Drinking from the Source: LifeStraw® Review & Giveaway


Ever since I saw the LifeStraw® in an outdoor magazine a few years ago, I've been very interested in trying out this personal water filter in the outdoors.  We are a hiking, backpacking family so having access to safe drinking water is always a concern of ours, especially for our toddlers health.  Calculating how much water to bring for a family of four is sometimes a difficult task because we have to determine who will be carrying all the water weight.

Whether we are day hiking, camping, backpacking or traveling internationally, the LifeStraw® will be something that will always come along on our family adventures.  Later on in the post you can enter in Rafflecopter for a chance to win your own LifeStraw® (enter below).

LifeStraw® product details:

  • Filters at least 1,000 liters of water (264 gallons).
  • Weighs only 54 grams (2 oz.)
  • Removes up to 99.99999 percent of waterborne bacteria.
  • Removes up to 99.9 percent of waterborne protozoan cysts.
  • Reduces turbidity by filtering particles of approx. 0.2 microns.
  • BPA Free and contains no chemicals.
  • Uses no bateries or moving parts.
  • It removes virtually all bacteria and protozoa parasites that can contaminate water and it reduces muddiness by filtering out particulate matter.
  • Swiss-based company Vestergaard originally introduced LifeStraw® as an emergency response tool and it has been used by millions of victims of floods and earthquakes.  LifeStraw® has also been used to fill the need for safe water in non-emergency situations in developing countries.

The Pluses!

Alpine water freshness!

  • Easy To Use ~ If my two year old daughter can do it, anyone can.  If you can drink from a straw you can use the LifeStraw®.
  • Motivation to Hydrate ~ Sometimes my children are so excited to be outdoors that they forget to drink water.  The LifeStraw® motivated my children to drink because it was fun to drink from the lake using the LifeStraw®.
  • Lightweight & Easy to Carry ~ When backpacking every ounce counts, so having a lightweight personal water filter is always a plus.  It also has lanyard-type necklace that can worn around the neck or attached to a pack.
  • Humanitarian Aid ~ When you purchase a LifeStraw® product, a portion of the funds goes to provide water purifiers for African schools.
  • Refreshing Water ~ Sometimes after hiking all day, all I want is cold water yet the water I bring is lukewarm.  Not refreshing at all!  With the LifeStraw® I can drink straight from the COLD alpine lake and satisfy my thirst!
  • Affordable Pricing ~ The LifeStraw® retails for $19.95, which can filter 1,000 liters or 264 gallons of water, overall that is a very low cost for that 1,000 liters of water!


The Minuses

My only "minus" about the LifeStraw® is that if you are not near water, then you are out of luck.  I normally day hike in the San Francisco East Bay hills where there is hardly any natural water sources so I have to bring in my own water most of the year.  Yet, we are always heading out to locations like the California Sierras or the Peninsula where there are lakes, creeks and rivers so it is still very useful.


Chasqui Mom Last Thoughts...

I can see many uses of the LifeStraw® outside the use in the outdoors, like traveling internationally to countries which might not have safe water to drink, or after a natural disaster like floods and earthquakes.  Water is one of the 10 essentials when heading outdoors and I'm glad I have a easy to use, lightweight LifeStraw® to keep my family hydrated and safe.


LifeStraw® has graciously provided a LifeStraw® personal water filter to giveaway!  This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only, no PO Boxes.  Contest starts June 30, 2014 12:00 a.m. PST until July 6, 2014 11:59 p.m. PST.  Winner will be announced a couple days after the giveaway has finished.  Please use the Rafflecopter below to submit your entries and good luck! [THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW OVER]

a Rafflecopter giveaway


The LifeStraw® product and information have been provided by Vestergaard.  As always these are my true and honest opinions.

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Family Hiking Milestone: 13 Miles at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park

It's been four months, since our milestone hike:

13 MILES

with our toddlers.  I think I have emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually have come to grips with it.  Believe me this isn't our normal deal when we hike with our toddlers but we were meeting up with some Twitter Hiking All Stars: 

Russ Beebe ~ Winehiker Witiculture

, 

Paulina Dao ~ Little Grunts

 and 

David Wherry ~ Hiker Adventures

.

Yes, it rain a few times in California this year.

My husband had been captive to his cubicle for a couple of weeks, so an 8 mile hike sounded like a good time and a good workout since we knew we would have to carry the kids most of the way.  My daughter can barely hike 1/2 mile but my son had hiked up to 5 miles in the past, so we planned to carry them quite a bit.  Nothing that we haven't done before but...family hikers pace vs. non-kid hikers is completely different, primarily in how fast/slow one hikes.  Either way we were up to the challenge.

