[pct-l] Giardia

[Brian Forestell]

Heh All

I have been backpacking since I was 16, which in my case is almost 40 years 
ago. For the first 38 years of backpacking I never treated my water. In that 
period I never got sick. When I started section hiking the PCT (three to 
four week segments) I had the same mentality and did not treat my water. For 
the most part I got away with it. Then came the fateful day. Two years ago 
we section hiked from Echo Lake to near the Oregon border. Man oh man I got 
sick. I am not sure where I got it but it was somewhere before Belden. At 
Belden I started to feel sick and had pretty nasty diarrhea but felt better 
within a couple days. I made it as far as Drakesbad feeling pretty good but 
that night (after a huge meal at Drakesbad, Geez I love those people) it 
returned with a vengeance. Of course I was smart and got off the trail. No, 
I wasn't smart. I figured that we were just a day from Old station and 
headed there. It was a hot day, a very hot day. It was 108 degrees at Old 
Station that day. I was running to find a tree approximately every twenty 
minutes. So, I stopped a couple of hours out of Drakesbad and went back. 
Nope, still stupid. Still kept hiking. At one point I ran out of water in 
the heat and was having some serious problems hiking. I ran into Booty and 
Eye Spy who are very sweet people and Booty hooked me up with a liter of 
water. My hiking buddies wished me well and headed into town with Booty and 
Eye Spy promising to catch up with me at Hietman's. The good news was that I 
did make it to Old Station and Firewalker (Denny) gave me a ride to their 
place and Firefly (Georgi who is a living Saint,) took me into Falls River. 
It took three liters of IV fluids before they could even get a blood sample 
from me. I was so dehydrated that there was no back pressure to get a blood 
sample. The Dr. warned me that I could easily have gone into renal failure 
and died.... He lectured me on the evils of not treating water and hiking 
when you have diarrhea. At that time he couldn't make a positive diagnosis, 
"something nasty" was the best he could do. He gave me a prescription for 
flagyl and sent me on my way with the advice to take three days off the hike 
before continuing on. Thirty hours later I headed up onto a very hot Hat 
Creek Rim and hiked 30 miles the next day. Firefly did try to convince me 
that it was unwise to leave. Fortunately I was OK. When I returned to Canada 
I phoned back for the results. Giardia

After that I always treat my water. Then this summer I came down with 
giardia several days after I got off the trail in northern Washington. I was 
very diligent about treating my water across the state. I felt healthy as a 
horse. The last few days on the trail I hiked with a very cooll guy who was 
doing the section from Stevens Pass north. He was seriously overloaded (old 
school was his description). He was generous about offering me food. He had 
packed some great trail mix and he freely offered me handfuls directly an 
enormous bag of it. ( Am sure he packed five pounds of trail mix) The last 
day I hiked with him he was complaining about bloating and gas and weird 
tasting burping. That night he shit his sleeping bag and was sick and 
miserable. I never heard what he got but several days after I got off the 
trail I got sick. Fortunately I was able to start medication right away and 
so I never felt terribly bad. The tests came back positive for giardia.

BTW the medical bill at Falls River was $1900. The bill in Canada was $23 
bucks for the medicine. Me, I am a big fan of socialized medicine.

This summer I will diligently treat my water and yes I will probably still 
take food from strangers

Trouble