[pct-l] Bleach as Water Treatment

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

On Sep 1, 2012, at 10:00 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:

> From: "Matt Parker" <zerosignal74 at comcast.net>
> Subject: [pct-l] Bleach as Water Treatment
>
> There has been a lot of talk about Water Treatment lately on this  
> email
> list. I currently use Aqua Mira as a chemical treatment which works  
> great.
> It's light and easy to use. The only drawback is that it is expensive
> especially when using it for a 4-5 month thru hike.

Is it really that expensive? I carried a filter for the first half,  
and for the second half I used aqua mira. I only went through about  
one and a half packages of it (each package containing the A and B  
drops.) I didn't use it every time, though. I used it consistently in  
N Cal and Oregon and almost never in Washington. If I had used it  
consistently at all times, I probably would have used 5 packages, 6  
at the most for the entire trail.

A surprising amount of my So Cal water actually came from municipal  
supplies (i.e. faucet at my hotel before setting out for 24 hour  
stretch, faucets at gas stations, campgrounds, stores, ranger  
stations or even faucets right on the trail, not to mention piped  
springs which I consider to be clean and sometimes even water caches,  
although I tried not to use them.)