drndr wrote:
So Zip, you'd scoop and drink out of the fast moving stream of the south fork santa ana, would you scoop and drink out of a full dollar or dry lake? Both have a lot of water right now.
Yes, quite freely if I did not know where a fresh spring or stream was to be found. Here's why. About 10 years ago I was doing a trail run in Yosemite. The streams are so plentiful there that I had neglected to fill up my water bottles when I should have and found myself a few miles past the previous stream, 10 miles from my destination, and no stream on the map for the next 6 or 7 miles. So, as I passed one of the little round lakes that dot Yosemite, one with totally still water and green algae on the bottom but clear water above it, I thought, "Oh well, it's Giardia for me but I'm not turning around and I'm not going to risk dehydration this far into a run (at that point probably somewhere around 15 miles) at high altitude. So I filled up my bottles, drank deeply, ate an energy gel, drank some more, and then resumed my run.
And then the unthinkable happened...absolutely nothing. I didn't throw up, I didn't get the runs (no pun intended), shoot, I didn't even burp.
Long story short, I would fill up at the hidden springs down in the ravine that leads up to Dry Lake, or at Lodgepole, or add snow to my water if it was available, before drinking from Dry Lake. But if there were none, I would do so without hesitation. Dollar Lake I often do fill up because it seems plenty clear and clean to me and the stream that feeds it is a little walk over to the right. I could fill up from that, but why bother?
By the way, my father in law once told me that he had been out in the mountains somewhere, I don't recall exactly where, but he drank from a stream and then started exploring along a path that went upstream right beside the water. About 50 yards upstream he came across the body of a dead sheep, decomposing in the water. He never got sick either. I think we're being sold a bunch of unnecessary gear. People from the birth of man up until just a few years ago had
only had natural water sources. Our bodies, especially our gut, is designed to make quick work of most bacteria and parasites that would try to enter through that route. My two cents!
z