One of the things I think about while I am getting ready for a hike is water. Do I have enough water ?, how much do I need ?, where are good reliable places to refill my water ? Having a reliable way of filtering out your water supply is part of the equation. I have my handy dandy trusty pump for quick refilling of my water needs while on day hikes, but what about prolonged backpacking situations with your friends or setting up a base camp, that’s where the gravity assisted systems can come into play. The Lifestraw Mission is one such system. The advantage with this system if you have a large group or are going to camping in one spot for a couple of days is that you don’t have to make so many trips to refill your water needs. With the 5 Liter or 12 Liter bag systems you can fill up your bag, hang it from a tree branch and have a ready water supply whenever you need it.
Lifestraw Mission in its carry bag next to my iPhone 6 for comparison.
I wish I had gotten this sample before I went camping up in Mammoth for a couple of days, I have not had a chance to really put this sample under real world conditions but here is my take on the product. The filter is not heavy at all but is awkward to pack in its bag, you may find it easier strapping this to your pack or putting it in one of your water bottle pockets on your pack if you have one rather then packing it in the backpack. Filling up the bag with 5 liters of water is heavy, about 11 lbs with the 5 Liter system and 26 lbs with the 12 liter system, so you better find a strong branch to hang this on. Using the system is fairly straight forward. Fill up the the bag with the water from a stream, pond, etc,…roll up the top to seal it and snap it shut, then using the provided strap loop it over a (strong ) tree branch and let gravity do the rest. Open the red valve for 10 seconds, close it and then you can use the blue valve for clean water. I would also recommend finding a tall tree branch as the hose if fairly long or what I saw someone else do, loop the hose 1 or 2 times to shorten the length.
Lifestraw Mission in its carry bag next to my 85 liter backpack for comparison.
I decided to test out how long this system takes to fill a typical 32 oz water bottle, you can check out the video I provided below, but it came close to 7 1/2 minutes to fill the 32 oz water bottle. Now that may sound like a long time, but you don’t need to sit there and watch it, set alarm on your phone for 7 minutes or so and go do something else, like putting up your tent or taking in the scenery around you. Again this product wont really replace the need I have for a pump, when I’m on the trail and need water I want to stop pump my water and then continue on and waiting 20 minutes or so for this to fill my 3 liter bladder just wont do, but when you get to a camp site and want a reliable source of water you can fill this up and it will be there when you need it for your cooking or drinking needs.
I tried fitting the Lifestraw Mission in one of my side water bottle pockets but it was just to wide, it did fit well in the back stretch pocket though.
I would also find this to be a good essential piece of equipment to have as a part of a emergency kit for floods, earthquakes, etc,…where you don’t know just long it may be before you have a reliable source of water again. For example when I was a little kid I lived on Guam for almost 10 years. Guam is close to Japan and gets many typhoons throughout the season. Back in the late 70’s we lived through Typhoon Pamela which literally destroyed the island. We where without a reliable source of water and electricity for 3 months as they shipped in all the materials to rebuild the infrastructure. We had a certain day of the week where we could line up at the local military base and get a weekly allotment of 10 gallons of water. Having a product like this at the time would have been great piece of mind.