A Review Of Epic Water Filters
Epic Water filters is a company that takes the phrase “reduce redundancies” to it’s logical conclusion. Any backpacker knows that weight and space is a high commodity and reducing necessary gadgets helps maintain a more comfortable outdoor experience. Enter the Epic Nalgene OG – a water bottle with a filter built into it.
Water Bottle Filter System
The options of water filtration units continue to increase for backpackers. Options range from water bladders hung from trees to small squeeze filters that screw on to the end of water bottles. With all these options, it gets frustratingly confusing to pick the right one for your style of hiking. As someone who spends more time than the average bear in the woods, my filtration system is important to me. I’m not too keen on picking up bacterial hitchhikers in my gut as this typically ruins the trip. I’m also concerned with the time it takes for filtering water. Stopping to pump and fill a water bottle takes time and precious daylight hours. What Epic Water filters has done is allow me to fill my bottle one time, instead of filling a container once and then draining it through a filter into an additional container. Now I have less weight to carry and I save time—seems like a win-win to me.
A hiking water filter is important for every hiker, not just those who live for weeks at a time in the woods. Even day hikers need a self-contained filtration unit. A short couple hour hike in the hills, or walking a dog on a hot day requires water. Instead of carrying half a gallon on your back, why not use a single bottle instead? Don’t even fill it up all the way, drink on-demand, filling up as you hike. It’s ultralight and efficient.
Camping Water Filter and Viruses
Choosing the right water filter means picking one that blocks all contaminants. I’m talking viruses and even parasites like Giardia. Epic Water Filters is just as good if not better than all the other filters on the market. I’m talking about drinking out of beaver ponds here (I recommend going upstream if you can but still, it’s nice to know I can do that if I have to.)
Filtering water in the woods is all well and good but what about water from the tap? Not to worry, I use this water bottle with tap water too. The good folks over at Epic Water Filters have impressive test results showing the efficacy of the filter. Read it for yourself here. I made a list of the highlights of filtration provided by this filter:
- Removes 99.8% of lead
- Removes 99.1% of chlorine
- Removes 99.98% of glyphosate
- Removes 97% of atrazine (which turns the frickin’ frogs gay!!)
- Removes 99.8% of microplastics
The list is too long to list everything but it removes pharmaceuticals and more chemicals than I even know existed. Personally, I filter all my water at home before drinking it. I trust the mountain streams more than I trust the 100 year old pipes in my city. From the backcountry to my kitchen sink, water needs a strong filter before I use it.
Water Filter Made In America
At Wild West Trail, we are America first. We support the annexation of Greenland and are firm believers in the North American Conversation Model. We make no apologies for our nationalist tendencies which means if we support a product, it’s American made. Both the Nalgene bottle and the water filters are made right here in the good ‘ol USA. If you want to support the country that also has the most beautiful hiking in the world, then this is the filter for you. Robust, strong, and independent of overseas manufacturing, it’s like Epic Water filters had us in mind when they made the product.
The Nalgene Outdoor OG Woodsman is large enough for the most extreme outdoorsmen.