It was a rainy day (WHAT?!) in the San Francisco Bay Area, as we headed out to Felton in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  The second we started hiking in the rain, I had immediate flash backs to hiking in the Peruvian Andes and it put me in a great mood.  Our kids hardly ever hike in the rain, but of course they enjoyed splashing in the puddles.

Russ, Paulina and David were in the front of the pack and we were in the back.  Our kids like to play the "in-and-out game" for the first hour of hiking, until we encounter an uphill they don't want to hike.  I can't remember all the details of our hike, now four months behind me but the things that stood out in my mind were:

  • Green ~ Everything was GREEN!  The Bay Area, especially the East Bay is brown ahem...golden most of the year and only turns green during the winter rains.  In this severe drought year, there was only like a 4 week period where water was flowing in our seasonal creeks and everything was green.  It was really refreshing.
  • Big Ben Tree ~ Not really too much to say about this except show pictures.

The whole familia fits inside Big Ben. Photo Courtesy of

Little Grunts

.

Getting to 13 miles....

We all were having a blast enjoying snacks, resting, taking pictures and eating that we took a little wrong turn due to so many fallen trees on the trail as well as many trail markers were destroyed or removed (see WineHiker comments below).  We realized our mistake 2.5 miles out from where we should have taken our trail, putting us at 5 miles added onto our 8 mile hike.  A 13 mile hike isn't all that difficult as a day hiker, but when you have 30-50 lbs of human plus snack, water and gear every step is well....hard.  I think I really earned my hamburgers and fries that day.

I'm smiling but I'm crying inside! Photo Courtesy of

Hiker Adventures

Well, there was nothing we could do but hike and hike as fast as we could because the winter daylight was short.  I don't know what happened with my children, I think God answered my prayers as we hiked along that kids wouldn't have a meltdown.  With a steady flow of candies, I mean snacks...water, being carried, singing, hand holding, my two and four year old made this 13 mile trek at Henry Cowell Redwoods.  At one point my husband carried both our toddlers because they both wanted Daddy to hold them.  Russ turned to me and said "Is that fair?" and I said, "I carried them for 9 months each, 1 mile won't kill him."

Oh by the way, did I tell you we calculated that our son hiked SEVEN of the THIRTEEN miles!

That's my boy!

I don't know what else to say about this hike, it was beautifully hard but worth every minute. It was a great family hiking milestone that we got to share with some great people.  What stands out the most in my mind now, is that the next day as my husband and I laid on our living room exhausted, Mr. David Wherry was running across the Golden Gate Bridge.  Oh someday, we will no longer be kid-carrying sherpas!  More pictures please and pass the cheese....

Group effort to get across! Thanks David and Russ!! Photo Courtesy of

Little Grunts

.

Lime Kline left overs....

Fun Times!

These niños....

Trail Report Detials

Who: Five Adults, Two Toddlers

Family Friendly: Very Difficult (due to distance)

Mileage: 12.9 miles, 13+ with extra walking around

Elevation Change: 2625 ft

Trails Description: Pretty much up a mountain and back down.

Trails: Bennet Creek Trail - Fall Creek - South Fork - Cape Horn - Lost Empire - Big Ben Tree (Not the Trail, the actual tree).  We continued onto Lost Empire Trail, instead of taking Big Ben Trail for the added five miles.  Continue onto Big Ben Trail and take Fall Creek Trail all the way to the Parking Lot.

I'm glad I know what my family is capable! What is your family's hiking limit? 

Related Links and Posts:

  1. Henry Cowell State Park: Big Ben Loop #winehike by Little Grunts
  2. Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park Wine Hike by Hiker Adventures
  3. Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park ~ California State Park Website

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, 

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 and 

Twitter

 that is updated daily with outdoor activities and other wonderful posts and links from #OutdoorFamilies!

Cleaning Up Limantour Beach ~ National Trails Day

From the mountains to the oceans, there's something I usually see on the trail that I really don't like...trash.  Everything in nature is interconnected so when someone leaves a piece of trash in the California Sierra Mountains at some point rain, creeks and rivers will sweep it to the ocean.  We have made it a habit to pick up trash when we are hiking, so on National Trails Day we decided to volunteer for a beach clean up!

National Trails Day was founded by the American Hiking Society in the late 1980's to celebrate America's magnificent Trails System. During the first Saturday of every June, many events are organized such clean ups, hiking, bird watching, biking, trail restoration and much more.  Since we always do everything as a "familia", I was happy to find out that even my toddlers could participate at beach clean up which was being hosted by the National Park Service and Point Reyes National Seashore Association at Limantour Beach on National Trails Day.

