The toilet in the woods

What you need

• A small trowel or a light shovel
• Toilet paper in a sealed bag, plain and unscented
• Two zip bags for used paper, one inside the other
• Hand sanitizer, or soap and water
• Pack out toilet bags with gel in them for rock, frozen ground and busy spots
• A wide mouth pee bottle with a good lid, marked so no one drinks from it, for winter nights in the tent

How

1. Use the outhouse or the thunder box at a campsite if there is one.
2. Otherwise walk about 70 steps, or 60 metres, away from water, the trail and the tents. Downhill from where you get your water.
3. Pick soft, dark soil if you can find it. That top layer breaks waste down fastest.
4. Dig a hole about 15 to 20 cm deep, the length of your trowel blade, and as wide as your hand.
5. Squat over it, or sit on a log or lean your back on a tree with your bum just past the edge.
6. Wipe, put the used paper in the bag, then mix a little soil into the hole with a stick.
7. Fill it with the soil you took out, tamp it down, and cover it with leaves or moss so it looks untouched.
8. Wash your hands before you touch food or anyone's gear.

When you cannot dig

1. On bare rock, shallow soil or the barrens, use a pack out bag. Close it, double bag it, and carry it in a hard container.
2. In winter the ground is frozen. Use a pack out bag. Frozen, it is easy to carry and does not smell.
3. Never go on the ice of a pond or lake, or on snow above a brook. It all ends up in the water in spring.
4. For a camp of a week or more, dig one latrine trench, cover each use with a little soil, and fill it in full when you leave.

Do and don't

Watch for

Notes

Everybody does it. The only rule that matters is that the next person should never know you were there.

At the cabin, the outhouse has its own rules. See Water and waste at a cabin.