The Backpacking Water Kit
Water is the one thing you cannot carry enough of, so the kit is not about capacity. It is about turning a stream into drinking water quickly, without contaminating the clean side, and without being stranded if the filter clogs.
The Kit
The two-bag system, plus a backup.
Total Weight
10 oz for the 4 items above.
Why These Pieces
Two bags, and they never touch. The CNOC 2L is the dirty bag: it has a wide opening at one end so you can scoop from an inch of water, which is exactly the situation where a narrow bottle fails you. The Vesica is the clean side. Keeping those roles fixed is the whole discipline.
The BeFree flows fast and clogs faster. It is the best-flowing filter here when clean and the most sensitive to silty water. Backflush it in the field before it gets bad, not after.
The Sawyer Mini is the backup, and it is worth its 1.45 oz. A single filter is a single point of failure on the one resource you cannot skip for a day.
Swaps Worth Considering
A filter handles bacteria and protozoa. It does not handle viruses, which is why travel and anywhere downstream of people calls for a purifier instead. The GeoPress is the full-size answer and the UltraPress is the lighter one; both press rather than squeeze, and both weigh several times what the BeFree does. The 3L clean bag is the swap for a dry camp, where the problem is carrying water rather than treating it.
