[pct-l] Sawyer Squeeze

[John Coyle]

I recently bought a Sawyer Squeeze from Mountain Laurel Designs  (it's cheaper from Amazon,) but I haven't used it in the field yet.  I noticed a generic pint soda bottle as well as my 1.5L Evernew water bag fits the threads on the dirty water end, but not the clean water end.  The Evernew water bag is stronger than the Sawyer dirty water bag that came with the filter.  After hearing about the failures of the Sawyer bag, I will use an Evernew water bag for the dirty water on a weekend trip to the Rockbound Pass area near Lake Tahoe this Labor day weekend.  I have two Evernew 1.5L bags, so I can use one of them for clean water as long as I don't confuse the two.

Previously I had an old Pur Hiker pump filter, which worked fine, but it was heavy and the replacement filters were expensive ($60).  I switched to Aqua Mira in both liquid and tablet forms, but didn't like the 4 hour dwell time. Some people say Aqua Mira has no taste, but I must have sensitive taste buds because I can taste it.

There is an excellent recent write-up about water treatment in general and the Sawyer filter in particular on the BackPackingLight web site by the crusty, but lovable, Australian Rodger Caffin.  He says the Sawyer Squeeze filter makes pump filters like the Pur or newer Katadyn  Hiker filters obsolete.  In other words he likes it.  Interestingly the Sawyer Squeeze uses the same hollow tube technology as medical filters for kidney dialysis.