Ep: 92 - The Dirty Truth About Staying Clean Outdoors

In this episode, we're talking about the realities of backcountry hygiene: where to pee, how to poop responsibly, staying clean on the trail, and the little comforts that can make a big difference after a long day outdoors. From Leave No Trace bathroom practices to trail-tested hygiene tips and a few creature comforts you won't want to leave behind, we've got you covered.

Whether you're planning your first overnight trip or you're a seasoned backpacker looking to fine-tune your camp routine, this episode is packed with practical advice, plenty of laughs, and a reminder that staying clean in the wild doesn't have to be complicated.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Hello and welcome to Busted Knees and Pretty Trees. Thanks for joining us. We get more and more of you throwing your packs on and rolling with us week after week. We love putting this together and we love sharing it with you. If you'd like to explore the show a little more, you might could find something over at bustedpretty.com or on our Busted Pretty socials. On today's show, the boys and I are going to address a very important and often confusing part of the Leave No Trace ethos, the topic of human waste management. No, I'm not talking about my hyperactive drug-fueled neighbor, Jerry. You know what I'm talking about. We all gotta go. You can't bury that truth. But you can bury that poop properly, if it's allowed, or even possible. Relieving yourself in the forest is not so simple, and this is why we need to have a chat. Proper waste disposal in the backcountry is more important than ever as our national parks continue to log record visitations. With 2024 holding the top spot with 331 million visitations across the board. 2025, slowing only slightly, had 323 million visitors, 13 million of which were overnighters. Coopers. That's a lot of digestive systems. Yes, that is. More than the Aeros tour. More than the Super Bowl. Probably not more than a Garth Brooks concert, though. More than Dave Matthews driving over that river in Chicago? Oh, gross. Gross. Here's a loose fact. The average human lays one pound of stool a day. One pound per person per day. 300 million plus visits a year. Utter utterly horrifying mathematics.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

That is horrifying.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

That is so horrifying. Fortunately, we have ways of reducing our impact. And if we all follow suit, we can keep our parks as beautiful and clean as ever. I am Travis White. Over there's Bradley Greer, and right there's Patty Richardson.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yo.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

And guys, I've got one question for you.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

If we lined up those 300 million logs, do you think it'd make it to the moon in a day? Man. 300 million logs. Because you know how they always say, well, if you line these all up, it'd go to the moon in that. Or it would fill an Olympic swimming pool.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Well, we have to definitely fill, oh my God, that is so gross. Yeah?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Uh yeah? I'm pretty sure me and Travis in the Middle East, when we were deployed, probably saw something similar to that in the middle of every base. Uh privy. Yeah, but just a huge hole that they dig where everything goes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I thought you were gonna make a Tony Soprano joke about waste management.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Oh, no.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

But you went with your neighbor instead.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Oh yeah. Nah, yeah, this is real real deal.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:17

You know what I mean? Man. Uh what they I had a little fact here. Denali National Park, two metric tons yearly uh accumulate on Mount Denali, and it doesn't ever go away because it's so cold. So there's like decades of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah, there's uh Mount Everest. Uh it's been heating up, and they're saying that in I've read that in some patches or something, the smell is uh is miserable because it's all the ice is melting, it's all warming up. Yeah. So I imagine, I imagine, I mean, because when you're on a snow capped peak or something like that, the idea of you're digging through the snow into the soil is still the appropriate way to relieve yourself even up there. I don't is there soil up there? Yeah. There's I mean, I don't know. I guess I don't know what the top of Mount Everest is like.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

I'm kind of are they packing it out? When they probably can't dig down very deep because it's simply none of it.

SPEAKER_03 4:25

I don't know how far down you have to go before plants start tools pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

But do they need someone on it? We need someone out here to ask. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

I don't think there's a lot of vegetation anywhere. How do you poop up on Everest? Yeah. Probably in your tent and then you toss it out in a bag or something. Or pack it out, dude.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Open the door and fling it out.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Like your coffee cup.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Oh man. Well, I know cities that have a lot of little estuaries, like say Charleston would have advisories after heavy rains, that those little rivers like don't go swimming in them because they're the fecal matter is really high from yards from dogs, like dogs and pets and animals. It all like it rains and it runs into all the little estuaries. Where's this at? Like, I think a lot of coastal cities, this was in Charleston, there would be advisories like don't go swimming because there's a lot like a high fecal matter content in the waterways. Weird because think of all the dogs shitting in yards and everything, all the animals shitting outside.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Yeah, I guess I never like contemplated that it would just like natural runoff.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Well, and that's why like we'll get into later when you're camping at a campsite, they say don't go to the bathroom within so many yards of a river. Yeah, because it goes straight into that water source that everybody's pulling water out of.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Great call, Bradley R. Yeah, it's there's a little more to it than just doing the business.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yeah. Well, well, yeah, but I think one of the fascinating parts is Brad and I, or probably all of us, have commented on the idea that most of the questions you get is about guns or safety. How do you stay safe on trail? But the second, at least in my experience, the second most asked question is how do you take uh how do you relieve yourself on trail? How do you go to the bath on trail? And I was telling you guys off air that I it's it's almost not just like a question that people are curious about in terms of like I need to know how to do it, but it's the reason why they don't go to begin with. Yeah, because they don't that that makes them nervous.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Yeah, a lot of times it's not even how do you do that? It's I could never do that. I could never do that.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah, oh man, that is so like strange or weird or gross. Humans wouldn't humans would never do that. Yeah, yeah. All right, dude, Brad. Time for the news panther. I'm excited about it. It's been like a couple weeks since I've gotten one from you. Or Walt or whomever. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

So I I tell you, Patty. Okay. I tell you what. Okay. I searched high and low for like a happy news story because everything I was reading was bumming me out. Um you have some national monuments uh greatly shrinking in size. Yes. Um, just all kinds of craziness going on right now. Yes. And as most people have seen, probably on the news, I think it's pretty national news. The wildfires that are burning out of control, mainly in Canada, but all across North America in general. Um it's affecting many different regions, causing disruptions to, you know, like all those hard planned for summer vacations, the people that live locally in the areas getting evacuated. It's it's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

It's made its way down here to Indiana today. Today was the today was the worst uh tested air quality in Fort Wayne in history.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

It was insane. Really? Yes. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, but I could definitely tell.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

