Thats right - your advice is incorrect! re read the MCofS guidence!
Boiling, purifying or anything else to highland stream water is simply not needed in any shape or form.
What experience do you have of the water in question? It is pure and clean - filtered thru the finest bogs.
I asked because I'm cautious:
My partner is an experienced renal nurse and has dialysed children with kidney failure for years and seen first hand the very real danger: Their condition is a result of coming into contact with matter contaminated with livestock faeces in the countryside and contracting e.coli. This then means life-long dialysis and possible kidney transplant.
Granted these are children but it's possible for adults to suffer the same, or more likely to pass this unknowingly onto children they are in contact with.
I don't have children, but many of our friends have small babies and my partner has young nieces.
I don't plan on going high enough to be above grazing livestock therefore I'm assuming the water could be contaminated.
I didn't want to start a debate whether one should purify mountain water. I will, and I wanted advice on what equipment to use. To suggest that there are no risks is irresponsible in my opinion, and advising that I should risk it is not sensible when I have expressed concerns already. If you think e.coli is not a risk in the UK I invite you to Yorkhill Children's Hospital in Glasgow to talk with the dozen or so kids currently undergoing kidney dialysis or waiting for a transplant as a result of contracting e.coli.
And how many of them caught e coli from drinking water from mountain streams?
"won't somebody think of the children"
What's the point in risking it?
Lee - Risk what? I think what we're trying to say is that where you're going the risk is so infintesimally small as to be not worth considering. Feel free to boil/purify your water but you'll waste a lot of gas/time for nothing.
In all my trips in the Highlands, purifying water was the last thing on my and my mates' minds. We were worried about important things like how much Tennent's and coal we could fit in our trail packs for a night in a bothy and whether or not someone remembered milk for the tea in the morning!
Back in the 70s I campewd at the Narnain Boulders on the Cobbler and used water from the main stream. The next morning I saw a dead sheep less than 100M upstream. No ill effects. But subsequent advice I was given makes sense - drink from the small streams and there is less chance of anything being in the water upstream.
In the highlands I've always drunk water untreated from streams above the last house/farm and never had a problem. My dad has been drinking from the streams/lochs in the highlands since the 1940s. He's still going strong at 83. Still does a bit of hillwalking. Never had a problem with water.
But if you don't feel safe doing what other people have done for decades get some tabs. I'm going to be using Katadyn MicroPur Purification Tablets for a USA tour this summer. Claimed to be "The Only EPA Registered Purification Tablets on the Market! And the only disinfection system effective against viruses, bacteria, cryptosporidium, and Giardia."
Viruses and bacteria are killed quickly. Cryptosporidium, and Giardia take from 30m to 2 hours to be killed depending on water temperature.
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