[Closed] Drinking water from streams

I have used said device a few times from mountain and upland streams.

Still here. I am pretty lucky though 🙂

I've been drinking (without filters) water from streams all over the Lakes for over 30 years.

Will the trailshot stops virus? No. Will you die from using it? No. MIght you still catch a bug when using it? Yes. Is this statistically likely? No.

You're statistically more likely to get sick from drinking a mouthful of sea water when swimming...

Flowing water from streams. You‘ll alright without the filter.

Im 54 (I think, cant quite remember) anyway, Ive been drinking from streams all my life, not all of them in the UK. So apart from not knowing exactly how old I am, Ive had no side effects 🙂

Flowing water from streams

The (fatherly) advice when we were kids was to always check a way upstream just to be sure there were no obvious dead sheep in the watercourse, otherwise never bothered. I did get the trots once near Ogwen, but that was probably my own fault for being a bit close to the road/cafe/paths. Otherwise, haven't died yet. Occasionally been known to boil drinking water if in an inhabited valley or near farming country, or very slow-flowing, but generally in the uplands? Nah, just crack on.

I regularly drink from rivers and burns in Scotland without a filter and have suffered no ill effect. An filter can’t do any harm though.

Also been drinking from streams my whole life. I carry chlorine dioxide sterilising tablets now (tasteless) just to make sure.

Flowing water from streams. You‘ll alright without the filter.

Not if there is a decaying livestock upstream of it !!

The (fatherly) advice when we were kids was to always check a way upstream just to be sure there were no obvious dead sheep in the watercourse,

Yup it is but how far up do you go? 🤔

Not if there is a decaying livestock upstream of it !!

The risk is pretty low.

As I understand it you are unlikely to catch sheep viruses as viruses are species specific*

Avoid drinking from areas where it is likely that humans will have left their waste.

*Terms and conditions apply.

I found this useful when I was researching the same question.

https://www.msrgear.com/ie/faq?cat=faq&folderId=msr-water-treatment

Not if there is a decaying livestock upstream of it !!

Whilst possible, has any reader ever seen such a thing in the history of ever? Does your average sheep think "ee, I'm about to keel over, best find me a stream"? As Daffy said,

Is this statistically likely?

That said, a friend of mine once sagely told me "I don't care what statistics say, it will be me." I too would use the chlorine dioxide tablets, there's no downsides apart from their price. The last thing I'd want is galloping arse-rot a mile above civilisation.

There are the odd contaminated tarn etc one was in North Wales, over use by DoE groups and poor sanitation meant it is permanently polluted with Gaerdea (sp).

Generally if its fast flowing I just drink from it. After MTBing in the states I carry water purification tablets which I use with my Camelbak if I have to refill mid ride.

Started using a filter for hiking in the US (where there is a lot more wildlife present). I don't find it a hassle so you might as well use it. Yes it doesn't work for viruses like Hepatitis, but they are usually human-borne. It will filter out most bacteria and parasites. We do get cases of giardiasis and Cryptosporidium in the UK, and with e.g. the reintroduction of beavers we should expect giardiasis to become more prevalent. The filter will also remove unwanted sediment and fertilisers.

It's not viruses that are the common problem with drinking water from the hill. It's things like giardia and Cryptosporidium that are seriously going to ruin your day, week, possibly months if you're really unlucky. If in doubt don't drink it or move higher up the hill where no animal activity can be seen, then drink from fast flowing streams

Seen plenty of dead sheep, rats, birds, ramblers in or next to streams.

If there's a farm or cottage upstream you'll be slurping up the outfall from their septic tank but it's probably not nearly as bad as it sounds really. Probably.

I was drinking water from the falls of steall turned round, stumbled and put my foot through a deers ribcage (long stripped of flesh) made me be a bit careful after that.

DO NOT drink straight from streams, I caught Weils disease (leptospirosis) from doing this & it was extremely unpleasant and has left me with ongoing issues 30 years later, im not sure any sort of filter would have helped but its not worth taking the risk.

Well I didn't really want to be told I'll be fine based on your own experiences. I too have drunk from many mountain streams and been unaffected. I was hoping for some actual microbiological knowledge about what viruses are a risk so thanks to those who did post along those lines 🙂

im not sure any sort of filter would have helped but its not worth taking the risk.

Weil's disease is a bacterium I think so. 0.2 micron filter would have protected you I think.