This morning was wild.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

I got a headache, like a bad headache on my way to work, and that's the only thing I I mean because you could smell it. Oh, yeah. Smell it, taste it. It was in your shit, dude. It's pretty wild. I could only imagine like even we were supposed to be up on the lake this or on the river this weekend, and the idea of going up north, it just it like that would we were we were this weekend's off.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

It's weird too because it it doesn't it smells like a bonfire, but yet it doesn't.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

It's a very odd smell. I remember it. Patty and I were talking about it earlier, and the smell from last year's was a lot different. And yeah, it would be interesting to find out why that is. Yeah. But uh yeah, I mean, we're in Indiana, so Michigan. I saw the UP, I was looking at the map of air quality map, and uh the UP is just completely covered. Pretty much uh the main part of Michigan is too, and it's just heading, you know, to the east coast through New York.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

A big reason that is, is because there's around 858 total wildfires actively burning across Canada, with nearly 200 being in the Ontario province. So that's just north of Lake Superior and Minnesota. Yep. Uh there's 17 fires burning right along the northern edge of our beloved Minnesota, which is including the boundary waters. Yep. So a lot of a lot of businesses have been affected, a lot of evacuations, and this is like peak boundary water season.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

I tell you what, on a side tangent, like looking at the boundary waters on a map, like satellite and terrain, like we we gotta go up there.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

It looks so it's so crazy looking. It it is supposed to be amazing.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Yeah, like you look at it on satellite images, and it you just think, does anybody even know what this lake is? Like, there's so many lakes.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Like, how could you even you just navigate the maps are sweet, and there's there's like good like routes around there, but a lot of the places the campsites are up on a cliff, so you can go cliff jumping right out in the middle of the lake. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

Is a lot of it like hard to get to?

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Yeah, well, it's it's all boating.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

And I think getting permits is hard.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Uh, I don't know if the permits are that hard. Oh, okay. Not as hard as when camping with some other well, yeah. You're one you gotta get a permit to when you're out and then coming back in, you map it out. You know, this is it is a national park, right? Uh it's a national something or another. It's not a national park, I don't believe.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a national. That's where I got something or another.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

What's the one in Minnesota? Voyagers. Voyagers.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

That's where I got the whole because people say the loon call up there is because that's where they go to mate, and that's the only time you hear a loon. And I just heard stories and watched videos of the loon calling, and you could be a mile away. I don't know if this is true or not, but just in my brain, and just hear this loon call on a misty morning out in the it's just it's it's I've heard the mosquitoes can be rough. Yeah, but I've heard it. It's just Ken Irvin went there. He that's where he took my boat to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

That boat you have.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

It is it is like right on the edge of Voyage Voyagers National Park, but like mainly in Superior National Forest and Quede Quedeco Promise Provincial Park. Well, I hope it remains. Yeah, so uh like several of the like these fires. If you look at it on a map, there's all kinds of maps online right now of like all the active fires, and there's almost just like a string leading north east, like off that tip of Minnesota and Lake Superior, and there's just there's a ton right there. And I think that's mainly where a lot of what we're seeing is coming from. There's currently four major wildlife or I this whole time I was searching this and looking it up, I would Google like I would put wildlife in place of wildfire because I'm so used to searching wildlife. And I'm even saying it now.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

What were you gonna ask? Do you know uh they were talking about it today at work, and everybody kept asking the question of how it started.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Oh, yeah, yeah. So one of the main reasons that it started, well, first, real quick, there's like four major wildfires burning in Colorado and Utah right now that are causing a lot of evacuations and closures. Um, like I know I'm like going to Moab here in a couple, like a month into September, and a big section of canyon lands called the Neels is evacuated because just south of it's a huge wildfire. So a lot of the national parks around there are being disrupted. Not to mention all the ones like around here in Northeast, like I Isle Royal, like all a lot of them you can't get, like they're shut down right now. It's pretty common that we have.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

I mean, there's always a wildfire going on pretty much all the time somewhere in the United States. A bunch of them, yeah. But not like a one like this one in Canada.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

So that's where, like, especially and like in Canada, they're pretty common, but there's just so much wilderness, like of there's obviously gonna be wildfire, just natural. Uh, but the number of outbreaks over the last couple weeks has been just like kind of insane and unprecedented. The National Interagency Fire Center in the US and the natural resources of Canada. I think that was one really confusing sentence, but I think that was right. They're both theorizing that it's because of like sustaining this hot heat, hot weather that we've been having for over the last couple weeks and months, uh, and then lower rainfall. So, like they call it a heat dome, is what's happening. So, like the Colorado, like Rocky Mountain area had a high pressure zone up high in the in the atmosphere, and that's forcing all the heat to stay down low, and then that heat's causing all the clouds and weather to stay outside of this little dome area, so everything just dries out. Super hot, yeah. And and then so when it's super hot and dry, it sucks all the moisture out of the ground and causes all these dead plants, which are perfect tender. What actually starts the lightning usually? Oh, yeah. Okay. Eventually everything dries out, and then that heat dumb ends, and then storms roll in, and lightning, and I'm sure some of it's man-made. The 858 wildfires, like those are not all man-made.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Well, and I hate I hate to be this guy, but they they've also been saying that wildfires are going to keep persisting without proper maintenance and yeah, the people to perform.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

But I think there's just Canada has so much wilderness. Like, I don't know how the hell there's no way they could probably maintain that's true.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Predict weather events where like it's gonna get dry in this region at this time.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Well, I'm talking about prediction in terms of overall change in climate.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

I mean, if that's hard, just uh not just anomalies throughout the week, uh more like a sustained like if we don't fix what the fuck we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yeah, because they've all like Montana, some of those northern states have all seen record highs this year.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Temperatures.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

So it's not not helping for sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Yeah. Warm. It's warm. It's very warm.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

It does feel it feels like it's been way warmer this year, can like over a longer period of time than it has been in a while.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Man, I'm just thankful that we have AC because our friends over in Europe and where in Austria specifically, where we were, they had no AC. Oh man. And they're dealing with this in the same regard. It was it was another no restaurant. Think about being in a restaurant, right now, in the back of a kitchen, no AC.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

This is usually our August piece. Yeah, it is. We got in early July.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to Charleston this August, and it might be a reprieve from the heat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Hey. I want to say thank you right now, but thanks, Brad. Kind of bummed. I kind of understand. I guess sometimes I wish I hope that you and Walt take me out of the funk, and sometimes you just add to the funk.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

