A HydraPak Flux bottle being used in conjunction with a Katadyn BeFree filter
Water treatment is important to maintaining your health while being outdoors. As tempting and pristine as alpine lakes and streams may look, backcountry water sources can contain waterborne bacteria or parasites that could make you sick and your body weak. To keep this from happening, collect the water from the cleanest source available—a flowing river rather than a freestanding puddle—and go prepared with a method to purify the water before you drink it down. To learn more about backcountry water safety, check out our Hydration 101 Blog.
Water filters are a popular choice for purifying backcountry drinking water. Filters come in a wide variety of designs and we are often asked which filters are compatible with our products. To help determine which filter will work best for you, we have grouped filters into 4 categories:
- Inline Filters - These attach to our product that have a 28mm opening, as well as Plug-n-Play connectors
- Direct-Mount Filters - These attach directly to the nozzles of our products that have a threaded 42mm top cap
- Adapted Filters - These require the use of a special adapter that allows a filter to work with some of our products
- Iodine or Chlorine purification tablets
Read below to learn more.
INLINE FILTERS
All HydraPak reservoirs can be used with an inline filter
All HydraPak reservoirs can be used with an inline filter that have a Plug-n-Play connection.
Any vessel that utilizes a drink tube, such as a HydraPak hydration reservoir, can be used with one of these inline filters. These types of filters have a fitting at each end that allows you to connect two sections of a tube to it. Popular filters in this category include the Sawyer Mini, Sawyer Squeeze (with Sawyer inline adapter kit), Platypus GravityWorks, MSR Thru-Link and many others.
To install a non-HydraPak filter, you will need to cut the hose with scissors and connect the hose ends to the filter. Since you have to cut the tube, you will want to carefully consider where you want to place the filter. It can be placed down low near the reservoir or higher up the tube so that the filter is over the shoulder. Another suggestion is to remove the bite valve from the tube and place the filter at the end of the tube and drink directly from the filter.
The HydraPak 28mm Inline Filter can be installed on any of our products with a Plug and Play fitting. Simply attach the filter to a reservoir or water storage container and attach your drinking tube to the outlet.
DIRECT-MOUNT FILTERS
A 1L Stow combined with a Sawyer Squeeze demonstrates a direct connection between a HydraPak container and a water filter
A 1L Stow combined with a Sawyer Squeeze demonstrates a direct connection between a HydraPak container and a water filter.
Many of our HydraPak products are compatible with a variety of backcountry water filters that attach directly to the bottle or storage container’s threaded top. There are three different sizes of threaded tops in the HydraPak line of products, each is compatible with multiple brands and styles of filters. For your convenience, we have listed some of the available options for each size.
The HydraPak 28mm Inline Filter can be installed on any of our Stow products as a direct-mount filter as shown below.
28mm Threaded Top
You can find this on the HydraPak Stow 1L and 500ml bottles (2020 models & newer, look for Filter Compatible icon on the back of the bottle)
Compatible Filters:
HydraPak 28mm Inline Filter
Sawyer Mini Filter
Sawyer Squeeze Filter
LifeStraw Flex
Hydroblu Versa Flow
42mm Threaded Top
A 42mm threaded top can be found on the HydraPak Flux bottles, Stash 750ml, Seeker Water Storage containers and our line of UltraFlasks and SkyFlasks.
Compatible filters:
HydraPak 42mm Filter Cap
Katadyn BeFree Filter
Salomon XA Filter Cap
63mm Threaded Top
A 63mm threaded top can be found on the HydraPak Expedition, Stash 1L bottle and all sizes of our Recon bottles.
Compatible Filters:
MSR Guardian Filter
MSR MiniWorks EX Filter
Katadyn Vario Filter
ADAPTED FILTERS
The Sawyer Squeeze filter is an incredibly popular choice for thru-hikers and lightweight backpackers. As such, it has become the industry standard for a compact filter. The Squeeze will mount directly to our Stow bottles (28mm threads), a filter adapter and a Plug N Play top cap must be used if you would like to use it with our Seeker collection(42mm threads).
The above combination will also work for any of our 42mm diameter products including the Flux bottles and our line of UltraFlasks and SkyFlasks.
Also, the HydraPak 28mm filter adapter will allow a Squeeze to be used with any of our Plug N Play products including our reservoirs, Inline Connector, 63mm top cap found on our Expeditions.
PURIFICATION TABLETS
Our hard-plastic bottle, the Recon, is compatible with Iodine or Chlorine purification tablets.
Unfortunately, our SoftFlasks, Seekers, reservoirs, or other products made from TPU film are not compatible with Iodine or Chlorine solutions, as they could cause the material to break down. For this reason, we do not recommend using TPU products as purification vessels unless it is an emergency situation in the backcountry.