Water is the fundamental ingredient of life and a critical nutritional element. Water aides in digestion, keeps cells healthy, regulates body temperature, and helps carry wastes out of the body.
In Alaska, there are very few places where it cannot be found. Rivers, lakes, streams, marshes, and swamps seem to abound everywhere in the Alaskan wilderness. But like the old adage goes, "water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink", the water in Alaska is not always safe. Some is, some isn't. So how do you tell? You don't. You assume it is all bad (except when it bubbles directly from the ground) and take the necessary measures to make it pure. So before we discuss the "hows" of water purification, let's discuss why we need to do it.
There are three categories of creatures that live in the water, which can make a person sick, thus making it necessary to purify. These three categories are: protozoan, bacteria, and viruses. I'll discuss each one briefly.
Protozoan
These are the largest of the three disease-causing organisms. They range in size from 2-15 microns. The two most common types of protozoa's in Alaskan waters are giardia lamblia and cryptosporidium.
Giardia (also known as "beaver fever") is transmitted when humans drink water that has been defecated in by any animal that has been infected with it. Any mammal can carry the disease, but mammals that live in the water such as beavers are the main carriers of the disease. It is also transmitted by sheep and goats defecating in the snow, which melts and forms mountain streams. Don't be fooled by its clean appearance. It probably isn't so clean. Giardia is something your body can gain an immunity to. In fact, earlier in the 20th century, everyone was infected with giardia. Humans had just built up immunity to it. Since drinking water has been purified and humans no longer ingest giardia on a regular basis, that immunity no longer exists. As long as the giardia cyst was a common protozoa in the body, it was fine. Now that it no longer makes it residency in the body, when it does, you get sick.
Giardia cysts are 8 to 12 microns in size, but they can squeeze through openings as small as 5 to 6 microns in diameter. Giardia can survive in cold water for months and it only takes one to 10 cysts to make you sick. You start feeling the affects of giardia in five to seven days and can last, if untreated, one to three weeks. If treated by a prescription, symptoms are relieved in a couple of days. So what are the effects of giardia? Diarrhea, abdominal cramps, bloating, flatulence, fatigue, and weight loss. If you have ever talked to someone who has gone through giardiasis, they will tell you that it is one of the most miserable times in their lives.
Giardia is killed by boiling or treated with chlorine or iodine tablets or strained out by a water filter with a micron minimum of 4 microns.
Cryptosporidium
This is the newer "super-cyst". It is slightly smaller (squeezing through a 3 micron hole) but the symptoms are basically the same as with giardia. It takes two to four days to make you sick and runs its course in seven to 10 days. The main problem with cryptosporidium (besides being hard to spell) is that there is no cure. Therefore, you just have to tough it out. Unlike giardia, cryptosporidium is harder to kill. Iodine and chlorine tablets do not harm it. The only way to keep it out of your system is by killing it through boiling or filtering with a pore size of 1 to 2 microns or less.
Bacteria
There are many different types of bacteria and all of them are quite a bit smaller than any of the protozoan. The types of bacteria found in drinking water include: E. coli (causes diarrhea and is 0.5 microns), shigella (causes dysentery and is 0.4 microns in size), campylobacter (causes diarrhea, vomiting, and fever and is 0.2 microns), vibrio cholerae (causes cholera and is 0.5 microns), and salmonella (causes typhoid and is 0.6 microns in size). Some bacteria are only found in human feces while others are found in both domestic and wild animals. So it is always a good idea to wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
With bacteria this size, never purchase a water filter with pore size greater than 0.3 microns.
Viruses
Size-wise, these critters are the tiniest, thus making them virtually impossible to filter out. Therefore, the only alternative is to boil the water or use iodine or chloride tablets. Some of the more common viruses present in water are: hepatitis A and E (causes hepatitis), Norwalk virus (causes headache, fever, intestinal discomfort), rotavirus (causes headaches, fever, intestinal discomfort), echovirus (causes meningitis, diarrhea), poliovirus (causes polio). Transmission is the same as for protozoan and bacteria. There is no treatment for viruses, so you just have to deal with it. The agony includes running behind a tree five to 10 times a day with extreme diarrhea and can last weeks.
So, there you have it. The reasons to make sure your water are clean. Getting any of the above "bugs" in your system will not only ruin a backpacking trip, but also affect your life for weeks beyond it.
