If you can’t dig a hole to lay your waste, do cover it up with big rocks or sticks, or whatever else you can find around you. — Pixabay
You're desperate but the nearest mountain hut or public convenience is far away. A minor toilet crisis can be resolved behind a tree or rock – but what about more serious business?
With a little knowledge and preparation, you can manage number two deftly in the wilds too, without a drama or spoiling the natural surrounds.
If you are planning a longer hiking tour, think ahead. Always have toilet paper in your backpack, rather than tissues, which are especially tear-resistant and decompose slowly.
“If necessary, toilet paper can be buried together with waste,” says Ulrich Berkmann of the German Alpine Association.
True eco-warriors will take their used toilet paper with them in a small plastic bag, and in the most virtuous case, even the waste itself. Disposable travel toilets are a higher-quality (but more expensive) alternative to the standard retrieval bag.
You can also buy reusable, portable dry toilets that you can unfold and sit on. From a comfort point of view, this is welcome, because squatting for a long time can make your leg muscles burn.
On the way, however, there should always be opportunities to empty and clean the collection tank. Otherwise it will get increasingly full, with an accompanying unpleasant build-up of odour.
If you are going to be in the wilderness for a long time and away from any toilets, your packs should contain a small folding spade. If you can’t take your waste with you, you should at least bury it – and not just in order to spare others nasty sights and smells.
More importantly, faeces can contain pathogens that harm nature. That’s why you should avoid the vicinity of bodies of water, because fungi, viruses, bacteria and other pathogens can spread a long way from there, Berkmann warns.
When you’re on a hike and the nearest toilet is out of reach, it is OK to let go in nature, but do follow some simple steps. — RIYAN HIDAYART/Pixabay
“Incidentally, this also applies to animal faeces, so it is strongly advised against drinking unfiltered water from mountain streams, for example, if there is a pasture above,” he says.
When digging your own privy hole, keep a minimum distance of 50m from streams, rivers or lakes. And when possible, choose locations well above the water – otherwise waste can be washed away by floods, write Ulrike Katrin Peters and Karsten-Thilo Raab in their aptly titled outdoors book How To S*** In The Woods.
In addition to all kinds of historical and curious facts, this earthy work offers a wealth of tips on defecating and urinating outside the protected confines of the toilet at home.
When digging a toilet hole or scrape, the book recommends a depth of 15cm-20cm, which is about the length of an adult’s hand. It is precisely in these top layers of soil that the bacteria are found that cause excrement to decompose the fastest.
“The speed (...) can be accelerated by mixing the excrement with parts of the excavated soil,” the authors write. Use a small stick, which should also be buried afterwards, before you cover the hole with the loose soil, stones and branches.
The Alpine Association offers two more tips: Dig much deeper in snow, otherwise the deposit will come to light again the next time the sun shines. And if it’s not possible to make a hole, you should cover the “relics” with large stones.
There remains one practical question that some people may have been confronted with during a Sunday walk: How do you clean your backside if you don’t have any toilet paper or tissues with you?
Leaves from trees and bushes can serve as an alternative, ideally ones that have already fallen. For environmental reasons, leaves should only be torn off in an emergency, Peters and Raab stress. Smooth, fallen tree bark is also suitable as a wiping aid.
If you don’t want to use natural materials, they recommend a “hand washing system”, whereby you drip a little water from a water bottle onto your hand and use it as a flannel. Then rinse the hand thoroughly with more water from the bottle and don’t touch anything until you can give it a proper wash with soap.
Or if this is all getting a bit too real, you can just grit your teeth and make sure that you somehow make it to the next toilet.
Happy hiking!
