Age of Hydration bladder/Platypus

[Butts2]

If you use /have one of these and you get far off the beaten track how old is yours or how often do you replace it. Mine is about 7 years old. It sure would suck to be back 5+ miles and have to carry water in your pockets

[mooseman76]

my small camelback is 7 years old and my larger hydrapack is about 5.  I keep the bladders in the freezer when not in use.  I heard this keeps bacteria from growing.  Also, every six months I put some water, baking soda and uncooked rice in it.  I shake it up and this does a good job of cleaning/de-scenting it.  The rice really scrubs the liner without damaging it.  I use mine all year for mountain biking, hiking and fishing.  You could probably give em 1 good cleaning a year if you only use it for hunting.  I'll keep doing this till I can't get the stink out.

[AkDan]

Mine has to be 5 or so years old now.  Havent used it much other then falls and on some military outings when I was still in.  I do carry some smaller platapus's incase my big camel back goes down.  Also started carrying a 2.5 gallon bota bottle for camp water.  Sure beats filtering water all the time and when in places where water is scarce and a ways off, you dont have to be hiking miles everyday, up and down, just for water.

[Steve H.]

I have one that is about 5-6 years old and still going although it needs a new drink tube as mold started growing.  Hunting with AkDan I blew one up on the first use, day one of a long 13 day trip, by not pushing out the air when I was filtering water!