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They say you can't go back, that the past is better served by a selective memory than by second sight. That pond where you once fished for bluegills will be paved over by now; the woodcock covert in the birch bottom, drained and subdivided for tract homes. I wondered about this as the road bent along Tom Creek in Idaho's Centennial Mountains. It had been 20 years since I had last seen it. Not a remarkable piece of water, it was just another in a series of short, spring-fed creeks that plunged from the Continental Divide through alpine fir forest. I had shot my second elk on the shoulder of the mountain above, and the water that poured from my cupped hands when I slaked my thirst after a hard day's hunting was as sweet as nectar.

"So this is what I was named for," my son said, shaking his head sadly as we walked to the bank. "A creek."

"No, I was just kidding. But it's not just any creek, Tom. It's the best water on God's green earth."

"You aren't really going to drink from it?" he said, unbelieving.

"Why not?"

But of course I knew why not. On the surface of the creek, nothing may have changed. The problem was in the current underneath, in the form of protozoan cysts spread by animal (including human) droppings that, when swallowed, result in a serious intestinal disorder: giardiasis, otherwise known as hiker's diarrhea, backpacker's curse, beaver fever.

I remembered encountering a young man on the path up Maine's Mount Katahdin. He'd hiked almost the entire length of the Appalachian Trail, some 2,500 miles, only to be laid low by giardiasis 2 miles from the summit. He said he was afraid to climb above timberline, where he would have to drop his pants in full view of passersby if the bug got the better of him. And I recalled my friend, fisheries biologist Fred Nelson, who, after falling ill following a hike to high-altitude lakes, had walked around town for three days with a length of string taped to his cheek, the other end of which he had swallowed and was working its convoluted way through his upper intestine. When his doctor pulled the string up out of his mouth (think about that), the microscopic organisms clinging to the lower end confirmed what his gut had already told him. He, too, had giardiasis.

The Giardia lamblia cyst is so widespread that one study of 10,000 samples from streams across North America, including Alaska, could not find a single source that was uncontaminated. One Wilderness Society staffer contracted giardiasis after drinking water running off a glacier. Possibly a marmot or a mouse had defecated on the glacier farther up.

It's not just Giardia that can bring a careless hunter or hiker to a compromising position. The Cryptosporidium cyst is also spread by animal feces. Symptoms sound familiar notes to anyone who has suffered from giardiasis: abdominal cramps, bloating, fatigue, flatulence, diarrhea, and weight loss, with the bonus of a low-grade fever. Bacteria, including E. coli and salmonella, and viruses that carry diseases such as polio and hepatitis A are also prevalent in the earth's surface waters, although they pose greater risks for sportsmen who are traveling abroad, or who drink from still waters near popular hiking trails or in agricultural areas, than they do for deer trackers in Vermont or Alberta sheep hunters.

The bottom line is that all water must be treated before it can be safely drunk or used for cooking or washing dishes in camp. Options include boiling, chemical halogens, filtration, and ultraviolet radiation.