How to poop in the woods & perform a backcountry bidet
Вставка
- Опубліковано 26 лип 2024
- How should you really poop in the woods when backpacking and camping? SD ambassador and guide Andrew Skurka explains the textbook methods as well as some more practical techniques.
Where should you go? How should you dig a hole? With what should you wipe? How should you clean up afterwards?
Skurka also explains the backcountry bidet, which is an effective technique in avoiding "monkey butt" or "swamp ass."
Ultralight hiking gear..$2000
Ultralight hiking clothes..$400
Wiping your butt with rocks...priceless.
stickyleg *** lol good point. Never mind about the 4 squares of toilet paper that ought to give you itchy ass infection.
Right, and the title states use of a bidet.
I guess he forgot to determine what that IS...
and DOES.
A 250 ml, 8oz Labratory Wash Bottle works great.
I've USED one for ten years.
Other folks use the flip top shampoo bottles, the ones you press down on one side and the other pops up.
They have a good angle to do the job. I would narrow down the jet of water with epoxy, hot melt glue, etc
8 oz is plenty. You don't need a liter, and a smaller bottle is easier to carry, more discreet....and easily fits down into the bowl behind your bum.
have A playlist on this to help people;
Off Grid Toilet Ideas" on UA-cam
ua-cam.com/play/PLsEWVATMY6q1G0Qt4Cs3qHsrVMQ-WJ4Ig.html..
@@autumnofmyheart that doesn't actually happen, especially if you clean up each day. Which you should do anyway.
I'm sure you could buy some nice rocks on Amazon.
The sticks and rocks just knock off any thick stuff that might be hanging on. You don’t actually scrub with them.
Good info, thanks Andrew. Brings back memories, pleasant and otherwise. Pleasant was the perfect fallen-tree-forked-branch seat I found that overlooked a meadow in BC. Midway through my process of elimination a bull moose walked out of the opposite tree line. I had a tag and a rifle and had been hunting hard for four days without seeing one, but this guy got a pass as I sat motionless and bare-assed for at least 15 minutes until he wandered back into the foliage. No meat that trip but the moment was worth it.
Not so pleasant was the midnight pee I attempted from the saddle on Grand Teton into the gully on the Idaho side. An icy, upward blast of spindrift-laden wind managed to return most of my liquid offering onto my chest, face and hair. Dripping with urine and humiliation, I scrubbed myself off as best I could with snow and returned to my tent once again reminded that Mother Nature can be a cruel mistress.
Qui pisse au vent se rince les dents.
Oh, please record those in a book somewhere and expand further! I love it, haha!
5 minutes later: random guy looking for sticks for tinder.
haha
Oh my gosh I laughed so hard. This is the most underrated comment
4 squares of paper a day??? Id have shit all over me... Josh
my rear end would non stop itch. Im using what I need! Or I would rubbing my rear on the ground like a dog.
Wait. What'd i do?!
Jim Bowling
Laughing my "hands" off😂😂
I bought a big container of Toilet Paper Tablets on amazon.. you can fit about 8 (if I remember correctly) in a waterproof match storage box. Pretty decent sized and make for nice wet naps.
LOL no kidding. Must never have had the fudgy type, common after those backpacking meals. We’re talking 1/4 of a roll!
A few chuckles during the video, then side splitting laughter reading the comments!
Is it just a coincidence that the video I watched right before this one was the beans/rice/frito's recipe?
That's how I got here
😂😂😂😂
Just to polish the rear view mirror?? Are you kidding?? I'll need to polish that mirror a few times!! A trail diet isn't exactly high fiber bran muffins. It's mostly water (a natural laxative, btw) plus rehydrated foods. So I think the roll's gonna be on my "must keep dry" list and see alot of action when I tiptoe away from camp. "I'm just gonna go for a quick hike over yonder, be back in a few."
lol,did watch it just before this to .pmsl
I don't think so. I did too... Hehehe
Did he say "polish the rear view mirror"? LMFAO
Rene DeVilliers yes, he did, with one square
Haven’t you heard of the occipital ass? Next to the cornea, the rectum has the most per area of nerve endings on the body.
