I drink a lot of water on trips. On sore spot with me was getting water midday. I have always hated having to break out a pump or gravity filter. And personally, I'm not a guy who dips in the lake........a lot of folk do but I'm not one of them.

So I tried on of the squeeze bottles with the filter in them. Big, clunky and not particularly good at getting a lot of water in you in a short amount of time. Not happy.

Then I read PK's Trip Report about using a steripen for his water needs. I have always been instantly dismissive of them in the past and never even gave them any consideration. My curiosity was piqued so I read some reviews. Evidently they hold some promise. While it will not replace my Platypus "clean stream" gravity filter (although it could in a pinch) as my primary drinking water it just might fit the bill for drinking water throughout the day. Coming in at 3.6 ounces and 90 seconds later I have a nalgene bottle ready to slam down it might just be the ticket.

So how many steripen users are out there and what is your verdict?

My group had a steri-pen on our most recent trip. The guy that owned it was a nut about it (he's sort of a germ-a-phobe) and doesn't drink even the purest of water up there. Anyway, its pretty nice. It does a 32 oz. Nalgene in 90 seconds, which is pretty impressive.  The only problem I saw with it was battery life. I think part of the problem was that it was being put away "wet" and the contacts that make it work were actually working while inside the case. If not, the battery life is pretty low (think about 15-20 sterilizations.) For a solo thats no big deal, but for a group of 4 that was not cutting it. The batteries it used were like camera batteries, but newer models may feature AA or AAA power.   Also, watch the following (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links);      His little theme song made us all laugh for a week every time we used it!

As MT mentioned, I used a Steripen Adventurer for the first time this summer.  It cost me $60 as I recall.  It uses two CR123 Li batteries that cost about $2 each.  I was able to sterilize about fifty 32oz nalgenes before changing out the batteries.  Took about 75 seconds each time.  The only problem I encountered was sometimes the device turned off during the purification because I'd get the sensor too close to the top or inadvertently let it out of the water.  Once I got used to swirling it around, no problems.  To dry after using, I'd wipe off any water on my sleeve or pant leg before storing.  Was concerned about storing it wet, so a couple times I'd leave it out to dry out real well.  For a solo trip, it worked wonderfully.  Wouldn't want to rely on it as the only purification means for a group trip though.

while it would seem to work fine for a solo tripper, it seems like too much hassle to me for even a group of two - you can only do one liter at a time (or 1/2 liter) which would be convenient while travelling, but not so good for a base camp of several people.  I suspect the light intensity goes down quickly as the volume goes up till it becomes innefective, or takes too much time to work. 

so for 3 gallons say, you'd have to do 12 one quart cycles (as seems to be the case via thier user manual) --

which may or may not bother you, but I'd just as soon just pump the 3 gallons and get it done (or use gravity filter)

someone asked about batteries - the "classic" does use  4 AA

Now that the verdict is in, group trips with one water treatment of choice option per canoe works rather well. It allows basecamps and long daytrip type flexibility. One filter or whatever wouldn't cut it for group trips IMO. A variety of tools offers advantages. Redundancy on the important ones lessens all the I told you sos when times get challenging.