Why Are Thru-Hikers So Obsessed With Smartwater?

There are many things that make my home of Ashland, Oregon a contender for the perfect outdoor town. “13 miles of single track from your back door!” “Thirty minutes to a community owned ski resort!” “Famous ultra-runners own businesses here!” But I would argue the most outdoorsy thing about our town is that it’s a restocking hub for hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail. Without fail, the moment spring turns to summer each year, our town becomes thick with grizzled thru-hikers, hitching into town, waiting in line at the post office, and looking hornily at fresh produce in the co-op. I’ve interviewed hundreds of these PCTeasers (as us townies call them) for gear tips over the past decade, during which time I have seen the sturdy boots turn into light trail runners and the packs shrink in capacity by about half. Yet one piece of kit has maintained complete supremacy through the years among thru-hikers: Smartwater bottles.

So let's dive into the exactly what thru-hikers love Smartwater.

According to Lloyd Vogel, ultralight backpacker and founder of niche retailer Garage Grown Gear, the appeal of Smartwater bottles boils down to a few simple factors. They're exceptionally light (34 grams when empty), relatively durable, and cost about a dollar. Plus you can find them almost everywhere. Most hikers, he jokes, probably have a graveyard of battered Smartwater bottles somewhere in their garage—testament to just how many hundreds of trail miles these "single-use" plastics can survive.

Further, beyond cost and weight, the 28-millimeter threading on Smartwater caps just so happens to fit perfectly with popular water filters like the Sawyer Squeeze, making the bottle not just a vessel but a vital part of a long-distance hiker’s water filtration system. You can also swap out the standard cap for a hiker friendly sport cap. “In a world of very expensive ultralight gear,” Vogel said, “when you have a super cheap option that works this well, it’s kind of a no-brainer.”

Geometry also plays a crucial role. Smartwater is "just the perfect shape for traditional backpack pockets” Vogel says. The tall, narrow silhouette of a Smartwater bottle is more better suited for pack side pockets—and can even be doubled up—unlike the shorter, wider bottles you might find from brands like Nalgene. While other brands like LIFEWTR have bottles with similar dimensions, Smartwater’s ubiquity has helped it become the de facto standard among thru-hikers.

Of course, there are tradeoffs. Vogel notes that Smartwater bottles won't last as long as a titanium water bottle—and that plastic certainly isn’t the healthiest material to leave baking in the sun. But titanium bottles cost dozens of times more than the simple plastic solution, weigh five times more, and aren’t nearly as packable. "Most hikers just don’t prioritize the marginal risk of plastic leaching when weighed against cost, weight, and convenience," Vogel admits.

That said, the ubiquity of these bottles has lead to some innovation, too. Driving substantial buzz in the thru-hike community is the upcoming release of the Cnoc Thru Bottle, which promises similar geometry and filter compatibility in a material designed to be safer and more durable. For a more immediately available alternative, Sawyer has begun selling another Smartwater-shaped option in the Premium 1-liter Cnoc bottle—this time co-branded with Sawyer and sold as a package with its Squeeze filter.

Only time will tell if these clever new options will come to replace Smartwater bottles in the stretchy side pouches of Dyneema and sil-nylon packs on long trails and in triple crown resupply towns like mine.