Pine cones or sticks? My butt hurts just from thinking about that
Lamsia plants
Bwah-ha-ha
If it is winter you can use a snowball. Cleans you up really well and is better that coffee!
Pretty good for what it covers; here are other considerations. Often you are with someone. So in selecting your site, privacy is also a consideration. If there is a designated area, you can have an agreement, like leaving a hiking stick along the access path to signify the area is “occupied”. For many, squatting is an unnatural position. Putting some rocks under your heels or using the natural ground slope will help with balance. If packing out toilet paper is a goal, it’s nice to use a brown paper bag - rather than a clear zip lock bag - to put it in. The brown paper bag will go in a zip lock bag because you know it’s going to rain. Finally, Metamuscil is your friend. Some diets leave you with … paste. It can require a lot of TP. With fiber supplements, the stuff comes out firm and clean; hardly any clean up. Finally plus one - learn at home. Play with fiber supplements before you go (on your trip). check your balance squatting. Remember the privacy thing because at least the first few times you may want to take your pants all the way off. And note the direction water will flow relative to your shoes.
I am wondering about just using hand sanitizer after the water clean up. Everything has to go somewhere and just putting purifier on your hands doesn’t make any residue disappear.
Hot tips! Thanks for sharing ☺️
I'm laughing out loud 😂. It's not a subject that's openly talked about by many, but it is something we all do. May as well talk about. Thanks Andrew for sharing.
I love learning all this outdoor crap.
A topic that not many hiking videos address. Good to know for the novice hiker.
I can’t spare a square. I don’t have a square to spare.
Karl Ruehs Poor Elaine
😂
Seinfeld and Backpacking intersect!
That's ok I missed my chance.
I hesitate to disagree with someone as expert as Mr Skurka, but in many types of country you just can't create a decent cat-hole with the heel of a trail shoe. I'd urge people to carry a trowel of some kind so you can practice Leave No Trace principles. You don't need to carry a monster like he shows here. There are a number of very lightweight options on the market these days, or you can adapt a snow stake for a multi-use solution.
Also, while it's simple common-sense to cleanse your hands afterwards, people should be aware that the big risk on the trail is cross-infection from other hikers who aren't being so careful. So beware of any food that may have been touched by others, and clean your hands after any handshakes or other physical contact.
Very important issue, seldom taught well (if at all) - well done! Supporting the comment of "brandi wynter" below I always use a tiny bit of bio-degradable soap + water to wash my hands afterwards. Sanitizer is meant & work best to disinfect a clean surface, however its cleaning abilities are really limited. ATB Gereon
Very necessary video, thanks for broaching the subject! However, I'd like to add something and hopefully it helps someone.
I'm a big fan of hand sanitizer, it definitely has it's place in civilized life as well as the backwoods, however, it's not perfect. You talk about your back country bidet where you pour water on yourself and use your other hand to basically scrub your butt and then "cleaning" your hands with hand sanitizer. Alchohol or alcohol based hand sanitizers kill a lot of the "ickies" but not all of them, and certainly not 99.9% like manufacturers like to claim. E. coli, for example, is NOT killed by alcohol hand sanitizer which is reason enough not to depend on hand sanitizer alone. If it's all you have then definitely use it but use it correctly and use the right one.
First off, non alcohol based hand sanitizers are useless money wasters, don't buy them, they don't work. Alcohol hand sanitizer must be at LEAST 60% alcohol content and preferably 70% or higher. Then you have to use enough so that your skin stays wet with it for at least 30 seconds, again preferably longer. If your hands are dirty, as in have dirt/grime/visible dirty stuff no amount of alcohol hand sanitizer will kill the ickies that hide in that dirt. Hands should ALWAYS be correctly washed with soap and water before using hand sanitizer when possible (to get rid of the dirt and the ickies that hide in it). In the case of using alcohol hand sanitizer after going to the bathroom in the woods you should still wash your hands with soap and water as soon as possible after using the sanitizer if possible.
