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So I found out yesterday on my hike up Battleship that i got a 3/8" gash near the top of my camelback. No doubt this happened during the severe bushwhacking of Campaign and West Pinto trails last weekend. Fed up at having to pay for new bladders I suddenly had an idea after buying one of those smart water bottles. The new ones apprently have a pop top with a funnel shaped drinking thing that has a hole just smaller than the tube of a hydration pack. I checked the threading of the cap on 2 liter and found it fit the same. So I had a cap that would fit most hard plastic bottles.....I seriously doubt catclaw can rupture one of those bottles.

As soon as I got home I took the hose off my camelback off and tried to figure out a way to rig it up into the cap. I soon found the hole was just barely too small to fit the hose into. I did find however that the L bracket with the shutoff valve that usually goes right before the mouthpiece fit up into it on the hose side with the ridges. It actually locked through the flanges but had a bit of a gap on the end where it hung loose. After a bit of improvisation I cut a peice of hose that I had cut off a while back and saved to just the perfect size for it to lock in snug on the L connector. I then cut another very small piece to secure it on the inside of the cap and later had to flange the end so it wedged up in the cap and created a very very tight seal (I even closed the shutoff valve and squeezed the heck out of a full 2 liter of water attached to it and it didn't even sweat). Even though I have to angle it down into any pack so that it can actually be drunk out of, it is surprisingly strong. I even shook my pack around a bunch and tried to manually bend it and its pretty fullproof it seems.

Then later last night I do a search for inline filters and started reading reviews about a $45 inline filter from Sawyer. It is pretty darn light and filters down to .1 microns for 500 gallons. It got good reviews from backpackers who had made gravity filters out of them too. I then found that walmart had the filter with included hard bottle and splicing kit for only 40 bucks. The site didn't say if it was available at the store but I thought I would hoof it down and just make sure they didn't have it. Sure enough I get over to the camping aisle and there it was for 40 bucks. I pick that up and then on the water aisle find the perfect bottle for the system. Instead of using one big 2 liter that can be a llittle clunky in my pack (didn't fall out but it stuck a good ways out of my side pocket) I got 2 of those nice little square 1 litre fuji water bottles. These things are perfect cuz they don't pop into funny shapes when you suck enough pressure out of em like round bottles do and they fit into my side pocket better. So now I have my system with 2 interchangeable bottles that are pretty much thornproof and I can even, if in a hurry, fill up one of these bottles straight out of a creek and pop open the splice on my line and throw on the filter. If not in a hurry at say a base camp I can take my camelback and fill it mostly full (since the leak is up near the top) and hang it from a tree using it as a gravity filter to fill into my bottles or others if need be.

All in all I'm surprised I built such a solid system.....and the only thing I had to really spend more than a few bucks on was the filter..and most importantly I since its recycled from water bottles and my old hydration pack I know all the plastic is safe for drinking. I'll have to borrow a friends camera and get some pictures of the system.

Um, if it's a hard bottle you need to add a one way air filter otherwise after the first sip you will create a low-pressure area in your system to keep you from getting any more water. Typically one-way air filters don't hold up to water and will result in a leak.

hydration systems use flexible reservoirs for a reason.

Now invent a way to stuff my Thermarest into one of those bottles... ;) so I can leave my patch kit at home....

nonot wrote:Um, if it's a hard bottle you need to add a one way air filter otherwise after the first sip you will create a low-pressure area in your system to keep you from getting any more water. Typically one-way air filters don't hold up to water and will result in a leak.

hydration systems use flexible reservoirs for a reason.

Ya I forgot to note that. If I was in the situation where I was using it as an inline I would have to unscrew the cap and let out pressure on it somewhat often but still will serve fine I think in an emergency. I think I was going to mention some of the shortcomings of the system. One of them being that and the other being I do have to blow air back in it when it's without the filter so it regains its shape but that's not hard to do on the move. Te-wa has to do this also so his platy stays fully puffed so it doesn't fall out of his side pocket. I doubt I'll ever be in a situation where I have to use the setup as an inline filter though unless I'm having to give say unprepared strangers water and will usually just use the gravity filter setup at camp.

SuperstitionGuy wrote:Now invent a way to stuff my Thermarest into one of those bottles... ;) so I can leave my patch kit at home....

Get a pack like mine that holds your pad vertically : D Mines got the horizontal straps on the back and not those silly vertical ones for tame trails : P

Here's some pictures of the setup.