Is creek water a safe source for drinking and do filters really work?
Last Summer while hiking the Juan De Fuca Trail we took part in a University of Victoria survey which aimed to shed light on how safe it is to drink water directly from a backcountry stream and how contaminated people's hands and water bottles were. The findings were very interesting but not surprising. The research students had us bring them a sample of creek water from where we thought the water might be best to drink and then they analyzed it for contamination of E-coli. They also swabbed our hands and water bottle and took note of our filtration system and ranked them according to their success of filtering out contaminants.
They created this report once the study was complete, have a look at the outcomes as it may influence your next hiking or camping trip.