Expanded Criteria For The Best Backpacking Water Storage and Filtration System

Reliable and redundant filtration

A filtration system is the wall that protects backpackers from waterborne illnesses like giardia, and it is not to be taken lightly. While no system is perfect, some are more reliable than other; less likely to clog, break, or otherwise stop working. If your filter fails in the backcountry, it could force you to end your trip early or take on immense risk drinking unfiltered water.

From our perspective only two treatment systems are reliable enough to be used on their own without a full backup: Sawyer Squeeze Original and AquaMira. No other system is adequately fail-safe, and every one of them should be used with redundancy, including many popular options like the Katadyn BeFree, HydraPak 42mm, Sawyer Squeeze Mini/Micro, LifeStraw Peak Squeeze, and every conceivable pump, gravity, or UV-pen based system.

My system meets this criteria by using the most reliable filter, Sawyer Squeeze, in conjunction with a HydraPak UltraFlask Filter and AquaTabs as a last resort.

Lightweight and low bulk Storage

In addition to being hyper-functional, every system in a backpacker’s kit needs to be lightweight and low bulk. The latter box is easily checked here by the inclusion of 2.5L worth of soft-sided collapsible storage. The Sawyer Squeeze original filter is a bit bulky, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Weight is perhaps the biggest concession this system makes. At 12.5 ounces (not including shoulder strap pockets), it’s about four ounces heavier than the classic combo of two 1L Smartwaters and Sawyer Squeeze x Cnoc VectoX 2L, and about eight ounces heavier than the lightest possible SUL chem-treatment systems. However, both of those systems use single use plastic to shave off a couple of ounces, and both require you to carry more water since they lack front mounted filters. This alone may more than offset the average weight carried on any given trip.

Compare this system to what you’d expect less experienced backpackers to carry (gravity filters, hydration tubes, Nalgenes, etc), and you can quickly see that it is still lighter than average, even if not impressively ultralight.

4L of backpacking water storage capacity

Four liters of max capacity is somewhat of an arbitrary line to draw in the sand, and is likely more than most backpackers will need on most trips. However, it does open up the possibility of dry camping, and comes in handy more than you might think when conditions are unexpectedly dry. On any given trip when water is more or less common, you are encouraged to reduce or increase capacity as-needed.

Front-mounted one-handed drinking

Ditch that hydration tube! Tube systems are flawed designs because they kink, tangle, pinch, break, and are inherently part of a system that is slower/harder to refill, more likely to spill water into your pack, and prevents you from seeing exactly how much water you have left without opening your pack. While on-the-go hydration is highly desirable, it can also be achieved by front mounting bottles or soft flask. My system front mounts two 500 ml vessels that can both be used entirely one-handed.

Includes at least one hard-sided bottle

For hanging around at camp or while on a midday break, you don’t want to drink from a soft flask or directly out of a bladder. Soft flasks are floppy, awkward, and less durable, so your best bet is a hard bottle. This system features two hard bottles, a simple 1L screw top, and a front mounted half liter bottle with a sport cap.

Includes a front-mounted filter

Front mounted filters drastically decrease the amount of time spent treating water, and are a highly desirable part of any backpacking water storage and filtration system. Unlike a side mounted Sawyer Squeeze, or god-forbid 20-minute delay AquaMira, you don’t have to take your pack off in order to use it. Simply walk past any water source, bend over to fill it, and start drinking. The ease of pack-on direct-to-mouth filtering allows you to carry less water whenever sources are abundant, thereby lightening your average pack weight, offsetting the added weight of a filter cap.

Soft-sided always filters into hard-sided

Filtering into soft sided flasks, reservoirs, and bladders is awkward at best. The unstructured nature of these vessels increases the likelihood of slopping, spilling, or simply requiring an extra set of hands to stabilize and hold open. And the other side of that coin is just as bad. Filtering from a hard-sided bottle (a la Sawyer + Smartwater) means frequent burping to let air back in while a vacuum forms in the bottle that slowly degrades its sidewalls.

Ergo, the best backpacking water storage and filtration system, like this one, is designed to always filter from soft sided vessels into hard sided vessels. Soft-sided reservoirs make the best filters because they collapse as they filter without the need to let air back in. Hard bottles are the best receptacles for filtration, because they stand upright on their own, ready to receive and easy to drink from.

No single-use plastic

Despite the sheer of efficacy of Smartwater bottles, which remain the lightest option to this day, we recommend you avoid them for both health and ethical reasons. For starters, long term use of PET1 plastic that was designed for single-use generates a multitude of concerns regarding nanoplastic contamination and phthalates leeching, all of which have unknown but definitely unpleasant health consequences. Beyond that, the single-use plastic industry is absolutely reprehensible, and should never be supported. And finally, the weight gap between Smartwater and other options is steadily closing. While the choice was much clearer when it was Smartwater vs a 5x heavier Nalgene, the weight gap between Smartwater and Smartbottle is less than an ounce.

Self-contained back flushing

Filters get clogged, and swish/shake cleaning will only get you so far. That’s why the best filters accept back flush purging. Therefor, the best backpacking water storage and filtration system has a self-contained system for making that happen in the field without adding much if any excess weight. Back flush prolongs the life of the filter, and we highly recommend you choose a model that accommodates it. Both the Sawyer cleaning coupler and HydraPak backflush tap weigh less than .1 oz and mount to the Igneous NOBO.