Originally Posted By balzaccom
If you have the time, you can let silty water settle...or we strain it through a banana...to try to keep that filter working. Sometimes it does.


True and as you probably know collapsible buckets are sometimes carried for this purpose and folks relate “funny” stories about the buckets collapsing and loosing the water sometimes. But on the same idea stream we do look for small pools or potholes where the silt has settled somewhat.

The silt in canyon country can be so fine that it is very hard to clean it from a ceramic filter at all and usually plugs up after the first time very quickly.