Last year we made a trip up Moose River North and base camped on Agnes. This was my first experience with water loaded with iron. My sawyer filter needed flushed after each quart of water. Is there a trick to dealing with water that has this much iron in it?

We are looking at going in LIS North for a trip to Shell, Lynx, Heritage, and Hustler. I am assuming these lake have a strong chance of being iron rich as well. Can anyone confirm this?

It also seems like LIS is a wider ans straighter river than Moose. We had a 3 man canoe and Moose river was a bugger to steer on Moose.

If you're talking about the rusty color, it's not iron. The tea color comes from tannin in vegetation (leaves) that ends up in the water. Most of my trips have been from EP 14 and every filter that I have clogged was on these lakes.

I have given up with any kind of gravity fed filter system because I haven't found one that doesn't require more effort to maintain than it does to use a pump filter in the first place.

You won't have any problem with a three-person canoe on the LIS. It's a beautiful river.

Pete

I don't know much about Sawyer gravity filters.
I did that route in 2014 with a Katydin Hiker pump filter and had no problems, I was there solo for about a week.

My MSR gravity filter came with a back flush syringe that works wonderful in severely stained water. I just back flush after every 5 gallons of water, and have not had any problems.

The Indian Sioux is definitely wider than the Moose River. I like to put a coffee filter over the intake and this seems to prolong the life of my filter.

I solved clogging problems for both pump and gravity by carrying a collapsible bucket and filtering after it has settled for at least 10-15 minutes. Not slowed since. I fobavk flush a little every 4 litre bag like instructions say.

We too did the Moose with a Seneca 19' and it did get to be arduous trying to turn that thing fully loaded with three grown men but that being said it did handle pretty good all things considered. It was great on Boulder Bay and LLC when the wind was whipping. Really stable!

I used a Sawyer mini in a gravity system and had no issues. We back flushed the filter every time we filled the bag. We did not pull water from the Moose however.

Looking at LIS for next year.

I've camped on Agnes a number of times and never had an issue with my gravity filter clogging, and I only backflush every 16 liters or so. I use the Platypus GravityWorks 4.0L water filter and I'm on the same filter after probably close to a dozen trips. Tannin is the culprit on Agnes, but that doesn't mean that you will run into tannin on other lakes nearby. Water clarity really very lake specific.

This is the first I've heard of a gravity filter being more work than a pump. I use the Gravityworks Platypus as well and I'm still on the original filter that is at least 5 seasons old. It doesn't matter the water source, heavy tannin or sediment, but we filter the 4 liters like normal then lift the clean bag to backflush around a cup. You will be able to see a pretty good slug of sediment in you dirty bag after this. This only takes a few seconds and it keeps your filter times down.

One of the things I started doing that really helps increase the time between flushes is filling up a "dirty" water dromedary out in the canoe, off the shore at least 20 yards, and ideally in deeper water than shallow. This helps cut down on the particulate that builds up along the shoreline.

But, yea I don't think you can avoid flushing completely. Do yourself a favor and get a 60 mL syringe with a Leur lock tip and figure out how to be able to lock it onto tubing that feeds to the filter. with a 60 you can really SHOVE a lot of water through the filter with a lot of force.

Oh and for what it's worth, filters are ruined if exposed to the cold. Any H2o inside the fibers will expand upon freezing and blast apart the fibers, which kills flow, and reduces the fibers ability to filter. For this reason I don't order filters in the mail in cold months here in MN.

GearGuy
thanks for the info on the freezing effects on filter shipped in the winter!

We have dealt with a lot of different kinds of filters for years but this is the first time I have heard of that! Is that for all filters, even if they are not "purifers"?

I also take my water from out in the lake, and filter it once we get back to camp. Helps keep the "gunk" out of the filter and it also seems to settle to the bottom of the container by the time we filter, so we don't filter that far down.