Hey Alan! (or anyone curious about mountain water quality)

[zippetydude]

I just came across this link. No real surprise, but it's pretty definitive.

http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/forum ... mber=34498


z

[AlanK]

There have been some great discussions of water quality on the WPS Message Board over the past few years. I happened to post the following over there just this afternoon:

Since we're taking testimonials and singing Bob's praises...

When I moved back to CA 12 years ago after 20+ years in NY, I started taking Sierra trips again and started filtering my water. I heard horror stories about Giardia and decided that things had just changed a lot since I used to drink only unfiltered water back in the early 1970s.

I was very happy to come across Bob R's paper several years back. It made a lot of sense, and I eventually met many people knew Bob and thought that he was extremely knowledgeable. For the last couple of years, I have been drinking unfiltered water for the most part.

When my son Eric and I did the JMT last summer, I took the filter along just in case. We used it exactly once, mainly so we could feel like we had not carried it for nothing. It was basically a small dead weight in my pack. (I know... I should have put it in Eric's.) Oh, yeah, neither of has had any intestinal trouble.

Naturally, when I saw that Bob commented favorably on the Indian Wells Brewing Company, I started making stops there on my way south from the Owens Valley. I have at least two things for which to thank Bob!

"Bob" refers to Bob Rockwell, who wrote a great paper on Sierra water quality several years ago. He was the first person I know of that looked long and hard at the issue and concluded that filtering is largely unnecessary. He does advice sensible drinking, of course. There are certainly bad water sources out there. But mountain water is generally a whole lot better than people think.

I should have added to my post above that, for quite a few years in NY State, we had well water. It really galled me to come back to CA and have to filter in the High Sierra. Turns out, I didn't!

[Hikin_Jim]

I called my filter company and they say you're wrong.

Seriously, this is really good news and confirms some long held suspicions.

As good as that article is, it's one thing to have general research and another to have specifics for your area. I'm a little hesitant to completely cast away the filter without specifics -- especially say at the tank in Rat (oops, I mean Round) Valley. I wonder where they got that test kit. I see an Eagle Scout project for one of our local troops in the very near future...

Well, you'll have to pardon me ... I've got to go wash my hands.

[magikwalt]

Drink it however you wish. In small amounts the human body can deal with almost anything.

If you want to see where the real threat comes from ask for an office close to the toilets at your work. You be treated to the continuous sites and sounds of people leaving the room before the toilet has sent there waste down. These same folks will share food with you or help make the office coffee. In this part of the country we have a portion of the population that routinely throws toilet paper waste into the trash can.

A new topic to be taught in every grade, every year in schools all throughout the world. How soap and water work together against germs. "Soap suds gather the germs up inside them and the water rinses them down the drain."

Drinking water from a mountain stream isn't high on my list of concerns.

[magikwalt]

Also while water is the topic...the next "big problem" will be the that bottle water isn't good for you due to: who knows what...

plastic residue leaching into the water, plastic changes the molecular structure or maybe its needs to be drank within 30 days of bottling.

I'll bet that all this purification and antibacterial mind set does is get the human body unprepared to deal with problems once they do occur and create bacteria that are strong than normal.

[Hikin_Jim]

Why, Walt, are you suggesting that our pastuerized, consumerized society isn't real? Shocking, really.

[Hikin_Jim]

This LA Times Article about researcher Dr. Bob Derlet may also be of interest. Dr. Derlet does not filter his water.

HJ

[whitebark]

I drank Sierra water unfiltered on many backpack trips in the '70s and '80s without problems. However, contaminated water does seem to be more of a problem in the Washington Cascades. Possibly this is due to more wildlife to pollute the streams, less sun to sterilize the water, or other factors. Two hiking buddies got dreadfully sick drinking out of a stream on one trip I was on; I did not get sick possibly because I used iodine tablets to purify the same water. Their illness was not due to giardia but some other form of waterborne bacterial infection.

[zippetydude]

Well, I liked this quote from the doctor:

The threat is comparable to the chances of beachgoers being attacked by a shark, according to University of Cincinnati researchers who studied the danger giardia poses to backpackers, namely "an extraordinarily rare event to which the public and the press have seemingly devoted inappropriate attention."

Later in the article it says that to get enough giardia to make you sick you'd have to drink 250 gallons a day, which seems fairly unlikely. Besides, you'd die of hyponatremia long before the giardia could get you.

I wonder if people aren't being so careful with their intake of food and fluids that their bodies lose the chance to build up normal immunity to bacteria, then the bacteria have a chance to infect the people while they're backpacking simply because they can't refrigerate their food once they've prepared it (or something like that scenario). I intentionally give my system the chance to build up immunity. For example, earlier this year I left a Del Taco Spicy Chicken Burrito on the dashboard of my car. I forgot about it until the next day, and the sun had already heated it up for me when I came across it again. Yummy! My wife was horrified. She wouldn't kiss me for hours. But absolutely nothing happened.

BTW, there is much research nowadays that is pointing to a LACK of bacteria in our guts because these bacteria produce compounds that our bodies need but cannot produce on their own. It is beginning to appear that many of the autoimmune diseases like rhumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, etc. which are almost unheard of in the third world may be a result of the body's immune system running amock because it does not have access to the necessary molecular compounds that it counts on to regulate the immune system as it normally would in nature.

So I take "chances" with drinking water all the time. In thousands of miles and especially the past 20 years of playing in the wilderness, I have not gotten sick once. Seems to be working.

z