Thanks for the welcome! I was actually lurking around the site reading threads and some of the articles before I joined but either I missed what I'm looking for or its not there haha

We'll be doing a bit of both, trekking and staying in the lodge. I'm not really interested in talking about my budget and what not seeing as I have almost everything for the trip, thanks for the link though.

Yes I am under 18, might I ask why you don't feel comfortable recommending any brands? If it helps ease your mind I'm 6' and 242 lbs, so I'm basically adult size! haha

That was my plan actually (to just buy water bottles) but I'm the kind of person who just want to have it in case something did go wrong, you know what I mean? Not to mention all the reading I've done on this site is really making me wanna go hiking/backpacking when the snow melts! So the tablets would end up being used either way.

I have all my immunizations so I should be fine, that includes Yellow Fever and Hep A. They have informed us of everything except for what specific items to bring like for example whats the best fire starter or like I mentioned earlier, what is the best purifying tablet. Which is mainly the only thing I'm looking for from this post.

So in short I'm mainly just asking about recommended/useful items to get to bring with me, and of those items which are the better quality.

Thanks!