Had to yesterday and I had some tablets to sterlise but I found a spring so used that

Whilst possible, has any reader ever seen such a thing in the history of ever?

Yes! Probably fairly common in the Lakes and Dales where streams are steep and sheep are many.

in Scotland ive rarely given it a second thought...... although if theres any civalisation near by (or a bothy for that matter) ill give it a miss...

But in the highlands and cairngorms i don't have an issue with it.

I did end up boiling(preferible to purification tabs to me) alot of water on my last tour across BC - underestimated the heat of the day (Recording 50deg on the garmin) and the distances between potable water.

Caught giardia on tour in New zealand - wasnt pleasent. pretty sure i Caught it from a tap on a campsite......the sign that said non potable was on the back of the tap....- facing away from the side you'd approach/use- noted after if had a good gulp.

older and wiser now ..... so carry wide ranging antibiotics on tour now. Considering a trailshot for my next tour though.

"Whilst possible, has any reader ever seen such a thing in the history of ever? Does your average sheep think “ee, I’m about to keel over, best find me a stream”? As Daffy said,"

As a long time trials rider in the lakes & dales Ive spent an awful long time in streams in the middle of nowhere, & I can safely say its very very common to find dead sheep in there, I don't know if they go there for a last drink or slip in there & get stuck/injured but its a very popular place for sheep carcasses.

Yes I've been drinking from streams for 50 years with no problems, only where there's no human habitation upstream. The only time I did have problems was after filling my cycling bidon from a village square fountain in the Sierra Nevada, which gave me a really dicky tummy.

I should be clearer.

I’ll drink from fast flowing streams hilly areas away from farm bustling, areas where livestock gather in a heard and yes of course a quick check for dead rambles. The Cheviots is quite remote the farms tend to be lower down the valley the sheep high up, highlands is the same as it the Alps. I’d probably not drink from a stream in area of heavy arable farming. Catching Weil’s disease is a risk but a low one take drink from a fast flowing stream wear a rat just took a piss is a bit unlucky.

Really useful advice thanks. I am in Spain and fill up containers at the mountain springs, used to be the nearest but I now go to the highest.

The springs are fed from underground rivers and have a pretty good flow even in summer. You can get the water tested at a chemist for about 50e but I have never bothered.

has any reader ever seen such a thing in the history of ever? Does your average sheep think “ee, I’m about to keel over, best find me a stream”?

We spotted just such a thing a few years back. It was a proper bloater - hidden nicely upstream from a cheeky wild camping spot😁

Spotted another last year about 4 metres from the edge of a lovely tasty looking stream, again not far from an area where people do a spot of cheeky camping. The sheep in question was a proper rank, and all its putrefied juices were draining downhill into the stream...mmmm, happy campers😉

I still drink from streams in some remote places of Scotland and Europe that are sparsely populated and/or grazed, but particularly National Parks in England and Wales, I boil stream water or use sterilising tablets. Especially at the moment, given that public toilets are nearly all shut.

As I understand it you are unlikely to catch sheep viruses as viruses are species specific*

Tell that to the bat/pangolin/human-hopping Covid-19

Weil’s disease is a bacterium I think so. 0.2 micron filter would have protected you I think.

Apparently the best way to isolate Leptospirosis From other Bactria for study in a lab is to use a 0.2 micron filter and use what’s passed through, as only Leptospirosis will be left.

Five years of sampling surface water with Welsh Water, sometimes doing the bacti testing of the the samples myself and checking alL the results sheets for the sample I took. Nearly all upland samples had coliforms which aren't much of a worry in low numbers, some had e-coli which if you get a minimum infective dose can make you ill. Then there are viruses, the results were nearly always negative because the levels were below detection limits - that doesn't mean they were below infection levels. There are a paracites too which you really don't want to catch, and they aren't bothered if their host is a sheep or human.

The sea water blue flag sampling showed some beaches were exceptionally clean, comparable with upland streams - and some were filthy, particularly after rain.

I don't drink water straight from streams, I either boil for a while or use chlorine tablets. For the sake of a few grams of tablets and a little patience while they act you can save yourself a lot of misery.

Edukator from your extensive knowledge would you go for a Sawyer filter or just stick with tablets?

Whilst possible, has any reader ever seen such a thing in the history of ever?

Camping on the wrong side of Jura a few years ago, nice little stream that we drank our fill of. Went for a wander the next morning, and not 50 yards upstream was a decaying deer carcass. I'm still alive...

