High Sierra Topix

Nope the spare batteries and purification tabs in my kit are there for that reason.
Penners.....how clever

And you haven't sat on it yet?

The probability that I will step, sit or drop a heavy rock on something is directly proportional to the amount of money I spend on it - why I got the Hiker Pro steeply discounted. The plastic is showing signs - cracked around the quick connect for the "dirty" hose - so I am just counting the days...

No, but only because it is stored in a liter bottle with the top chopped off, this is what I purify in. It's well protected. Before that I would wrap it up in my beanie.

The only time that lamp is exposed is when its purifying. A less diligent individual might have an issue with it.

My paranoid thoughts revolve around fumbling it as its so small. It was a bit of a leap of faith, but I have used it exclusively for 4 years, with great results. I'm all over the desert and coastal areas too, so my pump is the better choice there.

I spent REI points on it, and it was on sale, got it cheap

sparky wrote:No, but only because it is stored in a liter bottle with the top chopped off, this is what I purify in. It's well protected. Before that I would wrap it up in my beanie.

The only time that lamp is exposed is when its purifying. A less diligent individual might have an issue with it.

My paranoid thoughts revolve around fumbling it as its so small. It was a bit of a leap of faith, but I have used it exclusively for 4 years, with great results. I'm all over the desert and coastal areas too, so my pump is the better choice there.

I spent REI points on it, and it was on sale, got it cheap

My question for any water treatment method is...how do you know it did work? E.G. perhaps the water was clean enough to drink without treatment.

I wonder if anyone has done a comparison of the natural UV light available at 10000' vs. the steripen?

fishhunter wrote:

sparky wrote:No, but only because it is stored in a liter bottle with the top chopped off, this is what I purify in. It's well protected. Before that I would wrap it up in my beanie.

The only time that lamp is exposed is when its purifying. A less diligent individual might have an issue with it.

My paranoid thoughts revolve around fumbling it as its so small. It was a bit of a leap of faith, but I have used it exclusively for 4 years, with great results. I'm all over the desert and coastal areas too, so my pump is the better choice there.

I spent REI points on it, and it was on sale, got it cheap

My question for any water treatment method is...how do you know it did work? E.G. perhaps the water was clean enough to drink without treatment.

I wonder if anyone has done a comparison of the natural UV light available at 10000' vs. the steripen?

I did a little searching...can't find the Steripen output but US Public Health Service lists required UV saturation to kill virus/bacteria is 16,000 microwatt-sec/cm2. Steripen puts out UV-C at the most deadly wavelength, whereas sunlight is primarily UV-A and UV-B (B is shorter and most damaging, but not nearly as lethal as UV-C). Sunlight UV-B at sea-level/equator is about 250 microwatts/cm2, but increases with altitude (about 50% higher, or 375 microwatts/cm2, at 10k). So if I calculate correctly, in less than 60 seconds you would have kill at the water surface of a lake. However, Giardia cysts may require as much as 90k microwatt-sec/cm2. I believe this data suggests that taking water from the top 6" of a lake will be relatively safe.

Moving water...well then you have to start to calculate dispersion rates and understand the number of cysts actually required to cause illness.

I don't have the time right now to dig into this, and after skimming, not sure I am knowledgable enought to wrap my brain around it, but here is a pdf file about steripen testing
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Just for the record my buddies refer to it as the scary-pen ;-)