I don't always agree with Cooper Wright nor he with me, but about 99.99 percent of the time we do agree. As I was reading through the interesting posts on water treatment, my thoughts reflected my experience. When I read Coopers post below, he paraphrased exactly what I was thinking.
It's kinda like the delima in the Butch Cassidy movie when they were preparing to jump into the river and one said he couldn't swim.
Much the same about PhilWater. Why worry about iodine treated water, if the food doesn't kill you, the bears probably will!
Good one Coop!
Not to mention the rocks!
Or RATTLESNAKES!
All of this is a reflection of the worry adults (read parents) go through when junior goes off to do something new.
For example, we all worry about if our sons and daughters will get shot or blown up by a mine in Iraq, but you never hear anyone talk about those killed in vehicle wrecks there. Look up how many service personnel have been killed in suto wrecks while in the military.
What we need to worry about is GETTING TO Philmont, not after we get there.
Anyway, my thoughts on:
Tents
Any tent that keeps you dry and the bugs off is a great tent and works well. For backpacking, the lighter the better. PhilTents do that. No, they aren't folding Hiltons, but so what!
Hunting Lodge Water
My good friend Glen Cummins ran Hunting Lodge for two summers (2002 & 2003), all summer long and he lived to tell about it. Made Sassafrass tea for those who visited with that "bad water" but nobody noticed it was bad. Actually it was good, really good! And his citified bride of some 40+ years accompanied him for both summers. If the water was BAD I assure you she would not have gone back for more, but she did.
Water treatment
To Polar Pure or Filter, that is the question. Ah, sounds like Caesar!
And where did the statement in one post "thyroid stimulating" iodine come from anyway? Better do some homework on that one, iodine does not stimulate the thyroid gland. The thyroid gland collects it and uses it for necessary bodily functions.
OK, on my last PhilTrek, one Scout was alergic to iodine. Or so his father said anyway.
It's a proven fact that the amount of iodine used in Polar Pure usually is not enough to cause a reaction even in those allergic to it. That is something one must work out for themselves.
So, since the parent said the kid was allergic to iodine, we would not take any chances. Dad felt better.
I volunteered to let him use my Sweetwater Guardian filter pump and would tutor him in it's use during the first few days on trek which I did.
I only use this pump on canoe trips, not on backpacking trips, so I used Polar Pure along with all the rest of the crew.
This kid spent an inordinate amount of time pumping his water, but pump it he did. No complaints. And some of the other kids volunteered to spell him off. Lend as helping hand to their brother as you might say.
The only problem occured when he, like all 14 year olds will, questioned my advise to ALWAYS use a coffee filter as a pre filter. When he did not and after he thoroughly stopped up the filter, he later told me he did not think he needed it because the water looked really clear to him. He learned just like I had a year or so earlier the old fashioned way.....the hard knocks way.
I had never even seen this kid before going to Philmont. Lives 200 miles from me. Didn't know him from Adam, which by the way is his real name. We really hit it off well on that trek. I get a Christmas card from him every year. He still thanks me for being a friend on that trek. I am impressed with this kind of kid. They will make it.
For some of the adults, I'm not so sure today.
Well, back to water treatment.
I'm reminded of the post about taking water from the stream DOWNSTREAM of the gold panning. Gold panning is designed to stir up gold AND silt! Hmmmmm! More hard knock learning.
You never take drinking water downstream from anything, right? Right!
However virtually 99.99 percent of drinking water intakes in the US are downstream from something. That includes those at Philmont. Think about that one too when you are upstream and take measures to protect the water as the resource that it is.
But we have FILTER PLANTS that FILTER our water and make it clean and drinkable and tasteless, so FILTERING our water must be what we need to do even at Philmont....right?
Wrong. Filter plants ALSO chlorinate water AFTER filtering it.
Domestic water filter plants work a little bit differently than hand pump camping filters do. Hand pump filters DO NOT filter viruses. Anybody want to debate the problem with viruses?
Common cold, polio, HIV, and on and on and on. Get my point?
