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Do We Really Have to Pack Out Our Toilet Paper?

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

“Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.”

This slogan about how tourists should treat national wildlife reserves and parks is poetic, romantic, and ecologically friendly. It sounds great until you have to actually do it. Then details you may not have thought about rear their ugly head, and this picturesque slogan suddenly seems somewhat difficult and cumbersome.

There is one thing, or example, that humans leave everywhere on a regular basis: excrement. Humans don’t really consume food or water; we merely borrow it for a few hours. Luckily, the most popular and well-traveled hiking trails and campsites usually have chemical latrines at regular intervals, pumped out and removed periodically by septic waste companies.

Unfortunately, the less traveled backcountry hiking trails usually don’t have such conveniences. But no one can “hold it” during a three-day backpacking trip… so what are tourists to do?

“Pack it in, Pack it out.”

This slogan, although less poetic than the first, cuts to the heart of the matter in a no-nonsense way. If you pack it in—even inside your bowels—you pack it out. This strikes most people as disgusting. People want to know why they have to do this, and if so, how. This article will answer those questions.

Urine

Thankfully, you don’t have to pack out your urine. Just find a place away from your campsite or any water sources, and do your business. The only rule to keep in mind it to try to use a bare patch of ground or a rock instead of on plants. Certain animals may be attracted to the salts in urine, especially in dry country. If you urinate on a plant, an animal might damage or destroy the plant later trying to get at the salts.

Feces

Do you have to pack your excrement? In most places, it’s encouraged, but not strictly required. Instead, they just ask you to dispose of it responsibly. “Responsible disposal” usually means burying it.

Here are some rough guidelines for burying feces. First, dig your “cat hole” at least two hundred feet (about 70 adult paces) away from your campsite, the hiking trail, or any water sources. Dig the cat hole at least six to eight inches deep. A small, cheap garden trowel is perfect for this task. After doing your business, fill in the hole and pack it down with the trowel blade. Unfortunately, you can’t bury the used toilet paper with it.

The only exception is if you use “natural alternatives” to toilet paper like leaves, sticks, or smooth stones. These can be buried along with your feces.

Toilet Paper

The one thing park rangers are fairly strict about is requiring you to pack out your used toilet paper. At this point, many people ask, “Why? Can’t I just burn it, or bury it with my feces?”

1. Burning Doesn’t Work: Although clean toilet paper is highly flammable and burns quickly and completely, used toilet paper rarely burns up entirely. The end result is only slightly better than leaving used toilet paper out in the open.

2. Wildfires: A lot of wildfires have been started by the burning (and highly-flammable) toilet paper blowing away.

3. Slow Decomposition: When buried, toilet paper—especially the types that are synthetic, scented, or contain lotion —decomposes slowly and incompletely. This increases the already-high likelihood that animals may dig it up.

4. Pollution: Human waste left lying around concentrates over time, especially in popular highly traveled areas, detracting from the natural beauty of an area. For example, when a cleanup of Paria Canyon and Buckskin Gulch was done in 2001, huge amounts of human waste needed to be packed out.

How to Pack Out Used Toilet Paper

The first, and perhaps easiest, option is to buy special Human Waste Bags (commonly referred to as “wag bags”). These are secure, airtight, neutralize odors, and are easy to use. Each “wag bag” contains two plastic bags, one inside the other. The smaller inside bag contains a small amount of organic toilet paper and hand sanitizer. The larger bag has a small amount of chemical powder in the bottom designed to eliminate any odor. Fold your used toilet paper, put it in the smaller bag, and seal it. Then place the smaller bag in the larger bag and seal that one too.

You can make your own “wag bags” easily. Just use two sizes of seal-able plastic sandwich bags with a little bit of baking soda in them to absorb odor. Some people wrap these clear bags in duct tape to hide the unpleasant contents from site.

Packing Out Poop

A lot of people get squeamish about storing the used toilet paper (or even feces) in their back with the rest of their equipment. To separate it from the rest of their equipment, many people make a “poop tube.”

A “poop tube” is simply a length of rigid, plastic PVC pipe with airtight butt caps at either end. The materials for this can be bought quite cheaply at any hardware store. You simply place the bags of used toilet paper inside the tube, put the cap back on, and pack it out.

Feminine Hygiene Products

Feminine hygiene products should be treated the same as toilet paper, perhaps even more so. Like used toilet paper, they rarely burn completely, sometimes have non-biodegradable components (especially pads), and run a good chance of being dug up by animals.

Tags: Backpacking equipment, backpacking gear, backpacking tips
Posted in Backpacking & Hiking, Gear | No Comments »

Amazon.com’s Outdoor Store Needs to Gear Up

Monday, August 24th, 2009

An ad in the August issue of Outside Magazine caught my attention. It was a full page ad for Amazon.com and they were hyping their new outdoor recreation section. Of course this peaked my interest. What if I am able to buy gear cheaper on Amazon? I immediately checked it out.

For buying gear on-line I usually go to either Moosejaw.com or REI.com. They both have a huge selection of gear and I can get deals when items are on sale. I also dig Moosejaw because they have a great sense of humor. So I already have two realiable sources for buying gear can Amazon become a third source or even my new source for everything I need for the outdoors?

