[at-l] re:Hiking the Appalachian Trail

[spiriteagle99 at hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Amy wrote:
>When I was a kid, I'd just scoop up water and drink it wherever we
>were.  Backwoods Michigan, backwoods Pennsylvania.. if we were in the
>middle of nowhere, I was fine with it.  My mother, however, was
>aghast and sure I'd get sick.

In some places in Pennsylvania, we still do that. In other places, we 
filter.  Ya gotta know where it's coming from.  One weekend on the MidState 
Trail, we took water from a "spring" - without filtering.  Turned out the 
"spring" was fed by a pond just up the hill - and had a reputation for 
making "sick hikers."  We got lucky - we escaped - but we have a friend who 
found a dead deer in that pond - after he'd taken water from the "spring."

Walk softly,
Jim


http://www.spiriteaglehome.com/