I forgot to mention maybe a help a little. It is kind of a PSA because so many parks in National Forest do have level two fire threat, which comes along with a bunch of rules to follow. Like no smoking is one. Um, no open fires, but your little like your jet boil, your campfires. I think the main thing is if you can turn it on and then off, it's okay. But if it's something you can't just turn off, then it's usually not allowed. Like in these areas that declare like a heightened fire alert.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Yeah, last year we had uh that drought, and uh we when Debbie and I went to uh I think Lake Monroe down there in uh the national Indiana National Forest. And uh they had like an elevated yeah um Yeah, we had a big drought last year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

So while you're saying it didn't really concern us much because we weren't going out and camping or anything, but when you're driving into that local state or national park, you see that fire sign. If it's anywhere other than zero, pay attention and go ahead and give that a look-see poo online to see what you can do to make sure that you're not adding to this absolute shit AQI.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

When you stop to a visitor center to get your stickers or your dad hats, yeah, talk to a ranger, you know? Yeah see what's going on. Great call. You did kind of that felt good. Yeah, that felt like a better way to end it. I'm gonna go on. And it's fitting for tonight's episode because we're gonna probably get into following the rules. So things don't get out of the hand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Speaking of which, great segue, B Rad Bradley R. We have a lot to discuss today. We're gonna talk some gross things. So if your bellies are squeamish or you don't like talking about what doesn't come into us but comes out of us, this would be the time to turn us off because we are gonna have a conversation about bodily functions.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

No, don't turn us off because you gotta nap. Oh, that's true. Well, or keep listening and just turn the body down. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Let's get into peeing pooping and cleaning.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Let's do it. All right.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

And we're back. This week, we're talking about those kind of spooky, nasty, scary things on trail, if you will. We're talking peeing, and we're talking pooping, and we're talking about cleaning yourself on the trail. We need something to replace cleaning that starts with the pee.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Peeing, pooping, and we can say the three peas. Poisturizing. No, that's just to make sure that's my MM. Personal cleanliness, but just the pee matters. Pamper, pampering? Pampering, yeah. Yeah, because cleaning yourself is like pampering yourself.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

That's true. Let me start over. We are back this week and we are talking about peeing, pooping, and pampering yourself. All right. Even while peeing, pooping and pampering yourself in the woods on your backpacking trip, it is important to remember the leaf no trace policy. Absolutely no one wants to be walking down the trails or show up to their campsite on uh after a long day, weary day of walking and walking and walking, only to come up on a pile of shit and potentially toilet paper.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Yeah, it's like I just want to put my tent up, watch some friends, and I don't want to see a pile of toilet paper five feet from my tent.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

That made my heart bitter better. Not you complaining about toilet paper, but that we are now probably on the same episode of French and still episode one after.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

When I get my tent, do you two one of you go see the other guy's tent? No. Start watching Friends? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

One of my earbuds and he listens to it.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Yeah, screen shared. We soak we sewed a little uh pouch into his where he can open it and I can watch through. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

You get make a little tin can string communication device today.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Hey, we know what we're doing, okay? So I think uh to get going with this episode, I think first off, for all the listeners, we are not gonna talk female peeing, pooping, and pampering. Uh, we have a guest or a few guests in mind as to who can talk to that with us, but I don't think it's right for us.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

I was hoping Ashley could come down, but she's not here.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

And she's not much into this activity, so I want somebody to really talk talk to it, you know. So I think for this episode, we're just gonna talk about overall and maybe a little bit here and there for the gent, but in most cases, this is done in the same fashion in any regard. We're gonna talk peeing first. We're gonna rule the same. We're gonna talk pooping second, and there's way more to pooping than I ever would have imagined. And then we're gonna talk pampering third. Okay. You guys ready to get going? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

Yeah, I'm already uh blown away by the amount of times we've said peeing and pooping. Yeah, I I'm emphasizing, I'm sorry. I've noticed you are it's like your F bomb counter. I don't think I use the word pee or poop at all in my intro.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

All right, P. We're gonna start with P. Do you guys have anything you want to say about it? For me, I feel like this is the easiest topic.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Yes, we're Straightforward. Be on a rock. They recommend what doing it. There's a certain distance away from a stream, a water source.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

All of these things, as I was looking into the proper way to do this, is roughly 200 feet or 70 steps away from uh your campsite, away from a trail, or away from a body a source of water. Any source of water.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

And even then it's preferable to go in the downstream direction instead of the upstream direction.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

I mean, that's what I would prefer people did. Hey, that's 200 what?

SPEAKER_03 22:36

Feet or 200 feet. Feet. That uh it's not gonna go downstream, you know? Yeah. But also, you know, you could go a little bit further because there's people that go 200 feet and stop.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

That's what I do. Well, yeah, it's like the first good spot. Well, and this goes for both. Like the first good spot you come to, you probably want to go to the next one because that's probably somebody else's good spot too. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Oh yeah. Oh, I don't even think that. I'm like, this is a nice spot.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

I'm like Rambo way deep in the jump. If it's a nice spot, I'm not gonna pass it up. Yeah, yeah. If the if it look the tree that I'm leaning on is real nice.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Well, especially for peeing, because it's just kind of it's just you're we you got your boots. You're usually in and out, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

You're all but when it comes to peeing, uh you think you you know, once you get your distance, just go anywhere. But it's preferred that you pee on rocks. Isn't it? Because it do it won't soak into um the soil, which your pee has like salts and stuff in caffeine, acetity animals will be.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

No fruit, yeah, like pharmaceuticals and shit. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

Like there is a bunch of but uh so yeah, just a pea on a rock.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

So then it evaporates off the rock. Oh, I'm learning stuff.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Well, it'll still leave the some minerals behind, but yeah, they're not soaking in. But they won't there won't be animals like digging into the ground. Yeah. Trying to get your salts. All right.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

All right. I think pea is pretty covered. Yeah. I kind of figured that would be an extremely short topic. Just go pee-pee.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

And pro tip too is a lot of times if you're staying hydrated, chances are you're gonna have to wake up in the middle of the night and go. So before it gets dark out, kind of I always kind of you get a sense of your surroundings of where you're gonna go when it's pitch black out and everything you hear is gonna scare you in the middle of the night when you're out there to go and pee. So kind of I always kind of like try to picture where I'm gonna go when I wake up in the middle of the night.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Oh, yeah. That that is a bit terrifying. Yeah, it's also chilly weird.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Get your glow-in-the-dark toilet paper.

unknown 24:44

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Keep your headlamp handy, yes. And take your toilet paper just just in case, because you don't know. Yes. Except the jacket on.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

I'm kind of chilly.