Basically, alcohol based hand sanitizer is great stuff but it's not perfect and it definitely does NOT work as well as old fashioned hand washing with soap and water. Always wash with soap and water whenever possible whether you've used hand sanitizer or not. Don't believe the hype hand sanitizers spew, great sanitizer is good but it's not as good as they claim. You may wonder why I leave such a reply...well I'll tell you. I use alcohol based sanitizers daily, it's become a ritual since working as an EMT and constantly being exposed to the ickies so we have it all over the house and I carry a bottle in my purse. Unfortunately, it didn't help when I was contaminated by a contractor who didn't wash his hands enough while working on our bathroom. Long story short I ended up in an ambulance on the way to the ER in so much pain I was praying to die. After all the tests and questions the docs finally figured out it was caused by being exposed to fecal matter because the contractor didn't wash his hands after going or on his hands from working on the sewer pipe. Either way, he passed it on to me, probably when I was signing paperwork and shaking hands at the end of the day. I always use hand sanitizer after shaking someones hand just because so many people don't wash their hands. Anywho, the final result was around 45 days of living hell and a total of 3 months before I was back to normal. The docs called it "a really, really nasty type of gastroenteritis" that caused my intestines to swell up along with horrible abdominal pain accompanied by uncontrollable nausea/vomiting/diarrhea. I lived on Gatorade and water for the first month. The second month I managed to eat small amounts of food occasionally with the Gatorade and water. The third month I was able to eat more but still suffered from severe abdominal pain afterwards. It wasn't until just after the third month that I could finally say I felt back to normal.
I'm only writing this because this video, while informative, gives the impression that hand sanitizer alone is good enough to clean your hands after contact with fecal material and that is absolutely incorrect. In situations where there is no way at all to wash with soap and water, then, yes, hand sanitizer is definitely the best alternative but that is the only time. The sanitizer isn't perfect and washing with soap and water should always be performed when at all possible. Trust me, you do not want to go through what I did. Had I washed my hands with soap and water instead of just using hand sanitizer I would never have ended up in the ER but I believed the advertising and felt safe. I've since researched the facts and learned otherwise. Hopefully it helps someone.
And that´s why hand shakes should be forbidden in hospitals.
any time i'm backcountry i forgo the hand sanitizer and stay strictly with biodegradable soap. like you said soap is the only way to be completely clean, a small thing of soap doesn't weight much and takes up little room
I think Clorox makes a sanitzer that kills e-coli on amazon.com
Yeah, I don't like the excess use of hand sanitizers either. They are good for what they are intended for: sterile environments like hospitals. Proper hygiene is another thing. I've always stayed away from hand sanitizers and never got or heard anyone close to me getting sick while backpacking. I do however wash my hands which is so much more important than just trying to sterilize your hands.
T Q P that's a pretty romantic ideal and I'm glad it's worked for you, but there is no bartering with a healthy case of giardiasis or worse, E coli or C diff. Bad bugs are out there. Just remember, before modern medicine there were still things like the plague. People die everyday of infections. You may be fortunate but we're all different. I don't think suggesting to eat food off the floor is that helpful. Sometimes we get sick and its hard to tell why. Best advice is to be thorough but not be OCD. A little dirt probably won't hurt, but it might. And when you're in the backcountry, small things like a GI infection can become a pretty big thing in a hurry, like a cut on your finger into a bad infection.
“I like to budget four squares of toilet paper a day.”
“Half a dozen sticks, rocks, and some pine cones, I could just keep going.”
“Wasn’t that satisfying?”
This dude has some awesome one liners.
I love it when he talks dirty.
Pine cones, on my balloon knot?
I don't think so!
Moist towelettes, and pack em out. Thank you very much.
agreed!
