[pct-l] Water - it finally caught up with me

[Tortoise]

Hi Eric,

What causes you to think your illness was due to contaminated water instead 
of something you ate, either on the trail or afterward?

Tortoise

<> Because truth matters! <>

On 10/11/10 15:00, Eric Lee wrote:
> Here's another data point on the water discussion.
>
>
>
> I live in Washington and for the past 10 years or so I've usually not
> filtered or treated my water, depending on a visual inspection of the source
> and whether I knew of significant human presence upstream of my location.
> When I do feel the need to take precautions I use Aqua Mira.  This has
> worked fine with no problems for section-hiking all of Oregon and Washington
> as well as lots of other hiking in Washington.
>
>
>
> However, this year my section hike took me from the Russian Wilderness in CA
> section P through to Ashland, and there is a significant livestock presence
> pretty much all through that area.  I knew that livestock are bad news so I
> did mostly treat my water with Aqua Mira but over the course of six days
> there were probably three or four times when I chose not to for various
> reasons.  Two days after finishing my section hike I got seriously ill for
> about a week.  I never got it officially diagnosed but I'm pretty sure I had
> e coli.  It wasn't fun.
>
>
>
> That experience isn't going to drastically change the way I deal with my
> water but I will take the presence of livestock more seriously in the
> future.
>
>
>
> Eric
>
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