SPEAKER_04 24:56

So well.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

All right, let's get to the pooping part of this. Okay, let's get this whole big sack of poop out of the way because this is gonna be a long discussion. I did my fair share of research on this because I was quite interested.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

Yeah, there's I think there's a lot more that goes into it. It's not just well, you don't want to see piles of it at your at your campsite. That's right. There's these things have, you know, as Brad said, no pen and ten downstream effect. Um and uh it doesn't own or it not only ruins things aesthetically, but um environmentally it can ruin things if you don't do things properly.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah, that's entirely correct. For me, I agree with the environment side of that, obviously, but for me it's the ass like I have I just don't it it's you just you want to save that. It just seems I don't know, it just grosses me out so much that that is enough for me to be like I'm doing it right.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

I have a feeling.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

But it was I think it was uh in the UP in Michigan, and uh uh it was that we were had camped at a stream. It was like picturesque. Yeah, there were like fish.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

We named it after Patty because it was like a big thing. Yeah, because we were supposed to go on that trip. And it was the one he was like, This, we gotta stay at this one.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

Right, and that campsite is like right where just a bank just shoots up straight up. It's like 30, 40 feet. It's hard to even climb. Yeah, it is. So nobody goes very far to go. So all of it is like right where like the stream and this bank shoot up, and they meet, and they're just piles. You can see the paper. The white paper, it's disgusting.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

It was almost like a little floodplain, but it but the floodplain was kind of high up too.

SPEAKER_03 26:52

And the ground was like packed down around it because so many people had walked all around it.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Oh my god. It was disgusting.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

You guys have never told me I climbed, I climbed that I went up that steep hill. I climbed it too. I was like, I'm not going down that hell. I think I made it all the way to the top of that thing. You guys have never told me that. That was your that was the campsite we named after you.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Oh, great.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Well, more for the beautiful streams and water. Not because of the piles of shit.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Oh right. Well, let's let's get that's now that we've got reason. And a lot of it's our listeners.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Well, like a lot of it is, yeah, just even seeing the toilet paper is gross. Agreed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

So let's talk about the actual act of pooping out in the wilderness and how you kind of do that. What's the recommended kind of not kind of one of the processes for what if we all start with what we our own version?

SPEAKER_02 27:44

What we look for when we're trying to find a spot, our preferred spot to find I could easily start. Like our ideal situation. Because I imagine they're a little bit different. Start. Okay, I look for perfect world is two downed trees horizontal across the ground, a couple feet up still. But if there's like a foot gap in between them, and you can just jump up, sit in between that gap, and drop down, poop between that gap. That's that's like perfect world. That's a very big deal.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Yeah, but the odds of finding that I've only found that maybe two or three times.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Yeah, because that's the best case. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

Damn, that is the best case. And when you find one, it's like coming across a patch of morale. It's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

What's your prime poop spot?

SPEAKER_03 28:35

I mean, I don't I don't really have have one.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

It's just like my new prime poop spot is that.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

Damn it. I shouldn't have told you guys.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Dang it.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

I prefer the the put your back to a tree instead of sitting over. That's the default. Yeah. And that's what I do, which is Or the fallback. Incredible thigh workouts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

So I so I looked up the techniques for pooping. Are there names for it? Yeah, there's names for it.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

The squatting post.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

That's called the tree lean, is what that's the tree lean? Yeah. Tree or the scale. That was the number one method. Yeah, the tree lean was the number one method. That's interesting. It's the trial. Are you guys curious about some of the other known methods out there for whooping?

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Just the straight squat. I will say that's weird because I feel like it is hard to dig right next to a tree and then hit the hole because you're usually out a little ways from the tree.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Yeah, though the way the method goes is you you back up to the support object, the tree, you lean your back onto that tree, which I is what we're talking about. And then so it's taking a little bit of pressure off those glutes. Yeah. And then you put your hole right underneath your hole. Because I guess because you always want to dig a cat hole.

unknown 29:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Okay. You gotta do that. So we're not talking about doing any of these things. Six to eight inches? Is that what they prefer? Six to eight inches. Four inches wide.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

That's exactly what I usually go a few try to go a few extra inches.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

We'll get a little bit into that, but know that all all of this excrement is going into a cat hole. Okay? Okay. All right. All right. Anyway, then you press your upper back to subject, but another one is called the branch hang. Oh. Yeah, the branch hang. That now we're talking. Right. Now you're talking. I know. Can you hold your legs in the air? I suppose you could. So the method for the branch hang is to find a sturdy, low-hanging branch that sits safely above your cat hole. That's right. Grab the branch overhead and lower it.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

10 or 15 feet above your cat hole.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

No, you don't want to climb to do this. It'd be kind of fun, though. I feel like that would be a whole nother method if you were hanging 15 feet above your cat hole.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Or like my like my perfect world version of it is find one to swing your legs over and then hang on to one. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Yeah. All right. So you grab the branch overhead and lower your body into a comfortable supported squat. Your arms will support the majority of your body. Just a hang. Just a good hang. Just a good hang. So that's called the branch hang. The third most popular one is called the Hillside Deposit. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know the Hillside Deposit. I have a friend. No, you're still pooping into a cat hole.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

I will say, well, this might be similar, but it's for peeing. My friend Greg's dad, who I believe listens to this our our podcast. Hey, shout out. His dad taught us when you're on a golf course and you got to pee and you're out in the open and you can't just go, you find a hill and you do like a plank on the hill, like on that angle to where, and then you just pee.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

That is not what this is. Because it'd be awkward to plank backwards. We're talking about pooping. Right, but yeah, but on a hill you can kind of like sit up against it. Kind of is that concept. Depends how steep it was, I guess. Yeah, it does. So the method goes is you find a downhill slope, like you're saying, and orient yourself so your feet are on the downslope and your butt is facing uphill. Yeah. Okay. Because your butt is elevated relative to your feet, you don't need to bend your knees or ankles nearly as deeply to clear the ground.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

That'd be better for us.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

But I feel like folks.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

But I feel like you'd be pretty close to the ground, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

You got to be careful with that.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Well, because it's uh directing, it would be downhill, you're it won't you're you less uh spread your feet apart. Spread your feet apart and it rolls instead of get that cat hole. Yeah, get that cathole.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

That's eight inch. You might want to angle angle it a little too.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

You might roll down the camp if you're not careful.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Start to have you know, here I thought we were gonna go through peeing pooping and pampering like a bunch and a couple a few normal adults. And I knew that I there was something in the back of my brain and said, there you know, there ain't no way.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

I tried to be professional at the start. And uh it's it's too much fun.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Well, the fourth the fourth fourth most popular method is called the rock drop, dude. Okay, that was my rock, the rock drop. The method position yourself on the edge of a rock with your butt hanging off the back. Ensure your waist drops entirely clear off the rock face and directly into your pre-dug cathole or designated waistback. Is that essentially like the log? I think that one's easier to.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

You can do that with a single log, yeah. Like my method, my method works with a single log as well. Right. But it almost has to be if it's too big of a log, it's harder. Your method, you have two logs? Yeah, that that back.