In general, I wouldn't worry about it too much. The nasties I would like to avoid are parasites like flukes which I am given to believe can be largely avoided by sticking to running water.

Re: Sheep and streams - if sheep fall/stumble in, their fleeces can get waterlogged and they can't right themselves to get out - more likely with sick/old/weak ones.

What about cryptosporidium, I remember a massive outbreak in Devon and cautions about boiling water on Dartmoor for 15 minutes just to be sure when we were on D of E.

I drank from a stream when I was 13 ended up in hospital and nearly died.
Not a musty old ditch either.

I have been drinking the rivers for decades even once finding a dead sheep just above where I got the water. Never an issue.

You get all sorts of farming run-off going down streams, even fairly high mountain ones. Fertiliser, slurry, dead/decaying animals, rotting vegetation....

Whilst possible, has any reader ever seen such a thing in the history of ever? Does your average sheep think “ee, I’m about to keel over, best find me a stream”?

When I was about 14/15 I was walking in the hills. I drank from a fast flowing stream. About 50 yds further up the stream there was a dead sheep in a pool of water - its was reasonably fresh but had a lot of flies round it. (We obviously only discovered it about 5 minutes after we finished drinking). Neither me nor my two companions (as far as I recall both also drank the water) were even slightly ill.

I've also seen a few animal skeletons at the waters edge over the years - probably deer rather than sheep.

Based on this thoroughly scientific and statistical analysis I conclude the water is worse for the sheep than it is for me!

I don't worry about dead animals in the water but if the area was heavily farmed I would be cautious about - ecoli from cows and cryptopsporidium from sheep - both found in their waste, which gets into water courses. Water companies spend a lot of £££ testing for this and treating to remove it. Your 0.2 micron filter will remove both.

If the water isn't clear by any normal appreciation of the word "clear" then either keep looking for some that is or use a filter before chlorination. Even a coffee filter will do. Bugs inside particulate matter can survive chlorination so you need to remove particluate matter.
Run water through a coffee filter and boil for a couple minutes and even if it's a bit murky to start with you'll be OK.

Edit: I don't have any experience with these new microfilters, water companies usually use sand after chemically producing a floc. 😉

My main point is

treat your drinking water

It doesn't cost much and it's just a few extra grams of equipment to carry. In fact if you have a system you are happy with it'll save weight as you can pick up water en route rather than carrying it all.

Whilst possible, has any reader ever seen such a thing in the history of ever?

Many years ago we were swimming in a river until we realised there was a dead sheep in the water about 15 feet away. We gave up on the swimming idea.

Dead animals of varying kinds are very common out in the country, I see them pretty much every time I go out.

I can't help but think though that we've survived for many thousands of years before tap water came along. Sure, people died of all kinds of now preventable diseases, but is it really that dangerous? And if so, why - has it always been like that?

I'm another that has never bothered treating/filtering water in my normal haunt of the Scottish Highlands. I do have a Sawyer for places about which I'm less sure -  especially those water courses surrounded by farmland.

Through even quite recent history (19C) there are examples of local populations being decimated by water-borne illness in the UK. Arse to mouth diseases still account for half a million deaths a year world wide. Whilst you're unlikely to catch most of them in upland UK there are enough that can make you seriously ill to make treating your water wise.

At Welsh Water if there was no chlorine and a sample failed a bacti test it was a real faff. Boiling order, door to door warning people... .

Edit: A Google check says half a million is an underestimate:

https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/freshwater/deaths-from-dirty-water

Did it last April - filled up from a little stream/water fall in Gwydir Forest after we all ran exceptionally low on water - the day turned out very warm indeed. We didn't die, and the water was rather nice, but wouldn't do this often if ever.

Poolman made some comment about Spain. Many springs in Spain are streams which have run through limstone strata. The limestone has no filtering effect and the water isn't underground long enough for complete die off of bugs. What goes in the top at the sink comes out the bottom at the resurgence. If it doesn't say it's drinking water then treat it.

There was a case of Cholera in Ashbourne in 1893 associated with a well. The rock provided no filtering.

The case of Ashbourne is, I am sorry to say, a serious one. Thirteen persons have been attacked with choleraic diarrhœa, and eight deaths have occurred. That is an extraordinary proportion, even in severe cases of the disorder, but I find upon investigation that the whole of the persons attacked lived in one courtyard and drank from one well. The water is, I am afraid, very suspicious.

