There are a few basic necessities that all humans need to survive: Food, Water, and Shelter. Shelter can be built by people with materials one finds throughout the world; wood, stone, sand, clay are all examples of items that can be found in nature in order to build and provide shelter for humans. Food can also be found by either scavenging or hunting and there are simple ways to prepare food with fire. However, clean, drinkable water can be extremely difficult to find and there are no real fool proof ways to ensure that one can remove all bacteria, viruses, cysts, parasites, fungi and all other microbiological waterborne pathogens from the water before drinking it. The Lifesaver Bottle is here to help with the world’s growing clean water problem.
Let’s take a look back at my previous post about the Lifesaver Bottle for some of the details as to what the Lifesaver Bottle is designed to do, before we get into my experience with it:
The Lifesaver Bottle takes a whole new, albeit, extreme, approach to filtered water bottles. The Lifesaver Bottle removes 99.99% of bacteria, cysts, viruses, parasites, and other waterborne parasites without the use of chemicals like iodine or chlorine. The Lifesaver Bottle has been used by over 30,000 military customers on active service since 2007. The Lifesaver Bottle also complies with all British, US, and European drinking water regulations for Microbiological Reductions. You can check out all of the juicy technical data.
On Memorial Day weekend, I went on an annual 3-day 20 mile hike with friends on the Appalachian Trail. As you may know about the AT, there are many mountains to climb and thus, much energy is exerted on the trail. In order to stay hydrated, my friends and I carry about 2 liters of water each, per day. The problem with carrying all this water is that it’s heavy! Try strapping a 30 pound pack to your back which includes sleeping and eating necessities. Next, try adding approximately 4.5 more pounds in water! The problem with hiking through the wilderness is that you don’t have a clean kitchen faucet with which to fill up your bottle. Since we pass many natural streams and ponds, it would be great to fill up our bottles there. However, in order to ensure that our water is clean and drinkable, we would need to first pass the water through a filter to get rid of cysts, protozoa, and bacteria. Then, we would need to use a UV light to remove more bacteria, protozoa, and some viruses. That’s a two step process. With the Lifesaver Bottle, all of these functions are performed inside the bottle in an easy-to-use fashion.
This year, I brought along the Lifesaver Bottle and can attest that it is a very simple way to ensure clean, drinkable, and good tasting water. All you need to do is twist off the bottom of the bottle, fill with water, twist it back on, pump the plunger, and drink clean water from the nipple. That’s it. The great thing about this bottle is that it allows you to save weight on your pack because you can get water from any stream rather than carrying tons of water with you the entire hike. The water from a natural stream tasted great and I did not have to worry about getting sick thanks to the extensive testing Lifesaver has performed. I do not own any high-tech water testing equipment, so I was unable to perform my own third-party tests. Another great quality of the Lifesaver Bottle is that the filter is rated for 4000 liters, which means you do not have to replace the filter until you’ve filtered 4000 liters of water. This is great for those who use their filtered water bottles often. The bottle has a failsafe technology that alerts you when your filter is reaching the end of it’s life. When it’s time to replace the filter, the bottle will require more pumps to induce water flow. I’ve said it before, but the Lifesaver Bottle is super easy to use. There are even pictogram directions on the bottle, which you’ll see in the photo below.
The Lifesaver Bottle does all that it claims to do and I had no complaints about it’s functionality. However, there are a few drawbacks that are worth mentioning. First, the bottle is heavy. Without water, the bottle and filter inside weigh 22 ounces. This is a definite disadvantage to your everyday hiker because we are constantly trying to reduce the amount of weight we’re carrying. For comparison a Nalgene 1L bottle weighs 6.2 ounces, granted the Nalgene does not include the filtering functionality. Next, the bottle only holds 750 ml of water. I was hoping that the bottle would hold 1 liter, like most Nalgene’s do. This would make help avoid stopping to refill too often, in case you don’t come across a water source for a while. Third, the plastic parts on the outside of the bottle do not seem to be built as well as the bottle itself. After a long hike, seeking relief from the 35 lb pack on my back, I dropped the pack to the ground. The Lifesaver Bottle hit the ground and a piece of the plunger cracked off. While it does not affect the water bottle’s functionality, I would assume a product made for the outdoors would be more rugged.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this bottle to anyone who is going on a multi-day hike and is worried about finding clean water to drink. The Lifesaver Bottle provides clean, good tasting water without the use of power and chemicals. It is also worth mentioning that Lifesaver is doing great work in helping to provide clean drinking water to Haiti and Pakistan using their technology. You can check out their humanitarian work, here.
The Lifesaver Bottle can be purchased directly from Lifesaver.
MSRP: $149.99
What I like: Clean water in one step without the use of power or chemicals. Bottle and filter in one package. Filter lasts 4000 liters.
What Needs Improvement: Heavy compared to other backpacking water bottles, only holds 750 ml.
Source: Manufacturer Supplied Review Sample