SPEAKER_03 33:49

Do you sit with your legs parallel to the logs or perpendicular to the logs?

SPEAKER_00 33:54

I thought you meant parallel. No, I'm not sure. Because I'm picturing like with your legs out, like you're riding a horse.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

That's what I'm picturing everywhere. That that actually sounds no, that sounds even better. I'm sitting perpendicular. Like I'm my butt's strapped down between the two logs. Like my elbows and my tailbone are on the back log. Ooh, although you you be lounging.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

You're like, yeah, you're lounging. But I'll tell you that parallel, that's like sitting on a squatty potty. Yeah, I think it depends on the gap of the between the logs. I go parallel. That's how that's in my mind, it was parallel. I need to add that.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

That's like that's going to the repertoire. The repertoire of poopan. Whip that one leg over there, man.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

I'm like, guys, I'm stuck. I can't get my leg over.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

All right, so now that we've talked about those techniques, I just want to cover exactly that's it.

SPEAKER_03 34:45

That's the exhaustive list. I'm sure there's other techniques like that. I guess I created number six. Yeah. The mama horse. The parallel bars.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

The parallel bar. Oh, I was gonna try to get my name in it. Oh, okay. Bradley's parallel bar. I'll come up with something. But let's talk about the actual method of pooping, okay? So this is actually a bit more serious because this does pertain exactly to how you leave no trace. All right. First off, we talked about the cat hole. You find your spot, your method, you're gonna dig a cat hole. You're not pooping straight onto the ground, you're pooping into a cat hole. That cat hole is generally recommended to be six inches or to eight inches deep, six to eight inches wide. Okay. Once you've done the deed, you're gonna fill that hole back in with the soil that you just pulled out of that hole. Yep. So you're gonna di you're gonna bury it. Then remember, anything you bring with you, and I think this is the part that's scary for people, anything you bring with you, you're gonna need to carry out. Human waste is a bit different depending on the park. In some parks, they need you to uh unload into a bag and you're gonna carry even your excrement out. In some cases, you're only gonna carry out the toilet paper because that's an extra thing that you brought with you.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

And those rules are generally put in place when you're going somewhere like the desert where there's no soil.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 36:14

Or you're going somewhere where it's really cold and it there's it can't decompose.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Andor moisture. Yes, sir. That's right. Exactly. So we'll just go with best case scenario, you can bury the poop, but you need you're gonna need to bring the toilet paper out with you. Okay? Yes. So that's how that goes. We'll talk a little bit later about some of the different brands and some of the why, like what, like what you use to carry out that toilet paper. We'll talk about the poop kit. Yeah, the poop kit. Exactly. Brad's Barstool. Brad's Bar stool. You gotta do like Brad's Barstool. Bar stool or something. Brad's Barstool. Stool. Brad's bar, yeah. Brad's stool. Well, bar stool. Bar stool. Brad's bar stool. I'm in on that. That's a literation too.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

I was thinking the stool. I was trying to put the stool in there for Brad. That did not even, I did not make a connection. I'd been thinking about it all day.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Since I demonstrated it at Fort Travis at his house.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

Show me this bar stool, bruh.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Show me this. Here's two logs. Do this. All right, where do you want to go next? I have it on my notes to go into some of the tools because I'm just trying to start small and like get ourselves to a position.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

I think we should establish the poop kit.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Yeah, so what's your poop kit then? Let's see.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

The National Park Service actually calls it that. That's right. And uh, well, you need your little trowel to dig your hole. Uh I personally just bring a knife and it kind of takes me a long time. It's a pain in the ass, but I'd I don't want to bring a knife in that. Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

So I don't bring any of that. I've historically just found like a rock or a larger one. Yeah, you can find something to dig in. And I would just use something natural to dig. But to the trowel thing, I because I do see I think Brad, don't you carry a trowel? Yeah, I carry the dirt saw deuce number two trowel.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

That's really what it's called. Dirt saw deuce? That's an awesome dirt saw. It's the tent lab made by the tent lab.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

I recently how much did you spend on that? It's like 20 bucks. Yeah, that's what I have in my notes, is that you can find a good ultralight trowel. I mean, these things weigh 0.6 ounces. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

But they do come in different sizes, so it may vary a point a tenth of an ounce. Are they um they're sturdy?

SPEAKER_03 38:38

Titanium?

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Yeah, they're titanium. It's like your spork.

unknown 38:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

If you have a spork. You could. You could. Didn't I mean all you're doing is digging to the ground.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

That's true. Well, there I've heard some recommendations where they'd like you to stir it up to get that decomposition going a little bit. Get it a little.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

That's what it sticks for. Then you just shove it, like stick it in the ground and leave it there.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Uh agreed.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

But yeah, that's uh, because I didn't start carrying one. I think the kayak trip was the first trip I carried one because we stopped at an REI on the way up, and I thought, I mean, weight's not as important on the kayak. So I took it and it was I used to use my knife like Travis, even got like a fixed blade knife so I can really, really get down in there and dig a deep hole.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

But I it was just chewing the blade up to the point to where I needed like a bench grinder to clean the blade up because a whetstone was like I was messing my whetstone up trying to sharpen it. So I didn't want to use my knife anymore. And then I could go just go with a lighter weight, like not fixed blade knife. Um, but yeah, it works pretty good. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

I mean, that's what they're for.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Yeah, but you know, that could be well no, I don't want to share it with you guys. Because that could be a shared commodity, you know, amongst the group. Yeah, that's true. Because you're not pooping on it. That's kind of how I feel. But I think someone would be too tempted not to be. Like if you know what I mean.

unknown 40:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

That's true, I guess. But I feel like it's too tempting, like if your paper towel misses the hole, just to kind of use that to shove it down in there or something.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

I feel like even at that point, like it's not like you're touching the blade part of it, even if you're like, all right, your turn.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Accidents happen though.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Yeah, I guess that's true. And it's also what 0.6 ounces, like just shove in there. In some cases, there's little monkey clips. I call monkey clips, so you can strap them onto your bag or whatever. It's necessary. It's a wet thing.

SPEAKER_03 40:34

There's a little bit of your friend's poop on it.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

All right, that's the ultra So what? So what? That's the ultralight tra uh trowel. Anything else goes into your uh your poop kit? Uh paper. Uh yeah. Toilet paper? Wet wipes. Wet wipes? Okay, let's start with toilet paper though. Yeah. Where where you at? Travis brings an entire roll of toilet paper. Do you leave the cardboard in? Because part of my notes was a good little little tip is to just unroll half that roll.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

I wrap it around my hand. Your hand, yeah. And then take it off my hand. And then throw it toilet paper roll. Ziploc? Really? Yeah. I have like three ziplocks dedicated to bathroom activities. So do I. So do I. Because that like a you have to have one dirty one. Yep, yeah. And then the toilet paper gets its own. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And one pro tip is if you're really concerned about weight, if you you know a lot of times if you had wet wipes that they just dry out over time, those are perfect to take because then you just pour a little bit of water on it and you're not carrying that water weight with you.

SPEAKER_03 41:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

So they dry out whatever.

SPEAKER_03 41:39

They make those uh already dehydrated ones, the little pellets.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Yeah, so uh Kirsten and Dave introduced us to those. That's right. And now, yeah, now I always have some of those. Those things are awesome. Yeah, those are amazing. Agreed. Well, you I we'll talk I'll talk more about those using them for the cleaning part of this.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

But and then uh well, I guess the next thing is well, we don't le want to leave that behind, so we need to have uh what are they called? Uh uh pack-out bag. The yeah, it's it's uh basically a toilet bag. Um and it has something in it where you well, I guess those are the waist for like the places where you go where you have to poop in a bag. Here it's a big thing. It's a portable portable toilet. Yeah, yeah. But uh there's just bags, yeah, sealed bags.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Yeah. I looked, I I I I've been looking them up recently just because I'm a gearhead in terms of this stuff, and that's one thing I don't have as a way. Because I will admit that I generally just put my waste into a Ziploc bag. Probably the gallon size Ziploc bag that I just emptied my freeze-dried freeze bag. You're like paper waste, not your paper waste, toilet paper, paper waste. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

You're not paying in a bag. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Sorry, I'm talking about my paper waste. I I generally I generally put that right back. I empty out my freeze dry bag because we repack our freeze drive. We talked about that way early on, and so that's it's where I generally do it or I have done it. But I've been looking in these pack out bags, and I they're they're kind of interesting. Like, I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 43:21

One is I want a separate one from my like food.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Well, I don't keep it in my food stuff once I'm done, but I just well, I mean the trash.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

I don't want it all, I don't want my food trash food trash and like my human waste trash the same.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Well, that's kind of why I was stuff because like we especially with the bear canister, you kind of like at least I the way I do it is I have my Ziploc bag, my gallon size after the first time I eat it. That goes into that's my waste bag, no, my waste bag, and then the second time that becomes my trash. Yeah. And I'll I'll put my food waste in back into my bear canister because it's just saving space. But like, man, how grimy does all of it get over like the span of four days or five days out there?

SPEAKER_02 44:12

So Cause even if you keep it in a Ziploc bag and you're shoving it, like I'm talking food trash. Like if you shove it back in your bear can, that bag's popping at some point. Yeah, and it gets hot.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

So what I like about these pack-out bags is they it kind of like can encompass anything. And it's an entirely separate bag, not clear.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

I don't want to see what's in it. Can you rip it with your bare hands?

SPEAKER_00 44:40

No. Okay. No, no, not at all. So there's kind of four or four different things that both of these that I was looking up. One product calls the packed pack out kit. And then the other one is clean waste wag bag. So those are the they're both sold at REI.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

I've heard of the wag bag. The wag bag.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Wag bag is kind of a common name for just like an overall kind of like the Atlas strap, right? So yeah. I'm not trying to get into that. But both include scent-proof out bag and an inner waste bag. So okay, so it's two kind of things, kind of like the crotch pot or the crotch pot that we were talking about, where it's a bag that keeps that smell in, but then an inner waste bag, you take that waste bag out. That's where the real waste goes. The real waste. Both are easily cleaned after the trail. Both has have clasps and clips or clips for easy connect to the outside of your pack. And then while packed calls it a poop powder, clean waste calls it go anywhere gelling powder. And that's inside of the inner pouch, the the waste pouch. Each pouch that you get to fill that has this powder or gel.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

It's like that ultra absorbent stuff that's in baby diversity.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Also kills bacteria. That's right. And that's in all of them. And I just think that's like that's that's interesting. Like a little on-trail traffic. That's right. How much is the wave? Uh I didn't look up the weight. I have not looked up the weight. When I say I've been looking up this stuff, uh I probably for like the like a month. Wow. You know what I mean? It takes a couple months to get to that wave. A diaper? Waves of a diaper? Yeah, yeah. Something else we've been talking about, we have talked about before that could be in your poop kit. Portable bidet. Oh, yeah. A nice little spritz ain't never hurt nobody. No. Okay? Hand sanitizer?

SPEAKER_03 46:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Because you need to clean up after you do your business. No matter how clean you think you might be, you might as well pack a little sanitizer and clean up. Right? Agreed. Okay. We've talked techniques, we've talked tools, we've talked all kinds of stuff about pooping, dude.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

The thing is with wet wipes, too, after you use them, it is water weight that you're carrying. So sometimes if we get to camp, I'll try to like open that zip-lock bag, maybe even keep those in a separate small sandwich bag, and just pop the zippers open and just let it chill like away a little ways.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

And just try to let it dry out. Just something silly, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

That was something that you mentioned like a while ago. Uh uh drying out your your wipes and then just hydrating them. In zins. Really? Like tobacco.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

Yeah, if you're carrying like your pouches, if you're a to uh pouch user, do what? Letting those dry out. Because you're carrying that water. That's I mean, it's that's carrying your spit. Wait, like that to me, that's a little psychotic. Yeah, that's mud. A bit mud. I gotta let my zins dry out. That's like point one, it's like point one ounce, probably.

