In 1989, CamelBak founder Michael Eidson was competing in the Hotter 'n Hell 100 bicycle race in Wichita Falls, Texas.

[1] Eidson, who was an emergency medical technician by trade, filled an IV bag with water and stuck it in a tube sock.

Within a few months, he brought the idea to Roger Fawcett, who tested it in scientific studies, and began selling the first CamelBak product, the ThermalBak.

The company differentiated its bottles by making them taste-free, using bite valves designed to stop leaks while allowing easy sipping.

[8] One of CamelBak's military lines features reservoirs that resist chemical and biological weapons; they are designed to be used with gas masks.

The Army's office of the Product Manager-Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment and the Army's Test and Evaluation Command approved the three-liter CBR X after exposing it to nerve agents for six hours, after thirty days of use in the field, and then verifying that the water inside remained uncontaminated, and, performing numerous other tests since 2006.

CamelBak claims that the Relay filters water ten times faster than competing products; this is fast enough to keep up with the flow rate of a kitchen faucet.

The product line includes Vacuum Stainless Steel and Tritan Renew water bottles, and a 2 liter reservoir filtration kit.