He feels light he feels good in fact he feels really good now
I like to poop early on a trip. Gets the senses tuned to the woods--breaks the ice, or the soil.
You had me right up to the point when you said to wash your hands.
im never shaking skurkas hand :-\
It's ok I told him to use ivory soap and some water. HAHA
😂😂😂😂👍
I wonder how many people watched this while pooping..
I prefer to read while shit....
🙋♀️ me!!!🤣
Had me right up to "clean hand /dirty hand..."
Traditionally the left hand is considered "evil" in latin/greek cultures because it was the "dirty" hand.
I literally had to take a dump after watching this....
Me #2
RESTLESS OUTDOORS
Cant stop pooping now
Ha
I’m going right now.
OOF!
I'm honestly amazed with how many times he said poop and didn't Crack a humorous grin
Good info. Thanks for sharing.
That was great and thank you. Information about a proper cat-hole and sanitary procedure is critical. It should be the first thing one learns about native camping. Leave No Trace, But keep yourself happy and hygienic. We all gotta drop the deuce at some point .. knowing where is just as important as knowing how. Don't be embarrassed! Get out in the Wonder knowing you did your business correctly. Everything else falls in to place. The amazement of the stars, the comforting sound of flowing water, the rhythm of the waves, the sounds of birds all around. The grand vista that you will explain with awe to anyone who will listen. For The Love. Camp!
I love taking a dump in the woods. I have no problem leaving toilet paper in the hole. It will break down and be gone in no time.
Toilet paper blooms are considered an invasive species
You might hesitate doing a high five when meeting Andrew.
WAITWAIT, WAIT..WAIT!! Is he instructing me to wipe my ass with twigs? 3:08 .. someone please clarify.
Oscar Garcia don’t forget the rocks
You can also use pine cones. DUH!
Or rabbits which weren’t mentioned in the video.
For me, the wiping aspect is arguably the most important stage yet pretty much not covered very well here or other videos. The idea of wiping with rocks and leaves sounds good, sure. However, I was recently in India for three months, and after two weeks of using their less-than-smooth toilet paper, the accumulated scratching gave me the worst butt itch and made walking around (I wasn't hiking) a serious problem. So if you're hiking for weeks, how is accumulated wiping with rocks and leaves going to be any different? And I don't care how allegedly smooth they may be since that Indian toilet paper didn't seem all that rough, at first.
" WHAT!!!!!!!!! NO SEA SHELLS ".
bigfoot6869 sasquatch nobody know how to use the three seashells.
I had to rewind that rock and sticks business and hear it again I thought i was tripping... Hahahaha×5000
Great tips, and hilarious!
YOU...Did a unique SERVICE (i think many people wouldn't/couldn't do this; but you did! KUDOS to you!!). 👍🤔😃👣
Great vid!!
keep the spray cap on the water bottle and use less water and with more pressure to get better cleaned, use this from the get go.
It's all very well looking around etc., but what if you have the 'sudden runs' ?
So happy with this really explaining video. Will test it in a shower one day 🙈
There is also the "crab" position I learned from a video of a trail days demo on what to do, including the existence of WAG bags
3:28 "all these rocks and pinecones can go straight in the hole" :-D
rocks and pinecones 😳😂
it is an excellent video though
guess we just pick and choose what parts to take and which things to leave behind
some great lines
heavy lifting
polish the rearview mirror
Wasn’t that satisfying?
so funny! 😊
Hand sanitizer doesn't clean anything off your hand, it just hopefully kills off some bacteria.
Me: if i have to poop in the desert I'll just cover it with sand cat style
Travel baby wipes > backcountry bidet
really bad for the environment tho!
@@kidkodama Not a big deal.
@@r.w.7232 no it really is a big deal, just look it up... plastic fibres inside, extremely harmful for the ecosystem
@@kidkodama No, it's not. Go take a nap, geez. Get over it!
A person that smokes one cigarette causes far more harm to the planet than one wipe, or some toilet paper.