SPEAKER_03 48:01

We go we go to the freaking desert and Brad's got his turds laid out, drying them out, so he doesn't have to carry the weight. Get out of the sun.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

But I do like the idea of drying out the wet wipes. That's a solid idea because those things are those do add up, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:18

Yeah, they do add up. Like you think about a brick when you first buy them of those wet wipes, and they're that's a freaking heavy.

SPEAKER_02 48:24

Because I think I do think like if I'm out for five days, I only will put like ten in the thing, or maybe five, like one a day or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

I mean, we'll get into cleaning uh uh and talk about that, but do you use wet wipes all over? It depends, but not too often. Do you use wet wipes all over?

SPEAKER_03 48:42

Like in the morning when I wake up, I'll just strip all my clothes and just meet myself.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

I just don't like even the even the scentless ones. I don't like the smell and the feel that uh that it leaves on your skin after. I just for some reason I just don't like it.

SPEAKER_03 48:56

I feel clean in some time.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

I'll get in the freezing ass, cold ass water and towel myself off.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

Get all the salt off me. Let's talk about cleaning then. This seems like a great segue. Yeah, it's my favorite part.

SPEAKER_02 49:10

All right, Brad, start it up, dude. I can point to one of my favorite times doing a creek bath. Uh I gotta come up with a name for that, too. So me and Travis in Pictured Rocks, Travis was injured with his knee, and there's not much elevation change in Pictured Rocks. And this was one of the higher elevation points that we were at camping at. And the closest water source was you had to like drop this, it was towards the end of Pictured Rocks, if anybody's ever done it, like on the western side. I was not ambulatory. And we needed water. We needed water because we were like up high, you know. Like when you set up camp, you usually go get water, right? And this was uh it was like pretty straight down to get water. We had like a water bladder, like a two-liter bladder, and then I took all of our dry sacks to fill up and bring back up too. So I got down and there was like this big, wide open sandy beach. The sun was kind of setting, pretty close to setting, and there was this big flat rock jetty that shot out into Lake Superior. And anyone who knows Lake Superior, that shit is ice cold, freezing cold. But that day was a bear like a hell of a day, like it was our longest day. Oh, yeah, that was a hell of a day. I was just sitting out there by myself. I think I may have had a little bit of bourbon, but just chilling out there, and I was like high, you know, like dipping that rag in the water, getting my like up to my knees in the water. And just like toweling, like Lord. I always bring a little micro vibrator towel. Yep. I have one that I always wash off with. Like a scene from a movie, I imagine.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

Yeah, you're painting a picture right now. It was glorious. I don't think I've been outside yet this year, and I've been really urining a backpacking trip, and this is making me drool.

SPEAKER_02 50:53

But that's where I always like I try to get like knee deep and the water sucked my feet in ice cold water.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

Do you have a favorite cleaning story? No, I'm not a big wash like guy. Like if I'm in it, I'm out there, whatever. I like to what we a whore bath is like.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

You know, I was gonna mention that, and I thought I'm not gonna say that word on this podcast. I'll say fuck all day, but nothing. I think it's it's common nomenclature. W bath.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

But see, that's where I'd rather, if there's like some fresh water, a fresh stream, I wouldn't concern me. But I would much rather wash off with that than uh a wet wipe. Well, but I mean Yeah, but you guys don't.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Well, I think most of the people that do I'm I I will say that I am also with Travis. It's a little bit of a pain in the ass. I have it in my notes that I I will like wipe my face or maybe like with a towel with a wet wipe, but in terms of like bathing, I just kind of feel like I I'm out there. Like the best stinky person wins. I just uh I don't give a shit.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

I will say, like, I am usually adjusting my short. Like I don't get fully naked out there. Why not, homie? So I mean sometimes I have.

SPEAKER_03 52:05

I'm not against it. If I found a body of water that was the appropriate temperature, and see that that is the thing.

SPEAKER_02 52:12

Like, usually in the Tetons that day when it was me and you, yeah, my day after altitude sickness, froze my ass off doing it there.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

Wait, it wasn't the day, it was down in the uh what was that? What what we called that campsite something. That was like two or three days.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Oh, yeah, because it was after Death Canyon. Yeah, yeah. But I froze, I remember I specifically remember that one freezing my ass off. Yeah, but it was well worth it because I was feeling like finally feeling better.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, from afar in that campsite, I looked over at Brad and I was like, that's a specimen.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

But that dude's it's always I yeah, I always enjoy it. Yeah. And and you get all the salt off your body, keeps you clean. Yeah, that's why I always urge that people poop and pee downstream because I take a bath in that water.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

Yeah. So I don't even know where to go after that. I agree. Well, so we've kind of hit all the points naturally.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

So that's the thing, like with cleaning, if you if you wanted to do something like that, like what I do, I bring a tiny little mic, REI sells tons of them, little microfiber cloths, super lightweight. I always have one of those for cleaning my body, and then one that's usually like a different style, definitely a different color for cleaning anything else, like my cookware. Yeah, and so I can keep them separate. Then throughout the day, I hang them on the outside of my pack so they dry while we're hiking. At night, I hang it on my clothesline.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

What's your guys' uh thoughts on biodegradable soaps?

SPEAKER_02 53:46

I've never seen the need for it because you're boiling everything every time, anyways, and that's gonna sterilize everything.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:53

So I've never seen the need for I have like I've taken some kayaking.

SPEAKER_00 53:58

Yeah. Because that was the first time that I ever really, and you know what? Logan did it the wrong way. Because the same thing with soap. If you're going to use soap, you want to use that 200 feet away from any body of water or source of water. You want to use it 200 feet away from a campsite or a trail. Yeah. And he that didn't happen. Right at the launch, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:23

Yeah. Like where we had our kayaks.

SPEAKER_00 54:25

And that was the first time I've ever seen any person with me bring soap with them. Yeah. And I just like I I am more of like a cold bath type of person. If I felt the need to shower, it was gonna be in a cold body of water with a bandana or a or a microfiber.

