Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Water sources: Main Trail and Mountaineer’s Route

Here are the places where you can reliably get water along the main Mt. Whitney trail. Accompanying pictures, to help locate the sights as you pass them on the ascent, are here.

Analogous information for the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek has pictures here.

Thanks, Bob. Drinking smart and enjoying it to the max makes Whitney that much the greater experience.

Bob R. and others,

I read your article. Very interesting. I am going to the Colorado mountains this summer. Do you have any thoughts on the need to treat water in CO? In other words, do you think that the same guidelines you outline in your article would apply there as well? If others have experience in CO I would appreciate your thoughts as well. I am headed to the Crestone area.

This is curious, because a friend e-mailed me the same question last weekend. Here is my reply:

"I'm not a Rockies expert. I think that, in the Sierra, you can start feeling confident above 8000'; certainly 10000' except in rare cases. And virtually always above 12000'. But the "base" of the Rockies is higher. What I always do, when coming to a relatively unknown (to me) source, is think about where it is coming from. A spring is always safe, as are streams that emanate from relatively unvisited places like side canyons. Unless I can think of a reason it might be contaminated, I drink it with confidence.

"What keeps the Sierra so clean is that it is wildly dynamic. Water is always flowing, and downhill. It rains, feces dissolve and sink into the ground, the sun comes out and dries, the winds blow and scatter. Sometimes I will tell a person: If that source we are looking at suddenly gets contaminated by something dumping in the stream right now, wait a day. It will be coming out of someone's faucet in LA tomorrow."

Bob R,

Thanks for the links to the articles on water quality. They were highly informative. I have always used a filter while backpacking and have always felt a little idiotic filtering a pristine looking, ice cold stream. I love when science confirms your intuition.

It's so funny how our perspective changes over time... when we were little we thought nothing of dipping our sierra cups into a stream and always enjoyed an ice-cold cup of fresh mountain water... and we never got sick. Heck, no one had ever heard of water filters!

Then about 15 years ago (or so), all of the sudden we needed to filter water. It "made sense", and I bought into it for years.

So here I am again - planning another JMT trip this summer, and wondering about bringing my filter... if I really need to carry that extra weight. Then up pops the "what if's" and "better be safe than sorry" voices.

I think I'll end up bringing it along (oh well... it doesn't weight that much), but I'll probably just keep it tucked away amd only use it if I'm concerned about some particular water source.

Bob, could you please expand on this? Why is it that you can feel confident about the water quality above 8000' but not below?
Please forgive my ignorance on the issue.

My favorite peak in the San Emigdio range has a four mile approach with a year round stream most of the way. The altitude of the stream is 3000' to 4000'. Although the water looks great in some places. In others the water looks good but there is an icky looking brownish film/algea on the rocks and gravel of the stream bottom. Any time I've hiked in area I've brought all my water, usually about 6 liters. I've considered bringing a lot less next time and using a filter but I've also thought of leaving the filter at home and rolling the dice by drinking from the parts of the stream that look real nice and clear. What's your thought on this.

Rafael...

Why 8000'? First, you've read bullets #3 and #7 on page 10 of --, haven't you? But mostly, it's from all the time I've spent in the Sierra, in popular areas like the Whitney basin as well as in remote corners and everything in between. High elevations and low. Somewhere in the vicinity of 2500 days if I add it all up. In 2500 days you drink a lot of water from a lot of sources, and you pass up some because they're obviously bad or you just aren't sure.

The numbers are just a gut feel, of course, from all of those days up there. Seems like around 8000', I may pass up water about 5% of the time; around 10000', 1%; and 12000', essentially 0%. If asked about 6000', I may say 10%. But passing up water doesn't mean it was contaminated; it does mean I chose not to drink it for some reason or another.

There are a few main reasons I will pass up a source. One is when cattle are grazing above or nearby, like at Horseshoe Meadows until recently, or the Olancha Pass trail. Another is when pack animals use the trail and cross a stream back and forth as they--and I--ascend, as on the Cottonwood Pass trail. The small stagnant pothole ponds like next to the trails around Bishop Creek. The algae-laden stream in Bighorn Park.

These numbers aren't important, and they aren't even accurate. But I think the concepts are correct. Robert Derlet in one of his papers said "If one wants to be entirely safe, one could purify water but my suspicion is that perhaps less than 1% of streams in the Sierra would have Giardia significant enough to cause infection in humans." (High Sierra Water: What is in the H2O?) So a blind person placed at random in the entire Sierra has a 1% chance of ingesting contaminated water. Even then, he may not get infected; and if he does, he may not have symptoms.

My response to hillybilly was to give him something that was hopefully better than nothing. But I'm rambling with this response to you, and I don't see that I've added anything of value to the message board. Don't be surprised if I delete it soon.

Bob, please don't delete your posts.

I for one opted for a water filter years ago for one simple reason - I am not able to get out as much as many members of this board. Therefore, I don't want even a 5% chance of my trip being interrupted by bad water.

Having said that, I can recall many times when I just wanted to grab a cup right from the stream - but did not. The more I hear, the more I am inclined to skip the filter at high elevations.

As for Colorado, I worked in most of the state wide mountain ranges back in the early 80's. I often ran into either Sheep or Cattle at higher altitudes (8000+ feet). If you know the area and are sure these critters are not present, then you probably will be OK.

Yeah, it's good, don't delete it.

I thought that maybe there was some magical significant increase or decrease in "goodness" of the water around or beyond the 8000' mark. Thanks again and pardon my foolish and youthful ignorance.

