Wasted $60 on a water filter that clogged after one trip through the Sierras

I bought a Katadyn BeFree from REI before hiking the Rae Lakes Loop last summer, thinking it would be lighter than my old pump filter. After about 10 liters the flow dropped to a trickle from all the silt and I had to backflush it every 15 minutes. Anyone else run into this problem with hollow fiber filters in alpine lakes with lots of glacial dust?

3 comments

3 Comments

anderson.gavin28d ago

Man that sucks, BeFrees are brutal with any kind of sediment. Totally feel your pain on the constant backflushing, it's such a buzzkill.

abbychen11d ago

Four backflushes before lunch? Man that is brutal, @anderson.gavin. I had a similar run with a BeFree on a site with heavy silt and it straight up choked after like two hours of light grading. Rotating spares sounds like the only sane move once those fines get in there, I carried a backup for that job too.

piper_flores6927d ago

Man I got a BeFree on my skid steer last year and same exact headache @anderson.gavin. I had some fine clay silt from a pond job and it took me like 4 backflushes before lunch just to keep the thing from screaming. Honest to god I started carrying a spare filter and just rotating them because the constant cycling was driving me nuts.