The great debates of history - Lincoln v. Douglas, boxers v. briefs - must surely be expanded to include hard v. soft water bottles. The trusty and hardy lexan one-quart in all its glorious manifestations on one side, and on the other, the newer generation of crackly roll-ups.
Enter Vapur, whose new bottles bring a few new twists to the soft bottle category. First off the Vapur is available in a number of flashy colors, but also a basic flat black. For mountaineers or anyone using this in a cold climate this has the advantage of acting as a heat sink in sunlight, helping keep the liquid inside in it's preferred state, that is, liquified. Collapsible bottles like the Vapur also tend to store inside a parka more easily since they can conform, more so as they are emptied.
The Vapur has an integrated carabiner clip that folds neatly over the lid when not in use, and which doubles as a keeper loop when the bottle is empty and rolled up. For anyone with a cabinet full of water bottles - mirror, I'm looking at you! - this is actually quite useful. Other features are standard tick-list items: BPA free, freezable, dishwasher safe, and it will stand if carefully placed on a flat surface. Vapur does advertise itself as being easily operated in single-hand mode. We're not sure about the "easy" part, but it is possible.
What's not in doubt is that the Vapur is bombproof. Don't hesitate to bring this bottle into adverse conditions, it will not let you down. And if it gets skanky, just boil it, which you're probably doing to purify your water anyway. Also available is the Vapur DrinkLink kit (on sale now at REI for $10.99), which adds a tube, clip and quick disconnect to any Vapur bottle. It works well and is reasonably priced, what more can you say? Overall the Vapur bottle line is a solid solution if you want to save space and weight.
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