@@r.w.7232 You're basically ignoring a fact. It's a fact - look it up. Oh and cigarettes are bad for the environment as well, also a fact. Doesn't make the wet wipe magically harmless, it's just whataboutism.
I ate a grilled cheese while watching this.
so did i!!
While using sticks, spin while pulling, maximizing square inches of the stick. This takes practice, start by spinning maximum 90 degrees.
The orangutan hang🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 holy shit I'm dying
how does this not have more likes?
Have you heard of Multi-Purpose Wipes by Wysi Wipe? They're these small compact biodegradable towelettes that are about the size of nickel. Add a tiny amount of water and they expand letting you unfold them. Not heavy and you can carry enough that you don't need to get your hands dirty. Worst case scenario, you can pee on them to open them up if you really had to.
I'm taking a trip into the Arctics this summer. How'd you poop (properly) in the tundra and moraine where I assume anything will decompose pretty slowly?
Dig a little hole and cover after, get a Kula cloth and a portable bidet, bring some wipes but pack them out, bury your stuff. The Arctic has lots of moss, but good luck finding a hiding spot, since there's no trees. Tell everyone to turn around.
@@meaganshkwarek7440 Ah, thanks for the tip, although that trip had happened in 2017. It was more like desert while the tundra being swamp-like - there had been simply no way to take a dump among the tussocks. I managed with some (round-ish) rocks and did pack my TP out...no issue with privacy though since I had been alone for 5 days. The wind was brutal for my exposed buttocks.
@@theolich4384Trail name Chilly Cheeks
Once I went biking deep in the woods early one morning, and something threw a large rock at me. I heard the thud and felt the vibration from a few feet away.
So I stopped and got off my bike to investigate, and all the sudden I felt that mornings coffee and breakfast, and had to go and had to go quickly.
Though I instantly felt like
I was being watched, I hoped whatever threw that rock didn't mind, but I felt like
it thought maybe I was also kind of marking my territory or something, so another rock splashed in the creek by me, and then
I heard 2 wood knocks coming from about 50 yards on the other side of the creek.
After I finished and used some tp I brought with me,
I used a little hand sanitizer, walked out towards the creek, and with open arms, said thank you and also some Native American words and then got on my bike and left.
True story.
Mark Francis Nickens, bicycling or motorcycling?
A place with a view and the base of an older tree works wonders!! A place to lean up against and about 8" of duffy goodness!
Great video! Thanks for an informative video on a subject that is normally ignored.
He made the whole video without laughing.
Muy interesante. Saludos desde España!
Watched this video for the comment section. (Pardon the pun) I enjoyed the comic relief 😆
Gonna have a bunch of newbs walking around with baboon butt telling folks to use sticks,rocks, and pine cones. Pine cones really not on my worst day .
November 2019 Anyone? THIS ONE IS UNique
I have Crohn’s disease and ibs , I’m attempting the Appalachian trail March 17 , are there any videos on which leaves Might be found , and which might be able to be used a lot , and not irritate .. just curious if there are some stead fast plants known along the way .. Thnaks for sharing ..
OMG, did your trip go well or was it too much?
Oh god just imagining using a pinecone on my hemmorhoid....😣
4 PIECES!!! You've never eaten freeze-dried chili....holy shit!!!!
Seriously though I'm a heavy tp user, I burn the paper and bury the poop...too many bears and things where I live for packing out the poop....
Well done
Usually, when I need to poop outside I have a ligher to burn toilet paper ... I need more time because before starting I "prepare" the field to avoid that flames start a fire into the woods.
You use the bottle with water to wash your behind. Should I put soapy water in it, to make it my cleaning behind bottle?
Will use the bidet technique. Around mile 14 I start to get the chafe.
use chafe cream that doesnt make your but tickle.
Baby wipes are better. You won't regret taking them
@@bena3341 Baby wipes are for "checking the oil" so to speak. Use water mostly.
Thank you. Now I Know how to poop
I found this video very moving
“the Skurka scrub” hahaha
I love learning about this woods shit. Do you think bears also shit there as well?
