![]() When you think about it, that’s a heck of a lot of water! With the hand pump style of filter you could conceivably be filtering water in bulk at a campsite, 10 litres at a time. With reasonably regular maintenance, the LifeStraw Flex should be good for 2000 litres of clean water. All you have to do is draw water up through the filter with the syringe, and then push the syringe back down to blow the water back through the hollow fibre membrane. I’m sure daily cleaning is overkill unless you are sucking up some really filthy water, but multi-day hikes might require you to carry the syringe to keep things flowing smoothly. I did note however, that they recommend cleaning your filter with the syringe quite often, in fact the manual says you should do it every day if you are using the filter constantly. Once you have it cleaned out though, I didn’t experience any weird tastes. Make sure you do that, because the first couple of times I did it, the water came out extremely cloudy. The LifeStraw Flex comes with a large syringe, and instructions to back-flush water through the filter with it at least 5 times before your first use. The size of the screw thread is pretty universal, so you could also use most standard plastic water bottles such as the popular-with-ultralight-hikers Smart Water bottles. With the straw screwed onto the top of the bottle, you can also give the bottle a squeeze as you suck though it which increases the flow rate to something much more satisfying. The included rubber bottle that comes with the flex is only 650ml, but the SoftBottles give you many more options. Perhaps my favourite way to use the LifeStraw Flex is to screw it onto the top of a Platypus SoftBottle though. Quite how LifeStraw themselves didn’t think of this solution is beyond me… This issue can be solved by cutting a 3-inch length of rubber hydration bladder hose and putting it on the bottom of the LifeStraw so that you are always sucking from the bottom of the bottle. ![]() The “straw” only reaches half way down the bottle, so once you have sucked up half of your water you have to contort the plastic bottle in all directions trying to get the remaining water to the bottom of the straw. The soft bottle that comes with the LifeStraw Flex is probably the lightest option if that is your primary consideration, but it isn’t my favourite from a usability standpoint. When I saw the new LifeStraw Flex I was immediately interested because you can simply scoop water quickly from a stream while you pass, and then do the actual filtration while you are walking along and drinking. I have been using the MSR Trailshot for a couple of years, but it’s not the fastest system in the world because you have to stop and crouch down while you pump it to filter the water from the stream. My first stipulation for this kind of filter is that it should fit into the hip belt pocket of my backpacks, so that I can grab water from a stream without needing to take the pack off. I much prefer to travel with the Platypus flexible water bottles that I have talked about before, and then use a lightweight, pocketable water filter to top those up during the day. ![]() Some people are happy to carry several litres of regular tap water with them on an adventure, but if you’re already carrying 10-20lbs of camera equipment then this isn’t all that practical. ![]() If you spend a lot of time outdoors then water purification is going to be a consideration at some point. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |