April 2016 Dad 'n' Daughter Canyonlands NP Needles District

[TrailSlug]

Indeed! My favorite part of reading trip reports is the maps.

Me too. I guess that's my cartographer background coming out.

[BBQDad]

I'll be in that area next weekend, but I'll be in a kayak, down on the Colorado River. Potash to Spanish Bottom. 4.5 paddle days. How well did your MSR filter work on the murky water? I'll be carrying water on my kayak plus filtering from the river. I'm planning to settle the water in a bucket, then filter. My MSR is the one with the ceramic filter than can be easily field cleaned as needed.

This will also be my first time to use my Garmin GPS on the river. I'll just be using it in Track mode to keep track of daily mileage.

Thanks for your trip report. Unfortunately, I won't be able to use my hammock on the river, as we'll be camping on sandy beaches & benches without many trees.

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Hi, cataraftgirl!

You may want to consider taking a few waypoints with your GPS, for example, the places where you make camp. Most Garmin GPS units will let you add notes to a waypoint, so you can comment on a campsite, attractive view, waterhole, obstacle, and so on in the waypoint.

We used (I believe) the same MSR filter you describe. It did a fine job filtering the water. We also used sodium hypochlorite drops just to be sure.

We found that we had to stop and clean the ceramic filter roughly every four liters.

Numerous "experts" noted in various forums that it is __not__ a good idea to try to pump too fast, nor should you continue very long when the water starts to drip out of the pressure-relief hole. Apparently, trying to force the pace and/or trying to pump when the filter begins to clog up can cause irreparable damage to the ceramic filter.

We use an in-line pre-filter and still had to clean the ceramic filter frequently. I take that as a sign that the filter was doing its job.

I believe you will be well-served by your plan to allow the water to settle.

It was good that there were two of us to perform the water-pumping/bottle-holding/filter-cleaning routines. There were times when four hands were WAY better than two. Especially, we took pains to clean carefully so as not to get contaminated water on the "clean-water" parts of the system. We figured that an ounce of prevention was worth about ten pounds of cure.

I am sure you will love that kayak trip. That is some beautiful country! ENJOY!