Jeremy from Jersey just subscribed
Different brands of tp also breakdown very differently. RV, marine, often claim to dissolve quickly. Cottonelle also boasts of this.
and you only need 2 sheets if you use both sides
Al C - Lol😂🤣. Spoken like a true ultralight thru hiker.
That’s the best comment.
I find it interesting the differences between hiking culture and canoe culture. Canoe culture would generally involve a much more generous toilet paper allowance but also a much deeper hole. I've also never heard of doing anything but burying it. Then we travel a bit heavily by hiking standards and the areas are generally lower traffic and rich environmentally. You're also always close to a water source. So camp suds or biodegradable soup are easier to use.
Just for the benefit of anyone else who reads your comment, the reason *not* to bury it any deeper is that 6-8 inches is usually about the bottom of the topsoil layer that is full of the fungi, bacteria, etc that will break down the poop into soil. If you go below the topsoil into the mineral dirt below, it is far less biologically active and your poop will take far longer to break down.
I thought, when you mentioned "collecting materials", that you would be referring to collecting the pine cones that seemed abundant. LOL
We in the SouthWest of our country have to be weary of snakes, especially rattlers, before you squat. For some reason, they (it) don't like it much when it is raining, heavily; ... I guess --> no sense of humor.
“Polish the rear view mirror.” 😂
They must have a different variety of pinecones out that way. Ours basically have thorns on each node.
PINE CONES??? AAARRRRHHHHH!!!!!
Any outdoor alternatives to toilet paper in case you run out? Would wiping with a leaf work, provided that it's not, say, poison ivy?
You sure can, and in fact I'd encourage it. Sticks, rocks, leaves, snowballs for the initial heavy lifting, and then some TP afterwards to finish up.
this is a good tip, to use flora (probably not fauna lol) to do the heavy lifting. It reduces the amount of TP you have to use and if you only use one square you can bury it and don't have to pack it out. I have always packed it out so this is intriguing to me. @@skurkaandrew
Lol yeahhh I'm not using rocks and pine cones. Couple feet of TP, a wet wipe or two depending, and you're good to go.
Which poison ivy leaves do you use?
"I got like half a dozen sticks here, I got some rocks, I could use some leaves and some pinecones, and all of that can go straight into the hole!"
"Just to polish the rearview mirror."
Should've used a squirting water bottle. Saves and uses your water wisely than pouring it. I also use soap around the hand that will be "dirty" before touching and scouring the bum with water. Save a little of water at the end and wash your hand. Then add soap to said hand and wash again.
Why did I just watch this while eating?
Pinecones?? To wipe?? 🤣 Mmmm Poo stew!! 🤣
maryann232 je Didnt say that,pay attention.
I be dammed if I wipe my ass w a rock , stick or pine cone 🤣 I’ll use my sock
“Straight into the hole” hahahahaha
Happy pooping and merry cleaning.
High use area...'Hey Gladys....look, this guy is wiping his hole with a stick!'
Great video! Your a great teacher!
Glad it was helpful!
Great video. Happy pooping, everyone.
In an emergency using things of nature to wipe yourself with.., yes. I'll carry extra toilet paper and wipes.
I never thought about using the shit stir stick as a literal flag of shit to mark the used shitter with. Handleing it excessively and breaking it is new to me as well.
I always have a competition to finish crapping before the flies find me. If they do, I try my best to bury some alive for their rudeness.
I'm not gonna stir my shit lmao
how do you deal with mosquitoes?
second, what about those wispywipes?
If there is a stiff wind, point with your butt into it. The mosquitoes will fly to the leeward side, where you can whack at them. If you are looking into the direction, they fly to your rear side and bite you up. If there is no wind, well, crap quickly.
Wet wipes are plastic and do not decompose. Pack them out if you use them. But I recommend not using them, and instead doing the backcountry bidet.
Is this The Onion outdoors site? Sticks, rocks, one square of TP?????