beginner's questions on backcountry pooping

[whrdafamI?]

Well there you have it! 2 methods that I was unaware of. The use of Wet wipes are self explanatory. When it comes to "Icing" what is the preferred method of spreading it on the granite slabs? A knife? Or perhaps a spork could serve double duty (no pun intended) and be used to wipe your ass and then spread it on the rocks? The aspect of fingers just ain't making it.
Sorry if it appears that I am making fun of this thread but I am. When it came to the post of mentioning the use of sticks and how many squares and how many is actually used, and do you use them as is I couldn't resist. These questions are coming from a guy 26 yrs. old who claims to have spent most of his life alone, is planning on embarking on a 95 day cross country backpack, doesn't care if a SAR group is needed to find him and then needs to ask how do I wipe my ass?????????

Bill. you need to re-read the basenote and other threads. GuyD posted this; not Rogue. GuyD isn't from this area. Rogue is just helping.

Russ, I don't need to re-read anything. I am well aware of who posted this and don't really care where he is from. If what Rogue posted is of help to you have at it. Maybe you guys can meet up somewhere this summer and wipe and compare.

[maverick]

Bill Morell wrote "I am well aware of who posted this and don't really care where
he is from."
That's not being very helpful there Bill, we're here to help folks out when we
can, and if we having nothing beneficial to add to the conversation, it's better to
not add anything of a negative tone.

[Wandering Daisy]

I have never found it a problem to carry out TP. After the first day I have plenty of empty plastic zip bags from my food. I use sticks and rocks first and then do the final wipe with TP- saves TP. Snowballs are the best. As for the poo itself, the main thing is to get it out of sight and away from water sources. Burry it if it is near a campsite or trail. In a very remote area, I see nothing wrong with poo dropped in crevices in boulder fields or tossed in thick brush. A lot of the "white flags" you see on the trail are Kleenex, not TP. Makes a difference. Kleenex does not degrade easily. As for mosquitoes, best to get up pre-dawn- fewer mosquitoes before the sun hits and the air warms up. Early breakfast is also better without bugs in the oatmeal.

[RoguePhotonic]

Maybe you could use a wagbag and go inside your tent when the winged demons are bad.

[John Dittli]

I was talking to an old guy at Lodegpole last year and he was saying how no one talks about it but he thought it was a perfectly reasonable subject to ask how people wipe their butt in the wilderness. He said he likes to take a stick to get the more messy bits first to save on TP. I think I agree with him on the subject so I have to ask, do you people actually use the squares on the TP as they are? You actually take them and use maybe 3 or 4 stacked? If that is the case then that is why I use so much more because I have never used TP in squares like that. I unroll probably 10 or more squares and wad it up into a ball and use that.

Dang, missed this. On river trips the discussion always comes up; crumplers vs folders. In all cases, it appears folders use significantly less TP (4-6 sheets) than crumplers.

I'm a folder myself, and yes, I use sticks, stones, snow (NOT living plants!) for the initial wipe. These materials should be buried along with the poop in heavily used areas.

JD

[adornowest]

One of my father's friends once went into the woods and wiped with leaves -- except the leaves were poisoned something, and he got a terrible infection that ran up his GI linning and that almost killed him. (This was in the 40s, so who knows how much of a problem this would be for medicine today.)

[maverick]

I have heard of people who used poison oak accidentally to wipe, now that would a very
agonizing experience!

[RoguePhotonic]

We once had an employee at the company I work for that went out into the desert and wiped with an old nasty bit of pink fiberglass insulation. He spent 3 days in the hospital.

[JosiahSpurr]

WELL, WELL, WELL... this is interesting... I just finished a post to a different (june 2013) thread that talks about a doctor named Ken Murray who spoke at Adventure 16 and referred to a scholarly paper that found that if the brown stuff is left on a rock under the sun for 2 days, it becomes biologically dead and no longer a risk for contaminating the water. I find it ethical to protect other people from my **** by leaving it out to dry (not under a rock) in a place where it would be impossible for any other living (human) being to see it by accident. That handles the mess that leaves one's body. Then there's the mess that gets stuck to oneself on the way out. I don't take TP, ever. It spoils my enjoyment of the great outdoors and it adds complexity (the more I keep it simple, not lighter, just simpler, the more I am able to cover vast amounts of off-trail territory, like hammock not tent, it is a psychological thing). There's ONE very important item missing from the snow, sticks, leaves, pinecones list (by Bill Morell on Sat May 28, 2011 7:37 am): DIRT !!!!! Get huge handfulls of dirt and just keep bombarding your bottom with clean, dry, talc-like DIRT. With practice, your fingers will never get sticky brown (I use a stick or some leaves first, though). The cleaner and DRIER you get, the more you can rub it in, until you are very clean. But as the day wears on, it gets a little irritated and itchy down there, so when I get to water, I use water for a clean finish and to remove any leftover dirt.

Here's where it gets interesting: after doing this for a while, I realized that in the beginning, I was hesitant to use this method because my potty training had taught me that what happens down there is "dirty". There was a mental disconnect between mind (feelings) and body (brown stuff). This method cleared up that learned disconnect. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: If you have some sort of mental disconnect between mind and body, and you cannot feel all parts of your body all the time everywhere in the backcountry, YOU RUN A GREATER RISK OF INJURY and DEATH. Your mind must "known" how all parts of your body are feeling. Unfortunately, many (like me) were raised sort of numb (in particular, in families where parents were addicted, like booze). This method can shock one's mind into greater awareness of one's ENTIRE skin and bones body. ***

[GreenhornBackpacker]

Too bad the NPS and the forest service don't make the wranglers follow a 'leave no trace' wilderness ethic. Is mule poop somehow more sanitary and less damaging to the environment than human poop?