[at-l] chlorine as water treatment

[sloetoe at yahoo.com (Sloetoe)]

--- Jim and/or Ginny Owen <spiriteagle99@hotmail.com> wrote:
> OB wrote:
> >And nasty runoff water is available to hikers in New Jersey,
> >every day, without ever wandering toward the nation's bread 
> >basket.
> 
> And in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut.
### Ahhh, Connecticut! Land of the Blue Trail system (fer
real!). Also, like VA, PA, and NY, a land of soil permiability
and endemic filtering quite unlike clay-bound Indiana, where *I*
carry a filter (and, well, sometimes, even use it). Or say
Kansas, where a peek at a road map will tell you that there are
a two rivers (maybe) draining the state for every hundred or so
draining PA. Hmmmm.

> To say nothing of California, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming,
> Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.
> Been there, done that - and we use a filter because we HAVE
> been there and done that.
### Any mountains in those states? They sound mountainous. My
mistake. But it sounds like a monsterously big all natural
filter that (hey[!]) I don't have to buy, carry, operate, or
maintain.

> And because we value our health.
### "We pack our fears." I pack a compass, and enjoy its
frequent use. (I also fear not "*knowing* where I've been.") I
pack a whistle, and practice its use with the boys who are my
charge. (I fear.) You pack neither. (In fact, I have purchased a
couple of compasses and whistles from gear you tuckerized.) You
pack a filter. But 30 years ago (ohmigawd) I started drinking
water when I was thirsty, from the streams running through my
*coastal* (heavily settled) Connecticut home town. I turn W.C
Fields on his butt: he was famous for the warning not to drink
from a stream because "fish fuque in that, you know." I observed
that if it's good enough for a brookie, it's dang-well-sure good
enough for me.

> And because we don't want to abort a thruhike like so many
> others have had to.
### Except that "bad water" ends no fewer throughhikes now than
before the widespread marketing of filters/chemicals. Actually,
anecdotally, seems like a boatload nowadays -- despite all the
measures modern science and Madison Avenue have given us. In
1979, there was only "Donna from Wisconsin" who quit because of
"amoebic dysentary." That's poor efficacy, in my book.
### Going a bit further, in the last three years, the boys and I
have hiked the LT and the NH AT -- supposed hotbeds of "beaver
fever" -- a total of roughly 435x3 miles. A 1300 mile, 25 week
window of experience for the three of us, in this supposed
hotbed, with narry a prob between the three of us. (OOps. Last
year was a drought year. We did use the filter, twice -- the
flatworms wriggling around like Klingon spaghetti were a bit
much.)

> Walk softly,
### And occasionally poop softly,
Sloetoe

=====
Spatior! Nitor! Nitor! Tempero!
   Pro Pondera Et Meliora.

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