I still don't know whether I'll drink untreated water from San Emigdio creek elevation 3000'-4000'. I like to live on the edge from time to time so perhaps I'll just dunk my head in the creek and chug with reckless abandon. Of course this will be after I french kiss a bear and dance with a mountain lion.

cuz dats how I roll...

Peace out!

Rafael...

OK, I will leave it for a while at least. Doug writes that this forum is for "Mt. Whitney trip reports and discussions of interest to Mt. Whitney enthusiasts," and I try to adhere to that. But sometimes I deviate, as do others. This topic barely qualifies.

Bob, please don't delete it. It may seem simple rambling to you, but there is a load of wisdom in posts like that. Nobody else can even get close to the 2500 days in the varied wilderness settings that you have. So it may seem simple and trivial to you, but it is excellent wisdom to most of us.

Rosabella and Scotthiker2: Believe me, hiking and drinking freely is a liberating experience. The water filter not only adds weight, but the time and trouble and effort to filter causes me to be frugal with my water consumption. Since I have abandoned the filter, I find I drink much more, resulting in my feeling better (i.e. less altitude issues).

Rafael: I've danced with a bear, but I'd never french kiss a mountain lion. But one out of two is good enough for me to drink unfiltered.

Hi Like Scott I grew up in Colorado and used as a rule drink from above the sheep line, but on the farm we would walk over to the stock tank move the moss aside and drink next to the cows and horses, but did worry about the fresh milk we would filter that with cheese cloth, but at times drink straight from the source, life was simple then.

On the subject of filters I am not sure you know the condition of the water as it leaves the filter, it may be worse than the stream water if the filter was used and not cleaned or the hose was used and not cleaned after drinking from the hose several days ago , after touching the hose with your hands that may not be that clean. I see now some new filters and bags are using a treated material, will they be the next find for a cancer source? Boiling seems the best choice but not something talked about much.
The final test of the water source is what YOU feel you want to drink and how YOU want to treat the supply . Thanks Doug

Rafael mentions french kissing bears and dancing with lions. I'm glad he stopped there.

People will say that they always treat their water because they don't want to take even a small chance that their trip will be ruined. Well, I and others have pointed out that it takes several days to more than a week for symptoms to show up, depending on what bug it is, so a trip of a few days duration is not endangered no matter what you do.

The universal treatment recommendation is a topic addressed in this short but excellent paper on The Safety of Backcountry Water in the Journal of Wilderness Medicine. Actually, it appears as an editorial. The thrust is on the dearth of evidence to support what we are generally told (i.e., always treat), and in fact what evidence there is suggests that not only is that wrong, it's counterproductive. Here are a couple of quotes from the paper. The italics are mine.

"Diluting [the message that personal hygiene is of primary importance] with unfounded concerns about wilderness water quality or the relative merits of various water-treatment methods serves no useful purpose."

"[Evidence-based principles] mandate a vigorous education campaign targeted on hand-washing, coupled with a corresponding de-emphasis on routine universal water treatment."

The author's message that those in charge should back off on recommending universal treatment is interesting. Katadyn and SteriPEN do not want people to hear this, nor do REI and A-16.

You got me good on that one! I laughed hard!
No need to worry, I don't kiss and tell.

Rafael...

Bob R,

I only learned within the last year or two that water bourn illnesses would take that long to ruin a trip. I guess I always assumed it would occur within the first 48 hours. Nobody ever seemed to mention this (in the 80's and 90's) or maybe I was not listening.

I'm reminded of a climb six of us did of Argus Peak (6562'), west of Trona, a number of years ago. Argus overlooks Great Falls Basin, a large drainage that used to be the water source for the town of Pioneer Point. We did a loop trip, up the SE ridge and then headed N to the summit, continued on and down the NE ridge. But we underestimated the temperatures, underestimated the amount of water we needed, and underestimated the travel time. We arrived at the summit--the halfway point--out of water and already thirsty. Continuing on, we were soon uncomfortable with our condition.

Then we spied a grove of trees way down, with other evidence that suggested a spring nearby. We headed for it. When we got there, we indeed found a trickle of water, but it was clear that the wild burros had known about it for some time. We didn't care. Batting aside the brown ping pong balls that were everywhere, we hit it like drunken sailors. We decided to drink our fill and deal with the symptoms later.

I remember one person had a solitary halizone tablet, and wondered how to make it stretch to 3 - 4 liters apiece, times 6. In the end, he just swallowed the tablet whole.

Coming home, we expected the worst. But no one had any problems.

Bob R makes a couple of great points. There is a greater likelihood of the filter with all its parts not being clean and a greater source of contamination than the water being treated. Secondly the greatest source of contamination is the dirty hands that are handling and treating the water.Those same contaminated hands also handle the food that goes into the mouth.

I am glad this thread continues to be revisted. It's a very interesting topic.

In my earlier days (mid 1970's), as a 9th grader, I can remember carrying around that metal Sierra Cup on my waist belt (of course I can also remember wearing long blue jeans - aaarg!) I remember the blissful feeling of dipping that cup into the stream and drinking the water directly. I plan to recapture that feeling when I visit the sierra this August (thanks for the reminder Steve C).

Bob R,

Whenever you write, your writing style always strikes me as having such a Garrison Keiler-esque, thoughtful, homespun, story-telling quality to it, to say nothing of the accumulated years of useful information and wisdom others have often mentioned. I've noticed that quality for some time, but just had to finally say it while I was thinking it this time around.

CaT