RE: [Philmont]: Water Filters/Purifiers

Wow. I'm surprised that your ranger would recommend or approve of using
a filter-alone instead of the Philmont recommended water treatment
scheme (then Polar Pure). A filter will remove all the big stuff but
won't remove the small stuff. Polar Pure will kill the little stuff but
won't kill all the big stuff (e.g., Crypto). A purifier or a
combination of filter and iodine (or other) will kill/remove it all.
You either got lucky or know what's in the water at Philmont (and it's
nature). I've never felt knowledgeable enough to bet my life on one or
the other. We've always used both a filter and Polar Pure to be sure.

Randy Pfeifer

Subject: Re: [Philmont]: Water Filters/Purifiers

Our Troop has used MSR filters on all of our backpacking trips,
including Philmont. There has been a lot of discussion about this topic
in the past and I have been somewhat reluctant to respond because we did
not follow Philmont's recommendations on our '04 Trek, when Polar Pure
was still used. We have used the MSR filters without any other
treatment in a large variety of conditions and have never experienced
any problems. We will probably take the filters again this year and
forego the treatment tablets simply because it is a system that has
unfailingly worked for us. Best advice is to follow your ranger's
instructions. Having said that, our ranger in '04 told us to use the
filters in lieu of Polar Pure if we had successful experience with the
filters.

Dan Preston
Louisville, KY
On Mar 19, 2006, at 1:45 PM, Neal Osborn wrote:

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Received on Tue Mar 21 12:42:49 2006