A personal water purifier like the LifeStraw is a great addition to your gear when traveling away from home and civilization. Being able to get clean drinking water could literally make the difference between life and death. With a session like this, you can grab a cup of water from the North Platte River or Lake Maloney and be reasonably safe. Consider adding an air purifier to your outdoor gear.
Photo courtesy Rick Windham
Posted by Rick Windham Outdoor Columnist
We are blessed in this part of the country. We have good water. If the pioneers had only known that they had a lot of water just a few feet below them on the Oregon Trail through this land, Nebraska would have been settled much faster.
We take water for granted. We grew up knowing that when we were thirsty we would just turn the tap on and have water. We can wash our clothes and cars and water our lawn. We have it pretty good. Many parts of the world envy us.
However, there are still occasions when we need water and it may not be immediately available. Imagine working in the Sandhills this last week. It was hot. You work in such an environment and you get thirsty. Imagine you are hot and parched and you see a windmill pumping to a storage tank. I know I drank from storage tanks without thinking about it, but is the water really potable?
The epitome of clean water is said to be a mountain stream that plunges down a mountain slope. There are beer and bottled water companies that use this image. We have all seen films in which an Indian, a pioneer or a miner kneels down, clasps his hands and takes a sip of water. Can we still do that today? A more modern image is a hiker who dips his water bottle into a mountain stream and then drinks a long drink.
According to survival experts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Parks Service, you should never drink water from a natural source that you haven’t purified, even if the water looks clean. The water in a stream, river, or lake may look clean, but it can still be filled with bacteria, viruses, and parasites that can cause water-borne diseases such as cryptosporidiosis or giardiasis.
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