Pooping in the outdoors
Pooping outdoors is easy to do: squat and wipe.
It’s more difficult to do it well. A stroll around any popular frontcountry or backcountry area will attest that some fraction of hikers, backpackers, and campers struggle with this skill, due to ignorance of laziness, or a combination thereof.
A good poop job will avoid:
- Contaminating water sources;
- Degrading the natural setting and the experience that it offers; and,
- Personal discomfort and/or group contagion resulting from poor personal hygiene.
In this four-part series I will share my know-how and practical tips. I address appropriate methods for the woodlands, alpine, desert, and snow. I also explain the backcountry bidet, which is the key for long-term hygiene and happiness in the outdoors.
Like real estate, pooping outdoors is all about location, location, location. Conventional wisdom mostly skips over this aspect, and puts more emphasis on the cathole — you know, the perfect 8-inch pit that, like the perfect bear hang, is much easier to draw than to accomplish in the field. By finding a good pooping location, more liberties…
The first step in pooping in the outdoors is finding a good location. Site selection was discussed in-depth in Part 1. But to quickly refresh, high quality pooping spots will be: At least 200 feet away from water, Inconspicuous, Biologically rich, and Conducive to a cathole. The next step is creating a hole. Notice my use of…
It’s time for action! You have found a good location to poop and you have created a hole. (Refer to Part 1 and Part 2 of this series for details.) I normally squat over my hole and poop directly into it. If you care to get creative, you can straddle a fork in a downed…
Most tutorials about pooping in the outdoors end with a butt wiping, a cover up of the cathole, and a hand-washing, as I covered in Part 3 of this series. But I will finish with something less conventional: the backcountry bidet. If you would rather watch than read, view the video embedded above starting at 5:18. Motivation…
Recently, I received an email from Luke G., who had attended a gear & skills clinic at the flagship REI in Denver. It’s worth sharing: I field many emails from readers, most hoping to get some additional information, some expressing thanks for something that I had shared or done. But Felix’s story is one of…
When I began backpacking nearly twenty years ago, I used toilet paper exclusively for cleaning my butt after pooping, just like I did at home. I’ve pooped outside thousands of times since then, and now prefer to do the exact opposite: I use no toilet paper at all. Instead, I rely on natural materials, a…
A reader, AnnaJoy G, recently wrote me: I’m a ciswoman and looking for bidet advice for folks with vaginas. Conventional bidet methods seem to involve dirty water trickling down the butt and towards the vulva, the perfect recipe for a UTI. Online advice columns presume the hiker is a cisman and seem oblivious to the…