Watch your body odor...

Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.
Post Reply
User avatar
oleander
Topix Expert
Posts: 480
Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2010 10:15 am
Experience: N/A

Watch your body odor...

Post by oleander »

Watch your body odor, or this might happen to you:

https://www.outsideonline.com/2404342/t ... over-smell

- Oleander
User avatar
Wandering Daisy
Topix Docent
Posts: 6640
Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 8:19 pm
Experience: N/A
Location: Fair Oaks CA (Sacramento area)
Contact:

Re: Watch your body odor...

Post by Wandering Daisy »

I totally sympathize with those who have to sit next to the thru-hiker. I have an extremely sensitive sense of smell, whereas my husband's sense of smell is so bad that it would not bother him at all! A few years ago, he flew Southwest, back home from hunting- barely got back to Albuquerque, immediately went to the airport, got on the plane stinky and spattered with blood from gutting an elk. Amazingly, they did not kick him off! I think it also depends on who you sit next to. Evidently nobody complained. Since Southwest does not assign seats, he ended up way in the back of the plane.

On the other hand, "service dogs" naturally smell "doggy"; small children fill their diapers; some people choose to overdo the perfume. In public spaces one should not expect absence of smells. The problem is where to draw the line. I imagine a smelly customer puts the airlines in a bind. It is a touchy situation. Perhaps a thru-hiker should send a "resupply" box with cleaning supplies and new clothes to their ending destination. A good long soaking bath also is better than a shower. Maybe a few hours in a local swimming pool would work; I have done that in Bishop.
User avatar
gary c.
Topix Fanatic
Posts: 1479
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:56 pm
Experience: N/A
Location: Lancaster, CA

Re: Watch your body odor...

Post by gary c. »

Once we get to a car the showers are our next stop. Always worth the quarters or whatever. One of the woman in our normal hiking group is very self conscious of our presence when we reach some place like Happy Isle and get on the bus. She will apologize to everyone that we walk by, sit next to, or that gets on the bus. The rest of us just smile and wear our 8-10 days worth of stench with pride. :)
"On this proud and beautiful mountain we have lived hours of fraternal, warm and exalting nobility. Here for a few days we have ceased to be slaves and have really been men. It is hard to return to servitude."
-- Lionel Terray
User avatar
SSSdave
Topix Addict
Posts: 3523
Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2005 11:18 pm
Experience: N/A
Location: Silicon Valley
Contact:

Re: Watch your body odor...

Post by SSSdave »

I approve of that policy. As someone with a sensitive nose, I would hate to be seated on a plane next to anyone with strong body odors as it is very disturbing. Obviously there are some people that have a poor sense of smell and apparently don't realize how strongly they smell to others. Some due to genetic variation and others especially cigarette smokers due to olfactory sense damage. Our sense of smell is however highly adaptive that is also a narrow neural term for becoming so used to constant smell that it lowers sensory thresholds. There is also a significant range of average body odors between people and we all know others with strong smells because they are mosquito magnets.

When I was stationed in a third world country in the Far East, as soon as I got off the plane, the strong odors in the air everywhere were incredible. However after a few days my brain adapted to it so didn't notice as much. That is why people that stink need to beware others may not perceive like they do so wise to be conservative. Here in California with the homeless epidemic, many that sleep outdoors do so by hiding in vegetation areas. On public buses some of them smell so bad with strong grassy vegetation plus BO they cause others to move well away from where they sit. Besides providing shelter, cities should be providing showers and laundry facilities for these unfortunate people.

And yes we do have a current thread about staying clean in the backcountry:

http://www.highsierratopix.com/communit ... 19&t=20036
User avatar
balzaccom
Topix Addict
Posts: 2952
Joined: Wed Dec 17, 2008 9:22 pm
Experience: N/A

Re: Watch your body odor...

Post by balzaccom »

SSSdave wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:26 pm ...Besides providing shelter, cities should be providing showers and laundry facilities for these unfortunate people.

And yes we do have a current thread about staying clean in the backcountry:

http://www.highsierratopix.com/communit ... 19&t=20036
Amen.
Check our our website: http://www.backpackthesierra.com/
Or just read a good mystery novel set in the Sierra; https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Falling-R ... 0984884963
User avatar
TahoeJeff
Topix Fanatic
Posts: 1223
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:03 am
Experience: Level 3 Backpacker
Location: South Lake Tahoe, NV

Re: Watch your body odor...

Post by TahoeJeff »

SSSdave wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:26 pm cities should be providing showers and laundry facilities for these unfortunate people
At whose expense?
"A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both."

Milton Friedman
User avatar
freestone
Topix Expert
Posts: 961
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2005 9:42 pm
Experience: Level 3 Backpacker
Location: Santa Barbara
Contact:

Re: Watch your body odor...

Post by freestone »

Cities need to provide basic sanitation to those unfortunate people and toilets are at the top of the list along with hand washing stations, not laundry and shower. It’s a matter of public health and smelly people are no threat to that.
Short cuts make long delays. JRR Tolkien
User avatar
rlown
Topix Docent
Posts: 8225
Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2007 5:00 pm
Experience: Level 4 Explorer
Location: Wilton, CA

Re: Watch your body odor...

Post by rlown »

I agree with TJ on this. I don't want to offer/pay for services if
1: They are not from here.
2: They refuse to follow the rules of a shelter because of a drug or alcohol problem.

If they want to live in the woods along a public trail, they should be harassed as much as possible to move along.
Case in point:
They don't want shelter, and they all were offered beds and shelter.
User avatar
SSSdave
Topix Addict
Posts: 3523
Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2005 11:18 pm
Experience: N/A
Location: Silicon Valley
Contact:

Re: Watch your body odor...

Post by SSSdave »

Agree. Homeless ought not be tenting in our urban public lands and vegetation areas, nor tented on city streets. As long as local city and county politicians have control nothing is likely to change. Homeless programs need to be run at the state level and should be squeezed out of corporations with their endless growth and development, especially banks and real estate corps. Otherwise no city wants to be a homeless magnet as that includes numbers of low life junky thieves, mentally ill that need to be forced into programs in exchange for public services, and other career criminals. And indeed there needs to be requirements for use of public assistance that does not include those that refuse to follow rules.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 40 guests