These Kleen Kanteen bottles have caught my eye for a while now. One of my hiking friends seems to have had one forever, when I searched for them I saw lots of spare parts so you’re not throwing them out when you lose something and one of my favourite review sites, The Wirecutter, likes them. I was offered the chance to review one and decided to give blog-based gear reviews a go, because why not?

I was sent one a couple of weeks ago and tried it out at the office for a bit, but decided that the break in the weather was a good time to go hiking at Buntzen Lake to test it. The day we chose was hardly short of water, if you’ve been anywhere in Metro Vancouver, you’ll know we’ve been rained on, non stop, for weeks now and this was the only day it let up.  So enough Christmas shopping, let’s head to the woods and take a few photos of a water bottle!

The bottle is 800ml (27oz) and made of stainless steel for the most part. The lid/drinking spout is plastic with a rubber nozzle and (what I think) is silicon for an air valve. I mention that valve as it’s a clever idea, essentially letting air in so you can drink easily (as opposed to having to suck the water out against the vacuum you create). The lid has a loop that you can use for a carabiner and the neck is just the right size for holding between your thumb and index finger, ergo you are not holding the body of the bottle and heating up your water (I assume you’re not after hot tea when you buy a water bottle like this).

It was easy to walk along drinking from it. Perhaps the one criticism I have is that the valve doesn’t give any tactile feedback that you’ve opened it or closed it, it just slides back and fourth with no click feeling. If I’m talking that sort of detail for the not so good points, it’s clear that I like this thing. The shape is just right for a small bag. I was using a hydration backpack bag without the hydration pack and it didn’t take up so much room that it looked silly. Actually that’s a debate my hiking buddy and I had, on hydration packs vs. bottles. My view is that it’s easier to refill a bottle from a stream and easier to pack them in a backpack, but if you’re running or need your hands most (not all) of the time, then hydration packs it is. I just forget to drink from them when hiking.

Anyway, overall impressed and will use the Kleen Canteen… I mean Kleen Kanteen (yes, I’ve been writing Canteen a lot in this review). The real pluses for me was the clever shape, the stainless steel body and the very usable sports cap.

• Kleen Kanteen’s website with more than just bottles
• A Kleen Kanteen on Amazon.ca similar to the one I reviewed (and there are plenty more like it)
• A blog post about Kleen Kanteen’s #BringYourOwn project

NOTE: I was given the bottle I reviewed above for free.