Hi, Garrett,

No moving parts. Seriously. I would venture that the majority of long distance hikers give up pump-style water filters and most of them move to chemical treatments or no treatment. The others go to a gravity-fed system, though that has some serious drawbacks in terms of time. (Gravity filtration takes time, and you have to wait for it to finish, while chemically treated water can finish treating while you are walking.) I use Aqua Mira, but there are other choices.

Most also switch to 1-liter soda bottles (like the wide-mouth 1-liter Aqua Fina bottles), because 1) it's almost impossible to keep stuff from growing inside the drinking tube of your Camelbak on a long hike, and 2) Nalgenes are heavy. Platypus bottles are also popular, and I like my Nalgene Cantene, a soft bottle with the wide Nalgene screw-top. But soda bottles are very light, easy to replace, last a long time, and come with free soda inside!

The ONE MOST IMPORTANT ITEM for making this adventure a success isn't a special piece of gear, or the perfect item of clothing, or some super-energy food. It's flexibility. No, not the yoga kind (though that doesn't hurt) -- I'm talking about mental flexibility. Semper Gumby ("always flexible") is your motto. To quote Captain Reynault in Casablanca, you need to "take what comes." You have chosen a trail with a wide variety of tough hiking conditions, from the desert to the high mountain passes, and you will find minor and major challenges on a daily basis. (Where can I find water? Can I actually DRINK that? Is the next spring dry? Can I get a hitch into town to resupply? How deep is the snow at that pass? Can I hike with that blister? Will I ever see pizza again?) Trying to bull your way through -- to make the trail conform to your expectations -- is a recipe for misery. Keep your sense of humor, rely on your wits, relax your expectations, and be open to enjoying the entire experience, no matter how miserable it seems at the time.