SPEAKER_03 54:41

There's a part of me that's like, okay, humans naturally, we didn't, you know, we weren't able to. I mean, we could get in a nice little, you know, body of water or whatever, but uh it wasn't always, you know, soap wasn't convenient and all that. And I always imagine like, well, there's a we build up oils and all this stuff on our skin for a reason. And I tell you what, sometimes after a good day of freaking sweating, getting my ass kicked, and uh letting that that shit soak into my skin the next day, take a shower. My skin is just crystal clean and you're just looking good.

SPEAKER_00 55:17

You're glowing.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

For some reason, I thought you meant the biodegradable soap for cleaning cookware and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

No, I'm talking about your body, like Dr. Bronner's makes one.

SPEAKER_02 55:27

But he had like something had happened to Logan that he got something weird, like something on him, or something happened where he kept black shit, like some oh yeah, now there was something weird.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

Yeah, is there was there a reason he needed soap? Soap. Oh, the soap was yeah, I've seen that before.

SPEAKER_00 55:42

Because you're never you're not gonna take soap out there that isn't biodegradable.

SPEAKER_03 55:46

Is that the new thing now? Carbon or charcoal stuff or cool, that's what it was.

SPEAKER_00 55:50

It was just some reason he got into something. That could be. That could be, eh? I'm not trying to share on it, brother. But if you do use soap, just remember leave no trace policy because that is waste. That water, that's your two sides. Same thing with it.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

Yeah, see, I've never done that. I just use water. Water, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:08

What for your brushing your teeth?

SPEAKER_02 56:10

No, when I'm just cleaning up.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

When you're bathing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

What uh what spots do you bathe? What's let's uh what are the big hidden all the pinch points. What is the pinch point? What's the pinch point? Skin on skin, man. Skin on skin, mate. What are those? You're out there, you're you need a bath. Where are you gonna wash? The places you sweat the most. Feet, feet are important. Choad ball's penis. Chowed balls penis are all in the same area. Pits, choad ball's penis, air, uh, armpits, crack, feet, crack feet.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

Feet, big one, feet, wipe those feet down, because you'll you're gonna no matter how airtight you think those freaking boots are, you're gonna pick up sand and little particles of stuff, slip in there. Sweat and salt off, get in between your toes, and because that's that stuff will tear your feet up if you don't get it off.

SPEAKER_00 57:00

So when we're talking about cleaning up out there, even whether or not you're using wipes or biodegradable soap, or even when you're taking a dip in the water outside of taking a natural swim in the water, we're not talking about you're taking a full-on bath. You're cleaning those pinch points, as Brad would say.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

Whether it's a wet white bath or my style.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:22

And it's nice because like I always do it before I put my nighttime clothes on. Yeah. So my nighttime clothes stay pretty clean the whole time. I'm with you on that.

SPEAKER_03 57:30

I did definitely, yeah, before I put my uh my sleeping socks on, which is day five socks.

SPEAKER_02 57:37

My sleeping underwear, my sleeping like lots of sleeping undies? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

You want to make sure, yeah. I mean, it it's just recommended that you know clean up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

It feels good, feels good comfort thing, yeah. Because I was looking up stuff, I found uh have have you guys ever uh heard of the cotton ball method of cleaning? No, yeah, I haven't either. Apparently, this is a big thing with the backpackers is you take a cotton ball or a lot of cotton balls, lightweight, very lightweight, you dip, you get the lightly coat those in uh uh uh alcohol. Um alcohol. Yeah. And then you get those into a Ziploc bag and you wipe down those pinch points with that alcohol. That dries your skin out super bad.

SPEAKER_02 58:23

Yeah, that's it's it's really bad for your skin.

SPEAKER_03 58:27

Like, is it just like a bacteria killer?

SPEAKER_02 58:28

Is that yeah, I suppose so. Ever since the leech incident of 2025, is that what we're calling it? I bring I buy the probable wipes. Yeah, but they're small, they're not like wet wipe sized, maybe half that.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

I suppose that would be a good way though. Especially in between your toes, your hand sanitizer, isn't that what that's out there?

SPEAKER_03 58:49

But it's like unless you I mean I just don't uh I personally I don't see the cotton ball thing. Just research. That would be better or something you might need for if you've developed a foot fungus on a freaking through hike or or something. Hey, some some people might have one going into you never know. Yeah, that's true. But for a five-day trip, I just don't see the necessity of a bunch of stuff to keep your body.

SPEAKER_02 59:16

Part of it is like because even though I'm I'm with you, bro. Well, I mean, even when I'm doing what I'm doing, I still stink.

SPEAKER_03 59:22

I just feel better.

SPEAKER_02 59:23

I just feel better.

SPEAKER_03 59:24

Yeah, it's true. It's just a personal comfort thing.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

It is a personal comfort thing, and most most of the time I'm so tired and eager to watch an episode of Friends that I just don't care at all how I how my body feels. Like I just kind of gear myself to be able to do it. I'm happy that I'm like I'm horizontal. Yeah, yeah. Or I lived that day, I made it to the campsite. But I do also understand uh uh that feeling of washing your pits, spraying water on your face, you know, but I also that that shower when you when you're off trail, that first shower. It's better than a steak after trail, you know what I mean? That could be better than anything. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

That shower at Caper, or what was that? Uh that campsite?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

Dude, I can't remember the campsite. Um Jenny, Jenny Lake camps, campgrounds or something. I can't remember that shower. Brad and I were sharing, we were like, how's that feel?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:22

We were tossing soap up and over up and over the window.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:25

I remember the day before when I took my shower, and now just like, oh my god, I'm so glad I'm back.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

Guys, I believe we've talked a hell of a lot about being pooping and pampering ourselves on trail. I think that means it's time to get out of here and call it close on episode 92.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:46

Yeah, we finally we had to talk about this at some point, and uh we're good. We got it. Yeah, we got about and I hope we didn't sound too juvenile.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

Before we get out of here, though, I just gotta highlight next week we got Bill Wade on. So I'm excited. I mean, that guy is going to be a great interview, followed up by a reappearance of our friend Chad Fitzpatrick to talk about his family Teton trip and what it's being backpacking with Chad. Oh, so we got a lot of great guests coming up in the next two weeks, dude. I'm pretty psyched about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:25

I am too.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

Make sure y'all tune in. That was peeing, pooping, and pampering. I thought I'd say it again.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:31

Let's get out of here. Episode 92. Yep. To the road to run. To the road to 100. Yes. On the road to 100. On the road to 100. Yes. All right. Thanks for listening, everybody. Keep on sundering. See ya.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:49

Maybe we'll get in after 100.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

Damn, I was nervous about that episode.