Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Giardia @ Whitney

I always use my pur hiker water filter. Has anyone ever got giardia up on the Whitney trail? Is it really such a big deal? I wonder that because although you filter your water, you always eat with your hands that go around touching everything. Unless you wash your hands with filtered water, you wonder why not more people get it.

There was a lot of discussion about this topic last year. One fellow maintains that the incidence of giardia in the fast flowing streams of the Sierras is so low that you can safely drink the water. Personally, I find it very easy to filter or treat water. Why take any risk of spending a week doubled over in cramps? I keep the filter hoses inside a baggy so potentially contaminated water doesn't get all over everything. As for eating with your hands, just keep them out of the water. You aren't going to get giardia from the rocks and trees.

There are many bugs that can make your life miserable, most of which will act much more quickly than giardia. At least with giardia, you get home before you feel bad.

With that in mind, I think it's safest to minimally treat your water and keep your hands clean. I use iodine solution as the taste does not bother me. The alcohol based waterless hand disinfecters are so good that hospitals are starting to tell their nurses *not* to wash with soap and water between patients in favor of the disinfectant.

Although, the hand cleaner sure does make one's hands cold, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere near a lit stove with it still fresh on me.

i would never, ever drink water along the main Whitney trail without treating it. never. why? because Whitney attracts people who know very little about proper wilderness hygiene. somewhere else on this board, someone mentioned seeing leftover food dumped into the pond at Trail Camp. people urinate, defecate and vomit along the trail. in the rest of the Sierra the water probably is safer, but in the heavily traveled areas i wouldn't trust any water source (except maybe a drinking fountain).

I've been backpacking for about 5 years now (probably a dozen trips, including the summit of Whitney last year) and I have used my MSR filter for all of my water during this time. I have never gotten sick. One time, I even filtered from an orange colored mosquito puddle because I was so thirsty.

Once I saw a guy up on San Gorgoinio, drinking right from the stream. When I asked...don't you worry about Giardia?....he replied...I have been drinking this water for 2 days...I feel fine. (He must have been unaware of the explosive diarhea you get 2-3 weeks later)
Using a filter is a small price to pay for being safer..I used to use the Iodine Pills Porta Aqua until I read they don't kill another mean bug "cryptosporidium"........I spoke with a Forest Ranger about giardia once...he said some people who grow up swimming in lakes and rivers may have some immunity from previous exposure (mayber 20-30%). But you never know, so you should be careful, especially in a highly traveled area. Anyone who has had it says don't get it.

I purchased a Sweetwater Guardian last week and I assume it lives up to its .2 micron filter range. This filters Giardia bacteria and cryptosporidium cysts (which is the worst of the two choices) but it does not filter viruses, which require anywhere between .3 microns and (yes this is not a typo) 0.02 microns.

I am thinking just filter where water is coming out of the scree (underground glaciers?) or lake inlets or go ahead and carry a small amount of chlorine as a backup ~ maybe just in case the filter pump breaks.

The forest service says you can pee anywhere away from water sources but we all know that doesn't happen, and I encountered people pushing the barf button at about 8800 feet last year.

My best advice and also my best questions

I have filtering my drinking water for years; it's not that time consuming or difficult, and sometimes it's just a nice reason to take a break by some pretty stream or lake, so why take chances. As far as the "washing your hands" question... I think it's a matter of concentration. Yes, there may be a residue of the ghiardia organisms after washing hands in unfiltered water, but no more than what you would be exposed to when you swim in that same lake or river and get your face and lips (and hands) wet. Filtering (or chemically treating) drinking water is obviously the most effective way to avoid ghiardia-type illnesses, but we'll never be 100% protected in this type of environment.