At first sight, Limantour Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore looked very clean and I was somewhat disappointed that maybe we were not going to be able to find much to clean up but we were wrong.  Our family alone found a brick, lots of shotgun shells, Styrofoam pieces, cigarettes, hair barrettes, bottle caps, straws, razors, Easter Basket plastic grass and more trash that we couldn't identify.  Combined all 23 beach volunteers picked up over 900 pounds of beach trash which included a large fishing net and a 20 foot plastic beam that weighed over 600 pounds.  We actually had a break and snacks on the plastic beam and we wondered "How in the world did THIS get here?!"

For more photos of the Limantour Beach clean up and trail restoration please click HERE.

Chasqui Mom Last Thoughts...

We enjoy the outdoors quite often by hiking, riding, camping and backpacking, but it was fantastic to volunteer our time and enjoy the outdoors by making it a cleaner world.  My children might not remember this specific event at Limantour Beach but they were left with a lasting impression that trash belongs in a trashcan.  Every time we are out and about and they see trash we pick it up, whether it's on the trail or on a neighborhood walk.  

This year I have had the honor of joining the American Hiking Society Board of Directors and I look forward to serving America's hikers in the following years.  Jennifer Chambers, the Chair of the American Hiking Society Board of Directors is also a outdoor family blogger at Hiking Along and also had a great clean up at Northwood Chesapeake Bay Trail.

Head on over to Hiking Along and read about "Celebrate Trails?"  A few of my fellow outdoor family bloggers enjoyed National Trails Day by Hiking!!

Photo courtesy of Tubbs Snowshoes - Moosefish kids!!

Photo courtesy of Tubbs Snowshoes - Moosefish kids!!

Photo Courtesy of Wild Tales of

Photo Courtesy of Wild Tales of

  • Moosefish - John Soltys sand his family joined Tubbs Snowshoes on a hike to Serene Lake in Washington! Oh the joys of hiking with kids and encountering different people on the trail. [Picture above]
  • Wild Tales of - Kate and her family headed out to Seward Park located in Seattle on Lake Washington.  It's always great to hit the trail as a family including our pets!
  • On The Beaten Path - Even though Jill and her family are in Canada, she wanted to feature The Sunset Coast Trail, !

How and where did you celebrate National Trails Day?

Join in on the conversation by leaving a comment here! You can also join in on the conversations on Chasqui Mom's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that is updated daily with outdoor activities and other wonderful posts and links from #OutdoorFamilies!

"Sleeping Under the Stars" Family Project

As the Polar Vortex crippled the rest of the North America this past winter, California was experiencing an extremely warm winter.  One warm winter night, my husband and I were reminiscing about backpacking/camping as we were making our summer outdoor plans.  I was inspired by a fellow outdoor blogger, Tanya Koob's "The Camping Project"where her family camped 40 nights from May to September!

We decided that since we were experiencing 70 degree weather in the middle of January, we were going to take advantage of our warm weather and go camping!  One thing led to another and we came up with a little project:

Camp outdoors for at least one night, each month for the entire year

For the past FIVE months we have been able to to continue with our goal with a combination of camping and backpacking:

We currently have plans to "Sleep Under the Stars" until August and I'm pretty sure that we will be able to complete our year long project into the Fall and Winter months with some planning and maybe visiting some yurts!

My kids love sleeping in our tents so much, that they ask to set up our tents when we are just day hiking! I encourage you to join our family with our little project and discover how fun it is to make "Sleeping Under the Stars" part of our lives more than a couple times year!   In 2013, President Obama declared the month of June as Great Outdoors Month but my wish is that everyone enjoys the Great Outdoors all year long as we are doing with our "Sleeping Under the Stars" family project.

What are your family's outdoor plans for the Summer?

Join in on the conversation by leaving a comment here! You can also join in on the conversations on Chasqui Mom's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that is updated daily with outdoor activities and other wonderful posts and links from #OutdoorFamilies!

Happy Times at Black Diamond Mines: Family Backpacking [Video]

We truly had happy times at Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve.  Backpacking with children is ALWAYS an adventure, lots of fun and work! For our first backpacking trip of 2014, we chose a local overnight trip to Stewartville Backpack Camp at Black Diamond Mines in Antioch, CA.  

This a family-friendly 3.2 mile hike-in camp in the East Bay hills.  Trip Report will be coming soon! Until then enjoy my little video of our fun and successful backpacking adventure with our little ones!

Thank you for watching!!

Related Posts: 

Snake Encounters on the Trail with Kids

Join in on the conversation by leaving a comment here! You can also join in on the conversations on Chasqui Mom's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that is updated daily with outdoor activities and other wonderful posts and links from #OutdoorFamilies!