As I see it, the decision to pump or Polar Pure water at Philmont is strictly one of time. Do you have time to pump the water or do you want to have time to do other things...........If you pump it and subscribe to the fact that viruses are a threat, then you also have to subscribe to the thought that you must add chlorine to the water after filtering it. More bottles of chemicals to deal with.
What you want more of at Philmont is time, so you can do things like sitting and watching the grass grow. Or doing the camp program. Or a million other worthwhile things besides hand pumping water.
As far as "quit using iodine tablets long ago", Polar Pure isn't even comparable to that. Not in the least. Tablets were an iodine compound. Polar Pure is elemental iodine in it's simplest form. There is a world of difference there. Just ask a chemist. Or your doctor.
As to taste, Freska tastes worse than Polar Pure treated water and kids drink that stuff by the gallon!
Water time management.
Here's the rules.
Hit camp.
Put all treated bottles that have sat long enough in one pile labeled GOOD water. Go fill the empty bottles and add the amount of Polar Pure needed and label BAD WATER and note the time it turns good. This will be the elapsed time needed plus the present time.
When that time is up, move the BAD WATER bottles to the GOOD WATER pile.
Place the READY TO USE Polar Pure bottles in the READY YO USE pile and the NOT READY TO USE Polar Pure bottles in the NOT READY TO USE pile and note the time they will be ready.
Act accordingly.
Repeat.
And that is all there is to water management via the Polar Pure route at Philmont....or any other place..
Simply use untreated water to cook with and bring it to a boil first before adding power stuff to turn the water into gruel or mush or whatever you call that poison that Philmont calls food and you will live happily ever after.
Oh! One more thing! Be sure to place the piles of bottles where the trek idiot won't stumble over them and mix them all up thereby condeming them to the BAD WATER pile and causing an inordinate wait time.
Tip of the day. If you put Polar Pure bottles under your clothes next to your hot little body, they it get saturated (read ready) sooner. My mother used to warm cold bottles of milk for my baby brother in a similar bay. Be resourceful.
And if you still object to the taste of Polar Pure treated water, then you simply whine too much to really get the most out of Philmont and you need to stay at home where the bears won't eat you, the rain won't wet you, the heat won't hurt you and the cold won't kill you and you will live happily ever after in ignorant bliss for not experiencing what Philmont has to offer.
Amen.
Off soap box.
Now let me share one last story with you.
With her daddy, the freshwater biologist's, permission, my eighteen year old daughter took her Philmont Nalgene water bottle she bought at TOTT off the shelf in her room where she kept it full of PhilWater to her Venturing Crew meeting,
For a whole year it sat there full of water that she got on the trail at Philmont and treated with Polar Pure. To illustrate how good Polar Pure works and tastes, she took it to her Venturing Crew meeting on the one year anniversary from returning from Philmont and drank the whole liter in front of the crew. When she finished it, she screwed the lid back on and sat it down and started singing "I wanna go back, I wanna go back to Phil Mont, where the waters clean..."
The bottle sits empty in it's place on her shelf waiting to return to Gods country.
She made several points in her message. Do you get them? If not, read the words to the Ranger Song......and learn from them.
Te com pre?
John LeBlanc
Philmont 1959
We either boiled it or Halazoned it and didn't whine or complain
Cooper Wrights post reads:
<< I am continually amazed at the number of folks that take filters to Philmont because they are concerned about taste of the water. If you don't like the water, you are really going to be in trouble with the food. I would encourage everyone to give Polar Pure a chance. Buy a bottle and use it on your shakedown hikes. We have used Polar Pure for years, not only at Philmont but on the Alagash in Maine, along the White Mountains in New Hampshire, canoeing the Fulton Lake chain of lakes in the Adirondacks, and along the Appalachian Trail in the Smoky Mountain National Park without a hitch. No moving parts, pretty simple instructions.
Cooper Wright
Associate Advisor, Crew 1519
Co-author of the Philmont Advisor's Guide >>
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Received on Wed Sep 8 03:00:44 2004
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