By: Blonde Two
Sponsored Post
I am becoming increasingly impressed with the guys at Pure Hydration. Not only are they a friendly bunch who provide top-notch water filter products to expeditions, the military and those engaging in humanitarian aid, they also have a well thought out and practical range of products designed to fulfil the clean water requirements of outdoor enthusiasts. You might recall that I tried out the Aquapure Traveller, their ‘squeeze or suck’ instant water bottle filter a few weeks ago, well I am pleased to announce that Mr B2 and I have used this since (including once to provide filtered water for an experimental jar of fermenting sauerkraut) and the water still tastes far nicer than that treated with purification tablets.
Whilst the water bottle, with its built in filtration cap, is really handy, I usually prefer to use a hydration reservoir when I am out walking. I find that the instant accessibility of water from a reservoir encourages me to drink more regularly than I would if I had to stop and grab a bottle from my rucksack. Lots of our DofE youngsters use water reservoirs too but we always insist that they also carry at least one water bottle as the reservoir’s tend to be on the fragile side. Cries of, ‘Miss my bladder’s broken’ have been common on our expeditions (but not as worrying as that information might initially sound).
The above is why I was particularly interested to try out the Pure Hydration Armoured Reservoir. Made from the same proprietary weave that PH use in their military products, this is a hard-wearing water bladder that is tear and puncture resistant enough to allow you to consider leaving the water bottle at home. You can tell that the Armoured Reservoir’s designers have spent time in the outdoors and understand that little touches like the wide top opening (to facilitate effective cleaning) and the insulated tube (to give both UV and cold protection) can make all the difference. I remember (because it was my birthday) a particular January Ten Tors training walk when we were reduced to drinking our chilly water from bottles because water had frozen in all of our hydration reservoir tubes. I can also recall multiple frustrations upon being unable to clean (and maybe more importantly dry) my existing Camelback bladder.
A water reservoir however is only as good as the water that you put into it, which is where I think Pure Hydration really have the edge because they also make an instant water filter that can be fitted to (and easily removed) from their reservoirs. Whereas previously I would have had to filter water before it went into the bladder or treat with tablets, now I can fill from any river or stream and drink immediately. I slipped both of these new products into the van before Mr B2 and I set off on our recent Welsh adventure and was really pleased that I had when we ran out of tap water in the middle of nowhere.
Conveniently for us, this particular middle of nowhere was right next to the confluence of two rivers so we were able to fit the filter (a small cut in the tube required first), fill up the reservoir and keep ourselves topped up with drinking water. Even Mr B2, who is fairly fussy about the taste of his water, was impressed by the resulting bouquet of Welsh mountain combined with hints of something clean, and he drank as much as I did. I had packed the Inline Purifier and Armoured Reservoir in order to try them out and didn’t expect to actually need them but they proved more than useful, particularly when we discovered that the reservoir could be hung up inside the van with the filter attached to the bottom and used as a tap.
One interesting and very entertaining instruction for the Inline Purifier was to spit out the first few mouthfuls of the filtered water… You can imagine what fun we had taking this photo!
From time to time we Blondes are sent free outdoor products to field test and promote on social media. We will always be honest about our findings and any products we don’t keep for ourselves find their way into our expedition stores. Great for us, great for you and great for our youngsters!
Note that if your reservoir has a valve to connect the drinking tube to the reservoir, the InLine Purifier can often be fitted directly into that valve (and the drinking tube reconnected to the Purifier), without the need to cut the tube. This makes for convenient rapid attachment to a number of different compatible proprietary brands of hydration reservoir. If your reservoir is of a type where the drinking tube is permanently fixed directly to the reservoir without a valve, the InLine Purifier is supplied with a set of PureLink™ connectors that allow you easily and quickly fit the Purifier to the drinking tube (and your reservoir will also then have a non-return valve to prevent leakage when the tube/purifier is detached).