Whether in a survival situation, a lengthy solo wilderness adventure or a simple weekend fishing or camping trip the one thing you cannot do without is water. For the weekend fishing or camping trip it's easy enough to bring sufficient water with you. However, weather changes fast in the back country and for any number of reasons people often get stranded far from help and that simple trip to your favorite trout stream could very well turn into a solo wilderness adventure and survival situation. Because of that it's always a good idea to have a means of treating water, in sufficient quantity to sustain yourself, for far longer than the scheduled duration of your trip.
Last year I purchased the MSR (Mountain Safety Research) Miniworks EX. I'll say right from the beginning that the first one I bought failed on my very first trip resulting in me having to cut my outing short by two days. The pump pivot pin broke and though quite a drag, the good folks at REI replaced it, no questions asked, with a brand new filter unit. They said they'd had two others returned for similar failures. Likely a bad manufacturing run on the pins, things like that happen in production. They made it right. I'm happy. Since then I've used the filter on a number of trips and I feel that I can now offer an honest review of the product.
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