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When I was a teen, I lived in the foothills of the northern California Sierras. For my brothers, friends and me, the beautiful wilderness of this mountain range was our backyard and our playground. We often hiked in the Desolation Wilderness (see photo) just west of Lake Tahoe or further south on the John Muir Trail.
Interestingly, we never bothered with purifying the water that we drank. We drank from the crystal clear brooks, rivers and lakes. We never once got sick.
It’s not that we didn’t think about the quality of the water and its drinkability. I remember looking down into an eddy of a brook to see what might be floating in the water before bending over to draw deeply from the delicious natural beverage.
We also joked with one another that there might be a dead animal in the water just upstream and around the corner. Our rule was that if there was no dead animal or other polluting object within 100 yards up stream, the water was safe to drink. Somewhere we got the notion that stream water that tumbled down a slope for at least a hundred yards had been purified through oxygenation. Having reported that, I don’t remember ever stepping off that distance and looking for deer or raccoon carcasses lying in the water.
Nowadays, we hikers and backpackers are admonished to carry our own pure water or purify what we might find along the way. Although, I did read recently an online study that showed that nearly all of the water in the deep wilderness was fit to drink. I’m sorry I can’t tell you exactly how to find that study. But here’s a link to a study discussed on the REI website.
So, what is my recommendation? Purify your water if you are at all squeamish about or uncertain about the water sources in the area where you will be hiking. Without a doubt, boil, filter or chemically purify any water you propose to drink where livestock is allowed to graze.
Well, there is much more to discuss concerning wilderness water purification. I’ve only touched briefly on the topic here. Hike well. Hike safely.~Richard Davidian, Ph.D.
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