Blew $230 on a water filter setup for the PCT before a ranger at Kennedy Meadows set me straight
I got talked into a pump filter plus a backup squeeze filter plus a gravity bag setup for my thru hike attempt last summer, all because a guy at the store in San Diego said I needed redundancy for the Sierra. A ranger at Kennedy Meadows looked at my 14 oz of gear and asked if I was planning to drink from a mud puddle the whole way. Turns out one $40 squeeze filter handled every source from Campo to Tahoe and I mailed the rest home from Lone Pine. What gear did you buy for a route that ended up sitting in a box the whole trip?