When you get into multi-day hikes or backpacking adventures you are going to want to have a water storage or purification solution planned out.I’m pretty sure everyone knows what water treatment is, but in the spirit of making sure you have to make 100%(‘ish) sure that the water you get out in nature is safe for you to consume. Generally speaking, you can boil, filter, or treat a water source to make sure you don’t get sick. For my adventure setup, I chose water filtering, but I also have a treatment backup as well as a boil method. Yeah, I’m a geek for having all 3 available. In this review, I’m writing about the Sawyer Products PointOne Squeeze Water Filter System

Sawyer Squeeze Specs:

• Lightweight, easily portable 0.1 absolute micron hollow fiber membrane inline water filter
• The highest level of filtration on market — removes greater than 99.99999% of all bacteria and 99.9999% of all protozoa
• Built-in and removable push/pull cap; spray water straight into mouth or bottle from included pouch; attach to standard threaded water bottles
• Comes with one 32-ounce, BPA-free collapsible pouch that rolls up tightly for easy packing; can be reused hundreds of times
• Backed by the manufacturer’s lifetime limited warranty (Independent Testing Laboratory Hydreion, LLC.; Microbiological Report S05-03)

All that stuff is pretty straightforward. I chose the Sawyer Squeeze because it will integrate to my water bottles and it’s really easy to make it a gravity feed system. This just means I can put water in their bags, attach the water bladder to the filter, connect the filter to my water bottle, and hand the water bladder up to use gravity to move the water through the filtering process and into my safe water drinking container.

One of the things that I really like about this platform is that it adapts to a huge variety of applications! The Sawyer Squeeze hooks directly into the water bottles I use for hiking. Like a lot of hikers, I use reuse the Smart Water bottles. The Sawyer Squeeze kit also came with a tube that I can insert into my Nalgene water bottles if I’m so inclined. You get a couple of water pouches for collecting water that you can screw into the filter and create a gravity system. Seriously, you’ve got lots of options!

Random Tip:
It’s a good idea to have a “clean” water storage container that is different than a “dirty” water container. Seriously, don’t cross the streams…

I think all these features are great, but what makes it the perfect solution for me is how it packs down to a single mesh bag that can be put anywhere on your pack. If you need to dry things out then just lash the mesh bag to the outside of your pack and off you go. A few hours of hanging out (that’s a really bad pun) and you’re dry enough to put into your pack. If you process water at night then it’s going to be dry by morning. In fair disclosure, all of these statements are made based on usage in Arkansas with typical Arkansas humidity and nothing that is very extreme in any direction.