đšEarly to RISA đ§Anon goes camping
finitebanjoBoil your water, then run it through a charcoal and/or osmosis filter. Even then, itâs still not great. Commercial/community water treatment isnât some silly little optional process.
If youâre going to do all that and still end up with ânot greatâ, why not just distill it?
Not a good idea to drink distilled water.
distilled water is fine the issue is if you drink mostly or only distilled water, it doesnât have the minerals youâll find in tap water and long-term missing those isnât healthy. even so you can get those minerals from other sources like food or supplements most of the time.
Unless youâre starving to death, you absolutely get those from food. The amount of minerals in even hard water is miniscule compared to whatâs in food. Drinking distilled or RO water, even regularly is not going to hurt you.
Drinking giardia on the other handâŚ
If you have a listenced portable distillery to take with you camping then power to you.
A pot, a sheet of plastic, a cup, a rock, some sticks and rope and you can distill water.
And a massive amount of fuel.
Have you ever tried to evaporate a liter of water? It takes a lot of energy to do so. Fun for a science project, but if you need enough to stay alive/be comfortable, itâs a lot easier to bring water.
If youâre in the woods, you have access to a virtually unlimited amount of fuel. If youâre in a desert, the fuel source is nuclear. This is a technique taught in survival courses/manuals and military field guides all over the world.
Sure, but gathering wood takes a lot of effort and energy. Itâs an option if you donât have the filters, but the original question was why not distill if boiling and filtering ends up in ânot greatâ.
If I have to survive, and I can do with boiling and filtering, Iâll take ânot greatâ water over spending hours gathering and chopping wood to keep a fire going long enough to vaporize a liter of water.
The biggest risk out in the woods is microorganisms. If you boil it or use a well designed filter you are likely going to be fine if youâre drinking otherwise clear water.
I wouldnât just filter the water from the Hudson river and go to town, but if itâs 10 miles to the nearest road I think youâre probably doing better than your tap
Get a water filter thatâs designed for backpacking. The two varieties Iâve seen are either a hand pump or using gravity to force the water through a ceramic filter. Try to pick water that is relatively clean looking (not obviously murky, and it helps to pick flowing water).
Best tasting water Iâve ever had and you wonât get giardia (the most common cause of diarrhea symptoms described above).
I tried a hand pump while camping and never used it again. The tannins in the water (decayed plant matter secretion) isnât captured by the filter and hit me pretty hard.