Knowing you do not want any of the above "bugs", here are the rules:
--Never wash dishes with untreated or unfiltered water--Never brush your teeth with untreated or unfiltered water--Snow run-off is generally cleaner than stream water--Avoid water where there is animal evidence present--Look for springs of water bubbling out of the ground thus making it unnecessary to filter or treat water --Start with the cleanest water you can findMethods of Treating Water
Boiling
Bring the water to a boil and let boil for about one minute. Usually by the time the water boils at 212 degrees, everything is dead anyway, but just to be safe...(don't waste fuel by boiling water for five minutes as some suggest, it just doesn't have to boil that long--it's not like the little critters in your water are floating there screaming and holding on to life until they finally expire at the end of five minutes). Boiling is a great option for treating water because it is foolproof. It kills everything. If you are boiling water for a meal, you don't have to treat the water prior to boiling. But there are some drawbacks to boiling. It takes a great deal of fuel and time to boil enough water to last each day. It also doesn't remove the "floaties" in the water and you'll have to strain them through your teeth if you don't want them to become part of you.
Water Treatment Tablets
If you choose to use iodine or chloride tablets, follow the directions on the bottle. Make sure the water is warm before adding the tablets. If you can't warm the water, you should let the water sit for one hour after the entire tablet dissolves. You can make the treated water taste better by adding vitamin C after the tablet dissolves. A good tip for using chloride tablets is to add tablets to a water bottle at bedtime so you don't have to wait in the morning for the tablets to do their thing. Also, if you bring an extra water bottle along, while hiking, drink from one bottle while the other is being treated and shaken up from jostling in your pack. Drawbacks to water treatment tablets are: crytosporidium is not killed by iodine or chloride tablets, the stuff tastes really nasty, and like boiling, the floaties remain.
Water Filters
There are lots and lots of water filters on the market today in all price ranges. So my advice is to look for one that is affordable, easy to use and is effective. Basically, a water filter does what the name implies, it filters the "bugs" out of water like a window screen keeps bugs out of your house. Therefore, the smaller the opening in the screen, the smaller the bugs it keeps out. So look for a filter that will filter out "bugs" 0.3 microns or smaller. Also, keep the price down. You don't have to spend $300 on a filter, but don't go to K-mart and buy a water bottle with a filter stuck in it either. And finally, make sure you can get the thing working without having an engineering degree or two weeks of time to put all of the pieces together.
Here's the run-down on filters. Find one that is light, compact, has a replaceable filter cartridge that is easy to replace, has a float to keep the hose in the lake off the bottom and sucking all of the goop at the bottom of the lake through the filter, and has a prefilter to strain out larger particles and extends the life of the main filter. It is also good to find one that filters at least one quart of water per minute and the life of the filter is at least 500 quarts.
The two filters I use and recommend are the PUR Hiker ($60) and the SweetWater Guardian ($50). These two filters are easy to use, put out a lot of water in a short amount of time, are inexpensive, and very effective. Let's look at what they do:
PUR Hiker--This little speed demon can pump about one quart per minute and the life of the cartridge when actually tested was about 700 quarts. The only downfall is when the filter clogs; you're stuck with an uncleanable, unusable filter, so take along an extra filter ($30). The pore size on the PUR Hiker is 0.3 microns and is very easy to use. Just attach a couple of hoses and you're good to go.
SweetWater Guardian--This was my first filter and rated just under the PUR Hiker. The Guardian pumps about 2 quarts per minute and gives out about 800 quarts of filtered water before the filter needs to be replaced. The biggest hang up is the clogging problem it has. When the filter gets clogged, it sprays you in the face and everywhere else as it protests being used. A very positive point is its' ease in cleaning. This allows you not to be stuck out in the wilderness with a clogged worthless filter.
Tips to remember about water filters
--make sure the prefilter is attached to the input hose and is not lying on the bottom of the water source. --make sure you don't let any untreated water into the "output hose". This allows untreated water into your water bottle.
--keep the filter in the freezer for several days after use to make sure all "bugs" are killed.
--If any of the hoses get mildew in them (black yucky junk), soak them in a solution of water and Clorox bleach for a few hours--after each use, shake out as much water from the filter as possible so water doesn't leak out into your pack.--always pack the water filter in your pack so it is easily reached.To be on the safe side of things, I not only bring my water filter and an extra filter, I also bring iodine tablets in case of an emergency. They are small enough that it is not an inconvenience to bring them along in my survival kit.
A Few Facts About Water:
*75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated (that means they never get enough water)
*Mild dehydration slows metabolism down 3%
*Lack of water is the #1 trigger for daytime fatigue
*8-10 glasses of water could significantly ease back and joint pain
*A 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on a printed page
