Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Filter question

Hi, first post on this forum. Am in the processing of planning a JMT trip this summer. For those of you with much more familiarity with the JMT than I have, how many of you use a water filter? I'm thinking that I could get by with just treating the water in places that appeared suspicious and leave the filter at home. Many of you seem to have lots of experience hiking in that area, I'm living in Ohio, so I would appreciate any of your thoughts.
Bob

I carried a filter for the entire length of the JMT in 2006 and never used it. If you find a water source that looks suspicious, there's always a better one up ahead.

For reference, here is Bob R's "60,000 Liters of Water Consumed -- Untreated" post.

He wrote that, over the years, he and his hiking friends have probably consumed 60,000 liters of unfiltered water in the Sierra, with no adverse effects.

I myself have stopped filtering or treating water for a number of years now. I have hiked most of the JMT without water treatment.

The studies by Robert Derlet, physician and researcher at U.C. Davis add proof that just about all Sierra water is safe to drink. His studies only found water contaminated that ran through cattle grazing areas (which don't exist along the JMT). An interesting note from his studies is that lake water tended to be more pure, possibly due to the purification process of ultraviolet light from the sun.

thanks for all your answers. I remember reading a bit about the UC Davis study. If it's the one I'm thinking of, he said hygiene was the bigger issue, not drinking water quality.

You will probably want some treatment in the Whitney area. At least that is my experience. I saw lots of piles of feces left by wonderful campers at Iceberg Lake on the Mountaineers Route. I would expect it to be similar in other areas near Whitney. You probably don't need a filter, though, and could get away with chlorine tablets for disinfectant purposes.

I used to carry a filter for years, but now I'm leaving it behind. For water that's suspicious, I'm packing some aquamira pills or, worst case, boil it.

I've been drinking unfiltered water for about 50% of my water needs in 8 Muir trail hikes, and so have all my companions. None of us ever got sick.

Then I read the study, and it pretty much gave me a final push to remove the filter from the list of required items.

A filter seems to be more of a convenience of debris free water, it's not always that easy to go to a lake and get a bottle full of water without a bunch of stuff you don't want floating in it, now of course most of it is harmless.

There was one trip I went on to the Cottonwood lakes when there were no running streams around our camp so I had to get water from the lake (lake 3) and in the evening I took a flashlight and shined it onto my bottle to find a number of things swimming around in my water which I had already been drinking and not checked all the other times I had got some, this was a bit worrying because well, what the hell is this crap swimming around in my water!?

So getting "clean" water was a bit of an annoyance and I began using the wind by going up wind to get water.

It's stuck with me after reading Bob R's report a couple years ago that personal hygiene (ie lack of handwashing capabilities after your business) was the cause of most GI bugs in the backcountry. Does anyone know if the steripen-type UV filters can be used for hand decontamination? Just curious.

I am editing this post to make it as I intended it to be, a response to a question about poor hygiene when hiking and being able to get sick from consuming feces after moving own bowels.

Bacteria and parasites that come out of another animal or person are one of the main culprits in a GI infection. It would be logical that a person's lack of hygiene is the most likley source of introducing a pathogen from the colon into a person's oral cavity, especially when traveling through areas that have low visitation from humans or other animals.

So, if you want to make an attempt to disinfect your hands to prevent a self infection, the best course of action would be to remove all the debris from your hands by rubbing your hands together or washing them in a water source that you don't intend to drink from. Then you would want to use some sort of disinfectant. The common alcohol based disinfectant hand rubs are cheap and highly effective since they will lyse a majority of the harmful bacteria and viruses on your hands. They might also destroy the spores from any protozoa or spore forming bacteria that may be in your colon, or a water source that you washed your hands in.

With regards to floating stuff in the water:

Most of the organisms in unfiltered water are probably harmless and would die very quickly in your stomach. Still, if you want to dispense with a filter but are looking to eliminate pathogens from a questionable water source, then chlorine tabs or a brand name chemical water disinfectant are the best courses of action.

The infection would be from hiker to hiker - not self infection, because humans are the most likely source of these organisms you will come into close contact with frequently during a long hike.

jh, are you aware of any studies to back that up? There is so much misinformation on this subject, please read up on it before making official-sounding statements.

