![msr miniworks ex water filter vs katadyn vario msr miniworks ex water filter vs katadyn vario](https://hentaigamer.org/wp-content/uploads/0431.jpg)
The water in the lake was not murky and didn't have a high sediment content, but was a dark brown, almost like a tea of somesort. The lake wasn't equiped with a beach as I had expected, and in fact, the campsite was about 15 feet above the water, with a severe slope to the water's edge. The purchase of the MSR Miniworks was of great relief to us when we arrived at our destination on a remote lake (Beaver Lake, in the Moose River Plains outside Inlet, NY and just up the road from Old Forge, NY). After purchasing all the gear we'd need, I toyed around with the idea of only using my hydration pack with iodine tabs for water, since we wouldn't be gone for more than 24 hours and we wouldn't ingest too much of the stuff. We geared up for an overnight side trip where there would not be any other people remotely near us. Since my girlfriend was my companion on this trip, I wanted to test her limits.
![msr miniworks ex water filter vs katadyn vario msr miniworks ex water filter vs katadyn vario](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ktV4BKAQUN0/WGS_jvsU8YI/AAAAAAAABXs/Bo0j5sTjQ5QUUYmv8vD2kGRjAObJV1h6ACLcB/s1600/24JB8MF.jpg)
There was many things I learned in scouts, and the main one was to always be prepared. Car camping is great, but my idea of the great outdoors is when I was in scouts so many years ago.
![msr miniworks ex water filter vs katadyn vario msr miniworks ex water filter vs katadyn vario](https://www.campingmaniacs.com/assets/img/best-portable-water-filter.jpg)
Having planned a 4 day trip to the Adirondaks, I did not want to spend the entire trip sleeping next to my vehicle. Anyone using a filter that won't screw onto a Nalgene (or MSR water bag, which is the same size and thread) seems to struggle so much. Buying a filter that will make a liter of water in 6 less pumps might not really save you any time - the Mini-Works is just so much easier to use than other filters I've tried that I find I can get water faster than people using other, more akward designs. Getting out your filter, setting it up, pumping, dealing with clogging or breaking, and putting it away can take a much longer time with some filters than the Mini-Works. There are certainly filters out there that pump faster- but pumping is only one part of filtering water. Popping out the filter element and scrubbing it with the little Scotchbrite pad is very quick and easy, very simple to clean this unit. I don't bother with "pre-filtering" by putting a coffee filter or panty hose over the inlet, so I may not be getting the best performance in soupy still water that I could. The filter will clog - water with alot of algae or similar muck will clog it up pretty frequently, but it actually does really well when filtering water with a lot of silt, like glacial runoff. I've used it to filter anything from snowmelt trickling through rockfields to soupy brown pondwater, and it's handled it all. After using the Mini-Works for about 6 months now, I can pretty confidently recomend it to anyone.