I got myself all worked up for nothing. Although Amazon has products from top manufacturers such as Big Agnes, Osprey, MSR, Therm A Rest and Sierra Designs, the prices were the same as my favorite sites. They also had an abundance of low end gear that has questionable quality in my opinion. The bottom line is there isn’t anything special about Amazon’s gear store. I will check in on it again in a few months to see if things have changed but for now I’m sticking with Moosejaw and REI.

Tags: Backpacking equipment, backpacking gear, backpacking shopping, hiking equipment, hiking gear, hiking shopping
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6 Ways to Make Your Backpacking Trip Easier

Monday, August 10th, 2009

So, you’re gearing up to head out on a nice backpacking trip. I’ve been on more than a few, and here are some common things you can do to make your life more comfortable, easier and enjoy the experience with fewer hassles.

1. Only pack what you need for the trip. That boils down to a change of clothes for every two days on the trail, a change of socks for every day on the trip plus an extra, and a sleeping bag and camping pad suitable for the area you’re going to be in. You don’t need an Arctic rated sleeping bag to sleep in the high deserts of Arizona.

2. When packing food, plan ahead. Work out how many meals you intend to eat on the trip, and add two to that count just in case an emergency happens. Aim for foods that can be eaten without extensive preparation; while you’re going to be backpacking in the desert, there’s usually some sources of fresh water near all the hiking trails.

3. Look at foods that are low in weight and high in stored energy – granola bars and nuts are an excellent example of this. Include foods you can snack on while on the move. One of your meals should be a hot meal, just for morale and thermal benefits. Anything that can be prepared in its own packaging is great, because that means you aren’t lugging around more dishes to be cleaned.

4. Next, focus on hydration. While things like mixes for Gatorade or the like are great energy boosts, remember that you need to pack and drink water as well. Water is heavy – it’s probably the densest thing you’re going to carry with you, so it’s the easiest thing to under pack.

5. One of the biggest changes for hiking and backpacking trips is cameras. Where the limiting constraint used to be how much film you could carry, it’s now how much battery capacity you can bring. For long term backpacking trips, seriously consider a solar battery charger, particularly if you’re backpacking with a group, and can coordinate the recharging of lots of folks batteries at once.

6. Which brings us back to one of the basics – teamwork. Coordinate with other trekkers with you so that each of you brings a piece of specialized kit that will help everyone, from GPS to radio to cameras to battery chargers, these can allow everyone to have a better time.

And remember, it’s a fun time that everyone’s after on the trip. We want you to have a good time on the trail, packed sensibly, and with everything cataloged and organized to make it a fun experience.

Tags: backpacking gear, packing your backpack
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Getting Over Tenderfeet Stages In Hiking

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

sore feet Every time I do a major hike with a new group of clients, there’s a better than 50/50 chance that someone on a trip is going to have a gripe about their feet hurting.

Now, there’s a part of me that wants to get all Marine Corps Drill Sergeant on them and tell them to suck it up. It’s a small part, but in the interests of never having to succumb to that temptation on a trail, I’m going to help with some tips on how to keep your tender tootsies from hurting.

First, your feet need strengthening. Before you start a 10 mile hike, prepare. Start walking more every day. If you have a job where you have a choice between sitting down or standing up, always stand. Jog a little bit.

You want to build up your muscles and tendons in your feet and ankles over time – ideally you want to start this training regimen a month before a major hike. (Remember when you were a teenager, and your feet never hurt? Yeah, this is why – when you were a teenager, you’d hang out with your friends, walk around school, walk to the car, run around more…same thing applies here.)

Another great way to strengthen your feet is through Yoga. All the balance work you do in a Yoga routine while barefoot does wonders for the muscles and tendons in your feet.

Second, pack lightly and pack smart. Your hiking pack is going to be heavier than you expected; build up to it. Start with short hikes and lighter loads and eventually build up your feet and leg muscles.

While you’re at it, make sure that your backpack load is balanced evenly between your left and right shoulders. Most people don’t do this – they put more weight on their primary shoulder, and this causes backaches, and makes it likelier that they’ll injure their ankle on that side of the body from trying to compensate for it.

Third, pay attention to your footwear. You don’t have to get boots - hiking shoes that are low cut work just as good - especially since boots don’t tend to work for everybody, including me.

Your shoes or boots should fit close and snug without cutting off circulation. They need to provide ankle support and cushion your arches. You want to have a little bit of space – about a quarter of an inch or more- between your toes and the end of the boot; this will let your foot expand inside the boot for sweat and load bearing.

This also means breaking them in well; taking them to a podiatrist or leather shop can speed this along, because they’ll stretch the leather so it doesn’t rub. Go to the gym and use a stair-climber for about 10 minutes in your boots and see where they rub, and then adjust.

Likewise, get good socks. You want wool or polypropylene, something that will move moisture away from your feet. Try out a few pair with your shoes or boots and make sure that they work for you. You may want a double liner sock or two socks.

Always wash your socks each day, and try to change them out every day. (Real pros may only show up with two sets of underwear for a hike, but they always have two sets of socks for each day, and they change them after 6 hours.)

Lastly, when there’s a break, swap out from your boots to camp sandals (or Crocs, like me), and let your feet breathe. Sit back, enjoy the view. It’s why you came here, anyway.

Tags: backpacking boots, Backpacking equipment, backpacking gear
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