Doing your doody

I was out this weekend, and while pondering the mysteries of the world while perched on a log, became curious about something.

For years and years, I've doody-fully dug catholes and buried my waste, as everyone recommends. (Remember, I'm hiking in the Ohio River valley, so we're talking forests and deep soil, not fragile alpine environments.)

But it occurred to me this weekend that mammals much larger than me (deer, moose, ponies, and bear, to name a few) never bother with such niceties. That got me to wondering why it's necessary for us to bury ours. (I'm not talking about toilet paper; if not buried, it needs to be burned or carried out. I'm not advocating leaving "mine fields" complete with little toilet paper flags.)

I've got a couple of ideas of my own, but I'm just curious about everyone elses thoughts as to why this is necessary. (I'm also not advocating a change in policy - just running down a random thought.)

Aesthetics, if nothing else. Plus human patterns of use tend to be relatively highly concentrated, and the wastes contain bad things specific for humans, unlike a lot of the stuff deposited by critters.

Finding bear scat can be interesting - a bit of a window into the wilderness. Human feces - not so much.

I must add as an archaeologist, fortunate enough to have dug in the arid Southwest, I can assure you that in a dry cave environment, human waste lasts forever (forever=at least 1000 years). Now that is interesting "stuff'" and indeed it does inform us of many aspects of life during those times.

So the next time you do your doody, think of the historical implications (especially if you are making your deposit in a dry cave).

So you are saying that we should find a dry cave for historical reasons?

Seriously. In the book "How to S**** in the Woods" she actually reccomends that it remain exposed to air instead of being buried. The reasoning being that it decomposes faster. Obviously this depends on climatic and usage area. Someplace where folks are not likely to come in contact for years is different than someplace where there is regular traffic.

Gee, I never thought of it as "writing my memoirs" - you've given me an alternative to saying, "I'm going to go make a geocache."

I hadn't really thought about the archaeological aspects; that really is interesting. In my neck of the woods, no one I know would ever use a cave - logs are plentiful, and the ground behind them is rich, loose, and easy to dig in.

Based on what I've seen, "someplace where folks are not likely to come in contact for years" is pretty much anywhere 100 feet off the trail - or anyplace where you can't see the trail. Most of the masses aren't real comfortable moving out of sight of the trail - I've had to avert my eyes once or twice while walking along.

The drier the cave, the longer your record will be available for future researchers.....

Actually, isn't this just one more aspect of the human impact when we cluster together in large numbers - like in Yosemite Valley or the Mt Whitney trail? If we disperse ourselves across the landscape, the problem would be less severe...

Of course, Ohio probably has no such thing as a dry cave (I would love to be wrong about that, though).

No, you're pretty much right. In fact, if you exclude Mammoth Cave NP, we don't have a lot of real "caves" in our hiking areas - they're mostly in the nature of scooped-out, open-front rock shelters, eroded by wind (mostly) and water (somewhat) back into a cliff.

They're usually damp, and dank, and really not very pleasant to camp in - unless you're 22, a mile from the parking lot, and alcohol is involved.

Rock shelters in the Southwest tend to be dry, well ventilated, and sheltered from weather - altogether superb campsites. The shelter that held the pueblo with all the good poop got early morning sun (the better to warm you up) but about noon the shade began to increase. By the time we left in the afternoon, the entire site was pleasant and cool - a stark contrast to our trailers back at headquarters which were baking in the sun.

We survived a lot of rain storms without getting even remotely damp. On one January visit to the site, I noticed areas where green grass was already growing - an indication that sunlight was reflecting off the walls of the shelter and providing a warm microenvironment - something of great value to farming people.

Much of my outdoor scatological activity is based on the revelations in this book

Like anything else it depends on the circumstances. If I'm way off trail in a dry environment I prefer the "frosting" method for reasons stated in the book.

Caution: Clicking on the link will reveal a naughty word. Don't be misled by the title, it's a serious book.

Remind me to be careful where I put my hands next time I do a desert trek . Interesting looking book tho...

You always want to be careful of your hand placement, especially, but not exclusively, in the desert...

Most of the time it's because there are just too many of us, and we tend to do this near where we camp.

if you're camping somewhere other people camp, it's probably an issue - or near a trail lots of people travel.

When I am out in the alpine and exposed away from anyone (where there aren't likely to be other people) I don't bury. I leave it exposed on a rock, and I burn my toilet paper.

On the other hand believe me - nothing's nastier than crawling over a log and
finding an enormous place wheere someone had an urge to purge and left it. (in the middle of west coast trail). or my other personal "favorite" - 10 feet away from the only water source in a 20 km stretch of trail in tasmanina..

If it's really an issue, then it goes into a double ziploc and gets packed out.

So the short answer is - "it depends on where you are". and can often be figured with some common sense, which is unfortunately a lot rarer than you might think.