The JMT hiker I helped last year was suffering from a severe GI problem said his was from improperly stored summer sausage -- after opening it, he stored it for days in his pack without keeping it chilled.

I guess I should have said "re-intoduce" a pathogen, since I was thinking of not being able to wash your hands and then ingesting own feces. It wouldn't require another person to spread E. Coli or any other bacteria found in the colon to the oral cavity. When I wrote "animal" I meant humans as well as any other wild ones.

I should have said in the context of consuming own feces. I was thinking of a previous response about self contamination following "doing your business" or something like that. I should have quoted that earlier post to establish context.

You're right, there are an almost infinite number of ways that a person could actually get sick on the trail or anywhere else. Improperly stored food that needs refrigeration is definetly one of them.

I'm not aware of any studies, and people can ignore my responses accordingly. I filter all the time regardless since I don't want to chance it. There are people here that do not wish to do this, and I was responding to another post about hand washing, and water consumption only.

I'll do my best to clean up what I was intending to say, with out writing too much. I am not a doctor, a micro-biologist, or any health expert, but I do know a little on the subject and would like to do my best to give people some info before they might decide to skip the filter and go caveman style. I also stayed in a Holiday Inn Express about 5 years ago

You have 4 basic ways to become sick from drinking contaminated water or accidentally consuming fecal matter. I do not included consuming heavy metals or any other non-organic source.

1) You can consume bacteria like E. Coli, 2) you can consume a virus but that is very rare outside the tropics according to my filter box,3) you can consume a protozoa spore or feeding stage protozoa, and 4) you can consume a parasitic worm or Helminth. There are also instances such as cholera where toxins release by a bacteria can make you sick, but if memory serves me the bacteria itself is not parasitizing or infecting your tissues. According to what I just read, E. Coli can infect host tissues making them sick, and also cause illness from toxins that are released, but they may not necessarily be infecting the person's tissues.

E. Coli could be transmitted from another person to self, or self to self following failure to disinfect hands after a bowel movement. I think bacteria could also come directly out of the water, but it seems to be that (according to the study referenced before) it is not likely to be the case. Virus could probably transmit the same way or come directly out of contaminated water. Helminths are rare for infections in our country, from what I understand, and I believe the only way to get them (digestively) is by eating the eggs in food or feces, or water, and again the study apparently suggested that is rare.

For most people who filter, the biggest concerns are the parasitic protozoa such as giardia, or at least that is the case for me, personally. They are spore formers (aka cyst)and direct consumption of contaminated water is the most likely source of infection. I have not read the study, but I am guessing from what others have written about it that they are not common in the sampled water sources on the JMT. If that is the case, then drink up.

Regardless as to what people say about this subject, I always recommend filtering or treating water. I would hate to be the one that gets sick from a parasite because I was trying to cut down on weight. Animals, including people, develop an immunity to a lot of the native flora they regularly encounter. However, since you are likely to encounter new species ( from what you normally do) on the trail it only makes sense to me, to take prudent precautions to greatly reduce the probability of the hike turning unpleasant (from consuming contaminated water). You can not develop an immunity to parasites including protozoa or helminths. Your body can produce antibodies against viruses and I think they can against bacteria. This does take time, and while you can't get the same cold twice, you still had it the first time.

If you disagree, that is fine. I'm not an expert, but I would like to attempt to establish why I have written my responses on what is a very important backcountry subject. Get back if you want me to elaborate on an area I wrote on. Hopefully, I am helping.

Here are relevant links to water topics in this forum and water studies related to the Sierra.

Water and Giardia around Mt. Whitney   The Evidenced-Based Medicine in the Wilderness editorial by Thomas R. Welch, MD, mentioned in the first paragraph is particularly relevant. It even identifies the 1976 "smoking gun" report that may have started the contaminated water hysteria.

Resurrect those old Sierra Club cups? (or Giardia re-examined)   From the Sierra Club, Conservation Issues of the Ventana Chapter, by Don Hoernschemeyer

Giardia Lamblia and Giardiasis With Particular Attention to the Sierra Nevada by Robert L. Rockwell, PhD.   A pdf file version is here.

