Hello,

Having traveled for many years in the Quetico I have not taken water purifiers on trips and have experienced no problems. However I am curious if anyone uses or recommends the use of water purifiers within the WCPP?

Thanks in advance.

quote Tippytop: "Hello,

Having traveled for many years in the Quetico I have not taken water purifiers on trips and have experienced no problems. However I am curious if anyone uses or recommends the use of water purifiers within the WCPP?

Thanks in advance."

I filtered with an MSR hydration/microfilter setup but others in my group paddled to the center of the deep lakes and dipped water bottles. They used a 5 gal bucket to collect and paddled back to shore for drinking/cooking water.

The only time that became an issue was on one or two very shallow lakes where we relied on my filter system for drinking water.

It's up to your comfort level I would guess as to what system you will use.

We used a Sawyer gravity filter in a system my trip partner Joe built from MSR bags, hoses and an inline Sawyer gravity filter to put with it.

We brought a back up filter "Just-in-case" as we were going to be out for two weeks. The filter never clogged. WCPP water has much less gunk floating in it so the filters last longer before gunking up.

We also frequently drank directly from lakes and had no issues.

Your mileage may differ.

WCPP has a lot of small lake and river routes with a ton of beaver dams. I use a Platypus gravity feed water filter. It is so effortless and easy to use I just don't see the point in not using it. The last thing I want is to be spending the last week of a four week trip dealing with Giardia. Trust me, it's no fun.

I do pretty much the same thing in Quetico and WCPP.

If there is a large, deep water source nearby, I'll dip/drink directly from it. If I find myself in tight quarters (river channels/streams or shallow water) I'll either filter or boil.

I did whip up a Sawyer's gravity filter system during the off season and I'll probably try that out this year.

dd

Thanks much for the very helpful information-Based on all of your insights, I will bring a water filter as many of the lakes we will be traveling through are relatively small.

Thanks again.

I feel a lot better about taking water straight from lakes in Quetico compared to WCPP. WCPP is more like BWCA than Quetico, where the lakes are bigger and clearer.

I drank water from Donald Lake treated with a steripen and got a mild case of giardia.

quote nctry: "I drank water from Donald Lake treated with a steripen and got a mild case of giardia."

I drank water from Donald Lake for 3 straight, blazingly hot, summer days without filtering or treatment with no problem. (Maybe just lucky, or maybe it was just I was camped as far away from the developed areas of the lake as possible at a spot where waterflow from those areas would not have come past me.)

Your mileage may vary.

dd

Always filter. That's me. I am a cautious fellow.

I do not always use my filter in WCPP. I will fill my bottle in good open water and use the filter in the streams. It has been a while since I changed my filter and was cleaning it up today for the next trip. It seemed to be pumping water a little too easily so while it was apart I blew backwards through the lines and watched the air bubbles come out a hole in the filter as it lay in a sink of water. I thought that filter was lasting a long time without becoming hard to pump.