The biggest reason to bury it would be because of flies which lay their eggs in the stuff and then transport the bacteria to other places such as food. It is a good way to get dysentery in my estimation. The army practices "cat sanitation" when there is no latrine available. Latrines are to be insect proof and located 200 yards away from the kitchen.

Howie

If you don't bury it somebodies dog will eat it.

Resulting in sick dog and big vet bills. Speaking of which, how is your dog doing, Jim?

The idea of people not burying human poo is, to say the least, nauseating!

That's a good point.

You can't dig to deep here in most places, but you can usually dig far enough to cover it, and I don't think that'd slow down the decomposing of the stuff much here, but, it probably wouldn't deter a determined dog either.

As for me, I always walk at least 100 yards from trails, campsites and streams, and as I was pondering Jim and OM's comments my first thought was there wouldn't be any dogs around where I go, so I'm good, but then I considered how my dogs hike with me, and when not on a leash they cover ten times as much ground as I do and follow up on everything they catch a whiff of, so, while I may be "Good" some of the time, that can't be true all of the time.

That said, I don't think you can stop a dog from doing that unless they are constantly constrained.

My neighbor, who didn't bury his stuff, did his business early one morning and then hiked about two miles to his spot to hunt deer. On the way back he did a wide loop around, bushwhacking the entire way, and about 50 ft from his deer camp his shoe made a direct landing in the middle of his earlier business. Everyone in the camp was sitting there watching him when he did that, and that tale gets repeated often by the witnesses when they talk about him, or the risk of deer hunting in general. That alone is a good enough lesson for me about why burying your stuff is a good idea

and where there's a bacteriologial layer and it'll decompose, I do that. but waay up in the alpine here, where it barely thaws, if I put it under a rock, that turd is still there 10 years from now..

You want nauseating? turn over a rock and find a couple of them

That's why up *here* - where I know the stuff isn't going to decompose under a rock, or buried, I leave it exposed.

I've come back to places where I've done this, and it's *gone*.

I also look at it for the viewpoint of what we eat. We tend not to eat natural foods and of waste never becomes part of the environment. A deer or a bear on the other hand eats the food that grows in the area the dump in.
Our crap probably has the same shelf life as that twinkie that you just ate.

In the army we used to mark the date on which we filled in a latrine. I believe that after five years they could use the same ground again, hence the reason for the date marking.

Howie

A bolt on question....
It is a rule in Glacier National Park to use a cat hole and to carry out your used toilet paper.
I find it hard to comprehend that anyone would actually comply with that rule.

Regards,
Mr. Fishunt

That was required on Oahu as well... all the natural areas there feed the drinking water supply, erosion is an issue, and so is high use/traffic.

I follow that rule on the AT as well. High traffic as well, and I don't figure anyone wants to find little TP flags sticking up from a cat hole (a SGT that worked for me described the training areas in Fort Lewis that way .

This is pretty easy to do with a three bag system:

1 1 gallon zip lock bag for the used TP/wipes
1 1 gallon zip lock bag for the yet to be used TP/wipes
1 1 gallon zip lock bag to hold the other two, and to make it easy to bring with you.

A lot cleaner than changing a diaper.

Oh... and the reason you comply is that it is one of the stipulations you agree to in order to use an area that all of us own. Call it a "public good" thing.

That's OK - there are plenty of places other than Glacier where that rule/custom is not in place. If you do go to Glacier, please play nice...

Heavy, concentrated usage requires practices different from less frequented areas.

I always carry out my paper these days no matter where I am. I burn it if I have a fire but that's rare.

I'm not roasting marshmellows over THAT fire!!

It's also the rule in Yosemite. There are a lot of reasons to comply with it regardless of the ick factor.

I comply with it in the best interests of sanitation and health. Waterways in Yosemite test positive for e coli, and 10-15 feet off the sides of the heaviest use trails, you are surrounded by the toilet paper of 10,000,000 tourists who have gone before.

If you are using toilet paper you buy in the grocery store, that's not really paper - it's cotton fabric. It doesn't biodegrade well at all without all the chemistry they use in sewage treatment. For paper that's easier on the environment get toilet paper designed for RVs or specifically for backpacking.

Very enlightening - I didn't realize that household TP was a different composition; I'll start checking from now on. Thanks for the info, Lori.

Unfortunately, the cathole contents often get dug up, with the consequences of TP "flowers" littering the landscape. Nobody likes to see those!

As a "freezer bag cooking" enthusiast, I have plenty of dirty plastic bags in which to pack out the TP. It's not a big deal!

A lot of toilet paper does not use cotton, cotton is also a cellulose based material so it should break down ok right? ehh i hate seeing mounds of toilet paper near a trail. some of the coolest things I find (for example a real broke down old log cabin) are when hiking way back to do dooty.

I was looking through some old threads and found this one.

The reason is biblically commanded:

"Deu 23:13 And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee: "

Glenn,

Your comment about making a geocache was great.