[Cdt-l] Pooh-pooh for health...

[Tom McGinnis]

Well, having staked out an extreme position, let me back away from it. (It's 2013, and I watched lots of election coverage.)

1) I KNOW that there have been people who have hiked the cdt since 1990 (the onset of the evil WATER FILTER religion) without issue.

2) I am not one of them.

3) I DO hike with a water filter: it's a 2 oz .02 micron element that drops into a squeeze Nalgene, and costs about $10. In the variety of miles and years and trail and environs that I've had it, I've used it twice -- both times involved visible mature flatworms in a drought. Ewwww. In cattle slurpies, I don't know -- I might, I might not. I've had water from some pretty skeezy places and been happy to find it. (Haven't we all?) I remember once seeing a "colorful" cattle station in some slides from Jim/Ginny and quickly calling out, "*I'd* filter that!" It got a laugh...



--- On Sun, 2/10/13, Doug Carlson <doug-sue at centurylink.net> wrote:

> Wow! there is an idea.  I don't
> think my GI tract would ever be up to
> drinking from a cattle pond without a filter of some sort.
> 
> For my CDT hike of NM I am planning on using a StriPEN with
> a pre-filter.
> 
> -Trew
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> The takeaway for hikers is, leave your damn water filters at home,
> strengthen your immune system to what it should be through
> daily incremental exposure, and live a boatload more healthily....
> 
> http://soundmedicine.iu.edu/segment/3552/Are-feces-something-other-than-waste-
> 
> OH, and lighten your dang backpack.