 |
| LifeStraw Go Water Bottle |
One of the major
obstacles to hiking in Southern California is the lack of water sources. Not carrying enough water on a hike in the
mountains can put you in a life threatening situation. There are a ton of
stories of people who get thirsty and wander off trail in search of water and
get themselves lost. I ran into trouble
myself a few years back hiking up Mount Baldy when my girlfriend ran out of
water halfway up the mountain. I have a bad habit of bringing the absolute minimum
amount of water on a hike to save weight and I had underestimated the distance
of the hike. We chanced it, assuming that we would have a clean water source
somewhere along the way, only to find some dirty snow at the peak. We ended up hiking ten miles through the
mountains in the middle of summer with empty bottles. It was not a situation I
hope to repeat.
I looked around the internet
for a while for a viable way to purify water.
I actually tested two different brands of water purification tablets. Although
they would work in a pinch, they were both absolutely disgusting. The next thing I tried was a Katadyn water
filter pump. It was expensive, added
more weight to my pack than I would have liked and way too time consuming to
set up and pump for it to be practical for a day hike. I randomly stumbled across an ad for the LifeStraw
Go Water Bottle. I started to do a
little reading about the product and the first ting I saw was that Forbes
magazine gave them an award for One of the ‘Ten Things That Will Change The Way
We Live’ . I was intrigued.
After using the Go Water Bottle on the trail for 3 hikes, I
was in love. Simply put, the LifeStraw
Go Water Bottle is easily one of the best hiking accessories that I've ever used. It’s a BPA free water bottle with
a water filter built in to the straw. You can literally scoop water from the
stream into the bottle and drink it directly through the straw without waiting.
The water has absolutely zero bad aftertaste
as far as I can tell. The manufacturer claims it should filter 264 gallons of
water before the filter needs to be replaced and should filter out 99.9999
percent of bacteria and 99.9 percent of parasites. However, they do recommend using a water purification
tablet anywhere where human sewage might be present because it will not filter
out viruses.
The Lifestraw Go Water Bottle retails for $30, which is
about 1/3 of what I spent on my Katadyn water filter. The Go Water Bottle also
weighed less, 8 ounces vs 11 ounces and that’s not including the fact that you
still need to carry a bottle when you’re using the Katadyn filter.
You can attach the Go Water Bottle to your bag using the included
carabiner, or just shove it into a side pocket like any other water
bottle. I plan on ordering an extra one
to keep in the car in case I ever break down and need fresh water. This would
make a great addition to your emergency kit at home in case of some type of
water emergency. As a resident of Southern California in the middle of a 4 year
drought, it couldn't hurt to have one of these at home just in case.
You can pick one up on Amazon right now for 30 bucks here: LifeStraw Go Water Bottle