Ultralight Backpacking Water Treatment   From Ezine Articles by Steve K Green.

Sierra Nevada Water: Is it safe to drink? from SierraNevadaWild.gov, Sierra Wilderness Education Project

Water sources: Main Trail and Mountaineer’s Route   A thread started by Bob R.

60,000 Liters of Water Consumed -- Untreated, &nbsp a post by Bob R.

From REI "expert advice": Water: What Are the Risks?

And more formal studies (Thanks to Alan K):

Title: An Analysis of Human Pathogens Found in ... National Parks
Authors: Robert Wayne Derlet, MD; James Reynolds Carlson, PhD
Source: Wilderness Medical Society
Issue: Wilderness and Environmental Medicine: Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 113–118. Published: June, 2002

Title: Coliform bacteria in Sierra Nevada wilde...ls, and cattle?
Author(s):Derlet, RW, Carlson JR
Source: WILDERNESS & ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE Volume: 17 Issue: 1 Pages: 15-20 Published: SPR 2006

Title: Risk factors for coliform bacteria in ba... A 5-year study
Author(s): Derlet, RW, Ger KA, Richards JR, et al.
Source: WILDERNESS & ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE Volume: 19 Issue: 2 Pages: 82-90 Published: SUM 2008

Title: Backpacking in Yosemite and Kings Canyon...water to drink?
Author(s): Derlet, RW
Source: JOURNAL OF TRAVEL MEDICINE Volume: 15 Issue: 4 Pages: 209-215 Published: JUL-AUG 2008

Are these just meant to be some sources to investigate, or are they a response to something I wrote? I am actually asking.

I would like to point out that I was writing in very general terms, which is why I mention those different ways a person could be infected.

I also skimmed one of the articles, and it seems interesting that it has information which contradicts what I heard about Giardia, and that is that it is killed by freezing conditions. I had heard it was not killed by freezing and that the cyst was an adaptation to compensate for the dessication properties of freezing.

I don't completely understand how we would develop an immunity to Giardia given that it is a parasite, and our immune cells would need to contact it to "fight it off". I did not see how we develop an immunity to Giardia in the article.


You asked me earlier if I had a study to back up my conservative claims, essentially that micro-organism cause disease. These web articles you submit are not studies. If you want to believe them or not is your choice, but I simply do not trust articles found on-line with information contained within that is flat out wrong. One article made a claim, and then looking through it did not elaborate on it, so I am inclined to hedge on safety and continue to filter.

It never hurts to be safe.

Steve:

Thanks for the links. I'll be sure to print those out and re-read them for a refresher. Although I don't purify water myself, it was only after reading these and papers like them that convinced me.

Informed decision making: all the cool kids are doing it.

-L

sometimes I even forego my cup

It really all comes down to who you trust, and what source you want to use to make those "informed choices". If you choose not to filter, that is a decision you can make for yourself.

A quick skim revealed mis-information in the paper on ultralight backpacking:
"Protozoa are hard-shelled"

If that were the case then you could not have protozoa that twist to achieve motility, the "amoebas" move in this way. Protozoa lack a cell wall composed of carbohydrates. Some protozoa encase themselves in a hard shell of calcium carbonate, but that is not all of them. So, I would not trust that source. These are also not scientific papers, they are web articles. They may or may not link to scientific papers, but I didn't go much further than the website.

The one titled "Sierra Nevada Water: Is it safe to drink? "
appears to have been a study, but it is what would be term gray literature, at best, since it does not come from a peer reviewed source.

Iceberg Lake - I have never seen any "poop piles" by the lake; although I have seen some usage of "behind the rocks" of the upper camp rock rings. I would drink from the lake if need to and feel "reasonably" comfortable. But since I always tank up at the falls preceeding the lake, it is a non-issue. Everyone should determine his or her comfort level to determine what they feel is safe and acceptable risks.

Personally I trust the water at the Whitney end of the JMT much more than the Yosemite end. On my last half-dome trip, we did filter water from the upper part of the merced and the small seep-creek below the scramlbing part of the climb. Those were my choices. But for the JMT I will not even bring a filter due to the abundance of good and non-questionable(in my opinion) water sources along the way.