Obtaining Water, Bad Hygiene, and Illness

People have been debating about the "best" way to acquire drinking water (i.e. do you just filter the water or--do you follow the one, true and correct answer-- --ALWAYS filter AND treat the water ).

HOWEVER, what is being missed in the entire discussion are the two biggest causes of many illnesses and infections in the wilderness-- POOR OUTDOOR HYGIENE and POOR WATER HANDLING PRACTICES.

How often do you wash and/or sanitize your hands on a hiking and camping trip? Think of all of the (potentially contaminated) surfaces that your hands come into contact with throughout the course of a typical day on Isle Royale. Then, with those dirty hands, we cook food, handle our cooking and eating utensils, handle our water containers and filters. We reach into a bag of trail mix with a dirty hand and bring that dirty hand right to our mouth. We touch many surfaces in the outhouses. We all touch the shared door handle on the outhouse (after wiping our body areas that contain fecal matter). We are touching the ground often. (Who knows what lurks in the soil and what the animals may have done in that exact spot). So, wash and/or sanitize your hands often.

Then, when it comes to filtering, treating, and handling water--I have seen so many people make "mistakes" that could potentially put them and their drinking water at risk for contamination.

1) They touch their filters, water containers, container lids/caps, with their very dirty hands.

2) They make very little effort to keep their "clean" and "dirty" water items separate. Examples: With a pump-type of filter--people will often stuff the intake and outflow hoses right next to each other in the same carrying bag--with no effort to keep the two separated. The intake hose (that had been submerged in the "dirty" water source just moments ago)--is now stuffed in the bag with the clean hose--getting that dirty water (and bacteria, viruses etc.) all over the "clean" water hoses.

3) People mix and match their clean and dirty water containers. A container that held dirty (unfiltered and untreated) water earlier today--might now be holding the "clean" water.

4) With Sawyer filters and gravity filters--people sometimes let the dirty water (often found on the outside of a container or filter) drip into the "clean" water during the filtering process.

5) When filtering water alongside a lake or stream--they will let their "clean" stuff sit in potentially wet and contaminated areas on the shore.

6) I have seen people "rinse out" their clean water containers with unfiltered lake or stream water.

7) They rarely--if ever--clean things like their water bottles or the lids or caps to their water containers Imagine what sort of "stuff" might be growing on (or in) a water bottle by the end of a typical Isle Royale trip.

Again--poor outdoor hygiene and poor water handling practices will probably put you at greater risk of illness than having the "wrong" micron size on your water filter.