to use on our conditioning hikes. He told me that when he opened the package, the bottle did not contain any liquid (water, I'm sure he meant) The foil seal was also not firmly attached. He's concerned the bottle may have leaked. I've never used the product, so was unable to answer his question. Does a new bottle come dry? He also mentioned the bottle has markings on it indicating how many capfuls to use, and that some of the marks are for 1.2 capfuls etc.. How critical is the fraction? One last question, has anybody used AquqMira and what's the feedback? Thanks for any input.

  Bob S. T494 Indy

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Received on Sat Mar 20 02:57:01 2004