After years of using Potable Aqua iodine tablets (see how my Platypus is stained yellow?) and the citric acid neutralizers, I’ve recently made the switch to filtration using a Sawyer 3-way filter inline on my Platypus hydration system. I’ve never been a fan of water filters, what with the annoying pumping and the heavy weight for pump style or the long wait times for gravity filters and just the fussiness and all. But last year I became intrigued by the filters that Sawyer was putting out. They were exceptionally lightweight and filtered quickly. They got rid of more nasties than my iodine and didn’t alter the taste of the water to boot. I impulse-bought a Sawyer Squeeze and promptly left it in my gear storage area, unopened. It languished there because I read reviews of bags bursting and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to share many annoyances of previous generations of filters: fussiness, tedium, clean/dirty things to keep separate, etc.

When I upgraded my old CamelBak to a new Platypus Big Zip LP reservoir this year, I stopped for a moment to contemplate my hydration system. The hot new thing this year is the Sawyer MINI, essentially a smaller, lighter, and weaker version of the old Sawyer Squeeze. I looked into it, read blog posts about using it inline, and generally hemmed and hawed. I liked the price, the weight, and the ease of using it inline with a hydration pack, but I didn’t like the weakness of the filter (lasts 1/10th as long as the Squeeze) and I worried about the fit of the push connections.

I decided to give filtration a go, however, and settled on using the Sawyer 3-way inline with my Platypus reservoir. I chose the more expensive 3-way mostly because of the quick-connect links and lifespan. It is rated to 1 million gallons (as opposed to the 100,000 gallons of the MINI) and comes with the quicklink hose attachments factory installed on the filter. I liked the idea of being able to disassemble my entire system to really clean and back flush well at the end of any trip, as well as the adaptability of being able to easily convert my system into a gravity filter without fussing with the mouthpiece on my hose. Another advantage of this system is the ability to leave the filter behind when carrying water on a dayhike: simply remove the filter and click together the quicklink connections left behind!

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