Hydration Bladders

ok, I have to say something.. You use shower gel in the mountains ???

I just rinse with water and smell a bit! PS. It is better if you use organic soap which you can get from CUM.

I also concur with Riaan. The Source bladder (military version, not the other from CUM) is awesome and very tough too. My mate Nico has one and has managed to destroy a lot of gear but not this! I find it very functional when paired with a Nalgene bottle.

ASL wrote: ok, I have to say something.. You use shower gel in the mountains ???

Nope, it was in my daypack, which stayed in the car, and I showered when we got back to the car park. I also rinse and smell a bit in the mountains, no soap.

As for the bladder smelling/making the water taste of shower gel, I emptied all the water out, let it dry, and it's much better now.

Morning,
Just picked up on the thread. I'm pro hydration bladders as long as its in conjunction with other water storage vessels. The advantages are all listed in the above thread, as well as it always keeps the water cool.
My only advice (from experience)are three things
1.Never fill to capacity, always leave some space. When the bladder is in the back pack and you start to pack everything else, naturally its a tight squeeze. If the bladder is full to the brim it may force a leak at a weak point or even worse pop!!
2)There are two types of bladders on the market, cheap and not so cheap. The not so cheap are usually stronger, and importantly have clip on mechanism between the bladder and the tube.This is really handy when refiling as you don't have to remove the tube from the backpack to refill. Always secure the tube at the fitting with a small cable tie, this will prevent the tube slipping off and the water leaking out.
3) Only use water in the bladder, use a separate water bottle for your mixed drinks or hydration mixes.

I used a bladder for 2 hikes and gave up on it, probably because I made the mistakes that Redshift3 lists above; I used a cheap 360Deg bladder in an Osprey pack that has a dedicated bladder pocket and had the following hassles:
-trouble getting the valve to work when I needed water (did I say cheap? I meant badly designed).
-difficulty putting the bladder in and out of a full pack, probably because both the bladder and pack were too full.

Motivated to try again, armed with this advice and a better bladder. Good idea to use the bladder for water only, and have some bottles for mixed drinks. bladder can then be used to fetch cooking water too.

I used a bladder for the first time recently, and although the sucking took some getting used to (it just doesn't have the same satisfaction as a big gulp from a bottle), I found like Josh above that, because I would suck whenever I felt thirsty, instead of waiting till I was parched as I would when I had to stop and get the bottle out the pack, I remained better hydrated. I thought I would have to refill the bladder at least once on the hike (2 days long though not very hard), but by the end I still had about 500ml left.