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When I Googled "Sierra Cup history", as part of this post on the Evernew Titanium Sierra Cup (1.6 ounces) , I came across the following article on Giardia from the Sierra Club website I thought was worth sharing.

Resurrect those old Sierra Club cups?
(or Giardia re-examined)
By Don Hoernschemeyer

Up until the last twenty or thirty years you could spot Sierra Club hikers by the small metal cup hanging from their belts. The cup was used to dip water from streams and lakes whenever one wanted a drink.

With the specter of Giardia emerging in the 70s, the small metal cups disappeared and were replaced by purification tablets and filters. The US National Park Service and the National Forest Service erected signs warning of hazardous water, and we became cautious about our source of drinking water. Companies produced lots of fancy filters to purify contaminated water. Fortunately, an avid hiker and scientist, Robert Rockwell, has researched the danger of Giardia and discovered that it poses little or no threat to intelligent water drinking in the mountains.

Quoting from a research report, Dr. Rockwell writes, "The water that wilderness travelers are apt to drink, assuming they use a little care, seems almost universally safe as far as Giardia is concerned . . . What they [researchers] did find is that Giardia and other intestinal bugs are for the most part spread by direct fecal-oral or food-borne transmission, not by contaminated drinking water."

Read more from Resurrect those old Sierra Club cups? (or Giardia re-examined)

Pot and Cup – 5.6 ounces 

The Evernew Titanium Sierra Cup is a good companion to the MSR Titanium Tea Kettle (4 ounces).

I use my tea kettle as my cook pot. When I bought it a couple of years ago, it was not advertised as a tea kettle, but as a cooking pot.

In any case, the Sierra Cup works as a lid for the pot (a perfect fit), keeping heat in your pot and the beverage in the cup warm (from the heat in the food below).

The Problem with Titanium

A hot beverage in titanium gets cold in a couple of minutes. Luckily, you can put the Sierra Cup on your stove and heat it up quickly, unlike plastic cups. Watch out for  the hot handle, though.

Many lightweight backpackers use the .9 liter pot for both mug and pot, avoiding the extra weight of a cup. But at 1.6 ounces, the Sierra Cup allows you to have your oatmeal and coffee at the same time.

Be light. Be safe. Be one with the pack. 

Technorati tags: Lightweight backpacking, Giardia, Sierra cup