I think you have a better chance of catching something from your hiking partner than the water in the Sierra's. If your partner has some sort of intestinal "bug" and doesn't wash their hands well after a bowel movement they can spread it to you by touching your food or eating utensils or your hands or even your water filter. You get it and then you blame it on the water. Or you pick up something at a salad bar in your home town and you blame it on the Whitney trip you took two weeks ago.
I have been climbing Whitney since 1992 and have been in the area well over 100 times. I have drank unfiltered from all the streams and the lakes and have never come down with anything. The water from the snowmelt on the switchbacks and from the spring in Big Horn park is about as pure as you can get it. People pay Crystal Geyser good money for that water. What was it John Muir said about this "Champaign Water"?
Of course, I would not drink unfiltered from the pool at Trail Camp but their are plenty of other places up there where the water is cleaner than what comes out of my tap at home (no lead or heavy metals). To not partake would be to miss out on one of life's simple pleasures. It's one of the reasons I go up there!
Just use your common sense. The water in a cold, clear, fast running stream is as clean as it looks.
BTW, I work in a government building that was built in the 40's. I filter ALL of my drinking water here at work with a PUR filter.

Last year while getting water from the stream just north and west of trailcamp where I thought it would be clean, I pulled out a plastic wrapper from the stream. Yummy! Now I filter my water every time out. It is not so difficult and a small price to pay for peace of mind. Life is a series of chances taken.

Tom, the problem that inevitably happens when you ask such a reasonable question, is that you get a lot of anecdotal information. Some times that is helpful, and sometimes not. One must be careful.

For example, a lot of people have discussed the problem with potential urine contamination. Folks, urine is a sterile fluid. Certainly not containing e. coli, giardia, or cryptospiridia, the pathogens that most people worry about. So you see, a non issue. Plastic wrap is also not a vector of disease.

I believe that this entire issue has moved to the realm of mass hysteria, combined with cover-your-ass mentality, and major marketing by some retailers.

Take the issue of crypto. I have polled a large group of 10 gastoenterologists, who have NEVER seen a case in their careers, outside of AIDS patients. Likewise a group of infectious disease consultants. Between them, they have several hundred years of expert medical practice among them, and would see ANY case in the region (LA). I won't say it doesn't happen, but lets talk about reasonable risk, eh? Giardia is not that rare, but rare enough that they have to really think to remember the last case they saw.
This is empirical, but I think does contain useful information.

Ask wilderness rangers about filtering water, and they will advise you that you should absolutely do it. Ask them, and they will tell you that they do not do so, personally. What does that tell you?

However, all the anecdotal information has really been replaced by a definitive paper on the subject, which looks at the science of the situation. I'd strongly advise people to read this, and learn about the truth of the situation.

Giardia Lamblia and Giardiasis. With Particular Attention to the Sierra Nevada
http://www.californiamountaineer.com/giardia.html

BTW, this was written by a frequent contributor to this message board, and it should really be seen as a major advance in the area.

And yes, I am a physician, and no, I never filter water. I carry iodine tabs to the rare areas where I consider that contamination may be an issue, and rarely use them.
Didn't on the Whitney trail.

I have always wondered if some of the giardia hype was an effort to sell more water filters and protect the establishment. Reading the research by B. Rockwell was very interesting. Take a look at the photos of his hikes. He has really been there, hundreds and hundreds of hikes back to his first Whitney hike in 1952. It was interesting to find out just where he is coming from. At 43 I take heart that you can keeping hiking and climbing even in your 70's if you stay active. What a great accomplishment.
.....I certainly don't mind using my filter (and will keep it with me) but I also don't see much risk drinking from safe sources like springs and new snow melt. The posts where all helpful Thanks...

A few years ago I did a summit and was coming down from Trail Camp. About a little ways from there the stream, I believe it was spillover from the pond at T/C, crosses under the trail. The water looked as pristine as anything on the planet, but there was a little stick stuck across the rocks where the water passed and this stick caught quite a bit of unseen gunk because there was at least 8" of brown froth bubbling on top of this clear water. I was pretty sure I knew what that was. I carry my own water since then.