Pitch is sticky!

[kgw]

Best methods for removing pitch from the seat of your pants (other than not getting it on there in the first place!), or anywhere at all for that matter!

[hikerduane]

If on the trail, white gas/alcohol. At home, gas ,turpentine, margarine/shortning/cooking oil. Of course, with the oily stuff, it needs to be washed then to get the oil out of the gear. A little warmth applied gets the margarine, etc. working. Takes a few minutes or more to get the pitch off any skin, clothing will take a few washings to get the oil stain etc. out. Rubbing fine dirt in the pitch dries the pitch up also, I do that when out cutting firewood after I have failed to put my gloves on before getting them pitchy.

[giantbrookie]

When I'm in the backcountry, the pitch can be annoying and I don't generally have access to any sort of things to wash with. This sounds sort of disgusting, but I've found that saliva works better than plain water. A little abrasion action from sand or soil doesn't hurt either. I just had an intense pitch experience on my last dayhike to Hatch Lake (outside of Dinkey Lakes Wilderness). The pines seemed to be sweating the stuff and when I sat down on a slab beneath a pine to wait for everyone to catch up my hands and seat were truly ambushed. At home, I've found that it does seem to come off with soap in the shower (if the stuff on my skin made it back that far) and our laundry detergent seems to do OK for the pitch on the clothes.

[Flycanoe]

I use Totally Awesome cleaner/degreaser and it works great on pine tar. Just spray directly on spot then hand wash spot area, then rinse, then repeat if necessary until gone, then wash in normal washing machine.

[trav867]

Thanks for this thread, last weekend my tent and hands got covered in the stuff. I carry a 1oz bottle of hand sanitizer and that seemed to work pretty well on my hands. Not to get off topic, but my tent is now in need of washing, can i just throw it in a top loading washer or should I soak it in the tub?

[Hetchy]

Denatured Alcohol removes pitch like a champ! I happened to get some pitch on my only pair of shorts. The white stains on my black nylon shorts were.. disconcerting. After much chiding by my fellow thru's I was told to use Denatured Alcohol which removed the pitch with minimal scrubbing and evaporated leaving no residue.

[dodgerbill55]

Peanut butter works like a charm.

[AlmostThere]

Woke up one morning to find big blobs of pitch on my tarp and found that the wet wipes have enough alcohol on them to take it right off.

[Cross Country]

It's cool to read about things that work. In all my days BP I thought there was nothing. I would alway just rub it with gravel and really dead pine needles with of course just covered it up so it couldn't stick to anything else.