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1893/sep/14/the-cholera

On the other hand the Rhine water was for many years filtered simply by drawing it off far enough from the river for it to have been naturaly filtered by the local sandstone.

So, viruses aren't much of a risk in the UK it seems.

I can’t help but think though that we’ve survived for many thousands of years before tap water came along. Sure, people died of all kinds of now preventable diseases, but is it really that dangerous? And if so, why – has it always been like that?

Gordon Bennet. Access to clean drinking water was humanity's greatest problem for tens of thousands of years and still is in large parts of the world. Sure, we survived, but we did things like have 15 kids in the hope two or three would survive. So just because homo sapiens survived doesn't mean it was good.

Gordon Bennet. Access to clean drinking water was humanity’s greatest problem for tens of thousands of years and still is in large parts of the world. Sure, we survived, but we did things like have 15 kids in the hope two or three would survive. So just because homo sapiens survived doesn’t mean it was good.

I've always been under the impression these issues are largely due water sources in populated areas where sewerage tends to end up in it. The link Edukator posted above shows that there are still 5 billion people in the world without access to proper sewage systems. Maybe I'm showing my ignorance but I imagine there is a huge difference between this and the crystal clear water running through the hills that's mainly being discussed here.

In general I'm happy to drink from fast flowing upland streams- with the usual mooch upstream to check for carcasses and or other nasties first. To date I've been fine. However my wife became really ill dinking from contaminated water close to the Pierr d'Orthaz campsite near Chamonix back in the day. Anyone who ever had the misfortune to stay there will probably understand why. FWIW the campsite is shut down now, thankfully.

Swimming through the Aberglaslyn gorge once some friends and I wondered why there was rice in the water. Walking back upstream afterwards we found a maggot infested sheep dangling above the lip of the gorge. It wasn't rice we had been swimming with.

I've yet to find a bothy with a mains water supply and have not heard of any incidences of people developing any kind of infections whilst staying in one but that is possibly due to the majority of drinks in a bothy being tea, coffee or alcohol.

The only time I've drank from a river was in the cairngorms and the river was flowing pretty fast. It tasted beautiful with a slight peaty flavour. I'll be buying myself some purifying tablets for my next camp, especially after reading this thread and reading this article.

https://theberkey.com/blogs/water-filter/microbial-cysts-in-drinking-water-why-do-we-have-to-know-about-it

I imagine there is a huge difference between this and the crystal clear water running through the hills that’s mainly being discussed here.

There is, but most of the world isn't crystal clear mountain streams. Even in primitive times much of it is flat and stagnant and/or pretty dry.

But generally speaking 'well we managed thousands of years without.. ' is not a very good argument for anything.

When I was a child....... our bathroom tap water tasted bad when cleaning our teeth, this went on for months... eventually dad went up into the loft and looked into the water tank = dead mice. I wasn't ill but it wasn't a stream.

The only time I’ve drank from a river was in the cairngorms and the river was flowing pretty fast.

Doesn't necessarily mean much. Lots of fast flowing mountain streams in North Wales that you climb up alongside thinking 'that looks good to drink' then they terminate at a lake which you wouldn't fancy drinking from.

I'm happy to drink from streams but only on high ground on proper hills, never low down or on moorland.

If you're lucky enough to find a proper spring in the mountains you will taste the finest, sweetest water there is.

I know of a couple in the Lakes and have come across a few in the Highlands. The source of the Dee on Braeriach is a famous one. I believe there's one somewhere in the Cuillin that the local guides probably know of.

Depends where you are in the uk.

Above the height most people live at in the uk, probably fine in the less well populated areas. Mayn places in Scotland (and near me in the NE) have few people and few livestock. I'd be more cautious elsewhere.

From my knowledge of travelling. In general the virus problem is more relevant in areas of high populations. In remote areas bacterial filters are probably ok. I've never been ill when I've drunk deliberately from streams. Go high, check upstream, make sure it is fast flowing and aerated.

If I thought water would be a problem in this country I'd probably take tablets as they are small and light. I've got a water to go bottle for travelling and normally take tablets as well.

There are lots of scare stories of things you can pick up (I had 2 friends pick up unusual parasites kayaking the white Nile!) but generally the risks are low compared to other things you wouldn't think twice about.

Yeah I should have remembered people only read the title...

My son drank out of a stream last month in the lower Ochils. Says he checked upstream and stuff.

Ran a high fever for a week and had extreme squits - probably salmonella.

He's not doing that again.

Bacteria are the enemy