Isle Royale Forums

Hello
Looking for your 2 cents for my up coming trip to IR. I have been using the Miniworks ex fliter. Now as a gift I have received a Steripen adventurer. Do you think its a waster of time, a good idea, cant hurt, don't bother, to use the steripen after filtering with the Miniworks.
Thanks

For Isle Royale, the National Park Service does recommend both filtering for larger parasites such as the tapeworm egg and additional treatment for smaller things such as viruses that are much smaller than almost all filters (certainly portable filters). Or you can just boil instead, which takes care of everything, except the taste of course,

I think you will find some people on IR forego the Steripen or other chemical treatment. I would never recommend that course of action but I will say the dangers from viruses are going to most prevalent near areas of (or down stream from) human activity. On the flip side, I know this wasn't your question but for those that might be thinking it, substituting Steripen or chemical treatment for filtering or boiling is clearly a bad idea because UV or chemical treatment does not remove tapeworm eggs.

I used my Sawyer gravity filter, worked very good. Saw people using MSR's and whatnot, seemed to work pretty well. Steri-pen would not be effective against tape-worm, I would go with your Miniworks, I agree with Midwest Ed. Good Luck, I had a great time going back at the end of June.

ffinmich wrote:Do you think its a waster of time, a good idea, cant hurt, don't bother, to use the steripen after filtering with the Miniworks.

Don't bother, a waster of time, but of course it can't hurt if you want to be really safe. Ed summarized it well.

Always just used the Katadyn filter. A filter to .3 microns will serve you fine in the continental US.

I agree that Ed summed it up nicely. The other thing to think about with a UV solution is that waterborne sediment is still there after treatment. I have a mental block about drinking brown water.

hooky wrote:I have a mental block about drinking brown water.

Some of the lakes have a bit of tannins in the water and look like tea even after filtering.
I just imagined it WAS tea or actually made it into tea!