Anybody use a water filter when they go camping?

I usually just bring a cooler with water but I have life straw in my boat and truck just in case.

Safely drinkable? Probably. It will still taste like shite. Like Zealot said, if its bad looking water, filter it through a shirt first then filter it. You may consoder bringing two "dirty water" containers and one "clean container" and use something like a Sawyer Mini Squeeze and double filter it. Dirty water into dirty container 1, then squeezed into dirty container 2, then into clean container. That may help with taste. I use a 1L Smart Water bottle as my dirty and squeeze into a platypus bladder. Ive only ever filtered runnig stream water theough it though and it tasted great. I did test it out initially with my toilet water, but i checked to make sure there wasnt shite in it. I havent died yet so I assume they work as advertised.

Sawyer is awesome. I have drank somo nasty looking water that came out looking and tasting perfectly clear out of the sawyer

I have owned both an MSR Miniworks and a Katadyn hiker pro. MSR is nice in that the filter is field serviceable by scraping off and washing off the outer layer of the carbon filter with a brillo pad. But pumping action does get noticably harder quickly and requires more cleaning than the Katadyn and also pumps a lot slower. The Katadyn is also a lot lighter which I liked on long distance hikes.

But, the Katadyn doesn't like overly silty water and if you don't filter cleanish water before you filter your filter pace will start off fast but slowly drop down to a dribble. Other than swishing it around on some water there is no other way to service the filter. If the filter clogs in the field and a quick field cleaning doesn't fix it you are DOA. I use a Silnylon water bag that I can scoop water out of the water source and let it settle before filtering. Of course this isn't always possible and sometimes on long hike your water source might just be a muddy trickle. Whatever filter you use, you will want to start with the cleanest water possible to prolong filter life.

I made my own own water bag out of Silnylon and grossgrain ribbon but it looks like this.

LINK /

Another vote for Sawyer Squeeze. I would recommend the full size Sawyer over the mini. I initially used the mini but the flow rate is so slow compared to the full size.