RapidPure Saves my Bacon
As any parent of a twenty something year old child will tell you. When one of them calls you up and wants to go do something with you, you do what you can to make that happen.
That was the case early on during archery season. My son Chance reached out to me and wanted to go archery hunting. We only had a small window of time to do it in, so we agreed on the time and place to meet up and spend a couple of days in the mountains together.
I got to the area a day ahead of Chance with the plan of going out and doing some scouting. I wanted to see if I could get a sense of what the animals were doing. Besides, I have spent way too much time in front of a computer this year and wanted to enjoy a little extra nice weather before it snows.
So anyway, as these things go my scouting mission got a little out of hand. I was familiar with the area we were planning to hunt but hadn’t been in there in a couple of years. The area is a valley with a road going through the middle of it. There is steep terrain going up either side of the valley with rocky mountain tops. In the past the elk would gradually move through high steep parks toward a watering hole slash wallow, then just as it was getting dark, they would start moving back toward the high grassy parks.
Anytime I had gotten into the elk I was sitting at the wallow. So, today I wanted to see if I could get a better sense of their patterns and started working from the other side and work toward the wallow.
As I thought about it, there was only a couple of problems with this plan. The first problem was the possibility of walking right into the herd and disrupting their patterns. This would make it difficult to get ahead of them for a couple of days. The second problem was the terrain. To accomplish this, I had to walk straight up some very steep very wooded areas.
After some deliberation with myself, I decided it was worth it to give it a try. Because there was the possibility of finding out exactly how the animals were moving, and this would give us the ability to set up a blind and be in the right place at the right time.
With that decided, I set out up a steep draw that I had been in quit a few years ago, so I was somewhat familiar with the area. However, today I was going further up the draw than I had ever been, so it was going to be something new. Man, did it ever turn out to be something new.
As soon as I left familiar ground it turned steep and rocky with lots of dead fall. I fought my way up that draw for probably three hours, sometimes crawling to get through downed timber, and the day was in the 70’s so it was hot. I was going through a lot of water! But I wasn’t too worried about it because I had topped off my hydration pack before I left the rig.
After getting up that draw from hell I turned south and started working my way toward the wallow. I worked my way around the parks through some more rough terrain looking for any sign of elk. There was sign of elk, but nothing fresh. I could accept that maybe I was too loud and scared them off but there should be fresh sign if that had happened.
I finally worked my way around to the wallow area and sat down to listen. Nothing, not a sound around me, so I gave a locator call and a couple of cow calls, nothing. In fact, it was strangely quiet. There was nothing going on other than a cow and calf moose that scared the crap out of me. Then it happened.
I had sucked my hydration pack dry; I was thirsty and still had at least three miles to get back to the vehicle, I was kind of worried. I knew there was a water source about a half a mile away, but I was running out of day light and didn’t want to take the half hour it would take to decontaminate some water. Then I realized that just before I left, I had put a new test product in my pack.
You see, before we sell something, we have to make sure it is up to our standards. That means I get to be the test rat, sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. This day I was hoping it worked, if not I was going to get really sick. The new product was a water bottle with a water purification unit built into it. As it turned out I was glad I had it with me.
The water source that I had referred to earlier was an old cattle water trough, so you know it was highly contaminated with giardia, I had my doubts that I was going to use it. However, by the time I got to it I happily filled my water bottle put on the lid and drank. As it turns out, I had to fill the bottle two more times from different sources before I got back to the Jeep.
If you have the room in your pack this is an invaluable device to have with you. The ability to just scoop up water and keep moving is amazing. I guess you could say that it saved my bacon that day. It would have been dangerous for me to keep moving like that with no water.
I will not go out again without one and I Highly urge you to do the same. Put one of these in your pack (even if it’s not ours) it will save your life someday!
Hit the link below and check out the RapidPure Intrepid water bottle with built in purifier, and I really do hate to say this, but Christmas (yes I said Christmas not X-mas or the holidays) is right around the corner. How about giving a gift that could save someone’s life!
Get Yours Here!!!
Thanks for reading,
Mike
P.S. We never did find any Elk, but we did find some great memories!!
And always remember: