How To Poop While Backpacking? The Ultimate Guide To Relieving Yourself Outdoors.
Possibly the most common question from beginner backpackers is how to poop while backpacking? Pooping is one thing that you will do for every backpacking trip you go on, and if not, I highly recommend seeing a doctor or drinking some prune juice!
I know that going to the bathroom isn’t the first thing on your mind when preparing for your backpacking trip. Nevertheless, doing your business comfortably and responsibly is an important skill to have in the backcountry. It is crucial to handle your business while adhering to leave no trace to help protect the nature we love so much.
Why Is It Important To Follow Leave No Trace Principles When Pooping In The Woods?
Protect Our Water Sources:
If human feces is not correctly buried or packed out, it increases the risk of rainfall carrying the excrement to a local water source. Contamination of water sources can lead to a domino effect damaging local wildlife, soil, and vegetation through exposure to harmful bacteria from the waste
Prevent Unwanted Encounters With Wildlife:
If human waste is not properly buried, its scent can lead to an unexpected visit from native wildlife. These encounters can be dangerous, especially if they occur near the camp with food sources nearby. So it is best not to take the risk and follow our guide on how to poop while backpacking to help prevent such an encounter.
Protect The Outdoors Experience:
Nobody should worry about stepping into a pile of human dung or having to see someone’s used toilet paper when hiking on the trail. Not only is it gross, but as we said, it’s terrible for the environment. Hiking outdoors is supposed to be a way for everyone to connect with nature, and such remnants can take away from the experience of others. Follow this guide to help preserve other people’s appreciation of nature and nature itself.
How To Poop While Backpacking?
Okay, now back to what you’re here for. How do you poop while backpacking? Well here is the skinny:
- Pack a poop kit
- Pick a spot to do your business at least 200ft from a trail and 200ft from a water source.
- Dig out a cat hole (at least 6-8 inches deep and 2-6 inches in diameter with your trowel.)
- Poop
- Clean up
- Cover cat hole
- Enjoy Your Hike!
What Gear Do You Need For A Backpacking Poop Kit?
- Travel-sized hand sanitizer
- Toilet Paper
- Trowel
- Ziploc bag to pack out your toilet paper
- Blue Bags (If required)
- Check out our bathroom kit in our gear blog
How To Pack Your Toilet Paper For Backpacking?
Traditional toilet paper rolls are pretty bulky and can be challenging to pack due to their awkward shape. I recommend unraveling as much toilet paper you think you would need for your backpacking trip (be liberal with it toilet paper doesn’t weigh much!) and packing it away in a plastic ziplock bag.
This is a much more efficient way to pack your toilet paper for a couple of reasons. First off, it allows you to pack it down much smaller than you could with an entire roll, allowing you to sneak it in a nook or cranny of space in your pack. Second, you can control how much toilet paper you bring. Managing how much toilet paper you bring is especially helpful for shorter backpacking trips where an entire roll of teepee would be overkill.
Different Kinds Of Backpacking Toilets:
There are typically four different types of poop recepticles when backpacking consist of:
Flushable Toilet:
You use these regular toilets every day, but when pooping outdoors, they are the holy grail. These are pretty rare, and you will typically only find this in front-country campsites.
The Privy:
A Privy is a stand-alone outhouse in the wilderness that consists of a toilet leading to an empty pit. These outdoor toilets typically use a composting element such as mulch for the decomposing process. The cool thing about privies is that you can throw your toilet paper in them after each use. Privies usually have a mulch bucket next to them, so remember to throw a handful of mulch in the pit after each use to help with the decomposing process.
"Blue Bags" Or Wag Bags:
For extremely sensitive environments, parks may require you to use a blue bag or Wag Bag. These bags are used to poop in and eventually bring your waste out of the park. While they are not the most lovely thing to deal with, blue bags are the best for leaving no trace.
Cat Holes:
Cat holes are the most common way for pooping in the backcountry and will be what we focus on for much of this article. These are holes dug in the earth by the hiker to defecate in. After using one, you need to make sure you cover it up to ensure you leave no trace.
How To Pick A Spot To Poop When Backpacking?
If there are no privies or toilets in your area, you need to find a spot at least 200ft from any water source, trail, and campsite to dig a cat hole. Once you are far enough from these landmarks, you want to look for an area of loose soil free of plant life and easy to dig out.
Another fantastic quality for a poop spot is trees and lots of them! Trees to give you privacy and something to hold on to for more stability when trying to go.
The final thing I am looking for when finding my poop spot is a nice view. I know this is a bit of a luxury but come on, who doesn’t want to enjoy a beautiful view with a poo?!
How To Dig A Cat Hole:
Okay, so we found a nice spot away from people and water, with some nice loose soil. The next thing we have to do is dig out the cat hole. The dimensions you want to dig out are approximately 6-8 inches deep and 2-6 inches in diameter.
The cool thing about backpacking trowels is that many are designed to be the length needed for your cat hole’s depth and width, making them an excellent cat hole ruler. So when you find your spot to do your business, take out your trusty trowel, measure how wide your hole needs to be, and start digging to the required depth.
Pro tip: DO NOT wait until the last minute to dig your hole. Digging a cat hole can take a little bit, and if you wait until the last second will begin fumbling, stressing, and will have an unpleasant poop for you.
Now We Poop:
We never really need to discuss poop strategies in modern civilization (although I’m sure some people do), but there are a few different ways to go in the backcountry. Below are some of the common ones!
- The Hold And Go: Alright, for this one, you need to find a tree wrap your hands around the trunk or grab onto some sturdy branches lean back, squat down and do your thing. You want to have your feet near the base of the tree when doing the hold and go.
- Making A Log While On A Log: Here, you want to find a fallen tree, sit on top of it with your bottom over the edge, and poop. Be careful not to fall off the log while scooting yourself back on the log. That would be pretty unpleasant.
- The Squat: This is a tried and true classic of the backcountry. After you dig your cat hole, put those tired quads to work, squat over, and go for it.
Clean Up:
You did it first poop in the outdoors, woohoo! Now it’s cleanup time. After using it, some areas allow you to bury your toilet paper within the cat hole. You need to verify with the park if this is acceptable.
However, regardless I prefer to pack it out. Burying toilet paper in the cat hole still allows wildlife or weather to unearth it, whereas packing out your toilet paper makes this impossible and is a great way to truly leave no trace. DO NOT burn used toilet paper as this can increase the risk of forest fires.
What If I Run Out Of Toilet Paper While Backpacking?
If you do not have toilet paper or just ran out, you can still use natural toilet paper. AKA anything you can find in nature to wipe with, such as a rock, pine cone, or leaves. If you go with leaves please please please stay away from poison ivy. Remember, leaves of three, let it be!
Backpacker's Bidet:
Another option you have for cleanup is the backpacker’s bidet! That’s right. You know those fancy toilets they have in Europe? Well, guess what you can make your own on the trail. All you have to do is get your water bladder out, open the spout, and blow air into the bladder instead of sucking in as you would for drinking water. Then squeeze the nozzle, and water will shoot out, giving you your very own backpacker’s bidet!
Suppose you are a little wary of using your drinking water nozzle as a bidet. That is fair. But if you still want to try one out, you can buy a separate attachment to make your water bottle a bidet.
How Much Toilet Paper To Bring Backpacking?
Now one of the best ways to avoid that nightmare of running out of toilet paper when backpacking is to make sure you pack enough toilet paper, to begin with! But how much toilet paper to bring backpacking is enough? Well, it depends on the length of your trip, but I would say one roll of toilet paper would do the trick for your standard 4-7 day backpacking trip. Keep in mind that there are many ways you can use toilet paper when backpacking outside of bathroom hygiene, such as cleaning dishes and for fire starter.
How To Pack Out Your Used Toilet Paper?
As I said, it is best practice to pack out all of your used toilet paper. I know putting your used teepee back in your pack doesn’t sound like the cleanest thing, but if you do it right, you won’t even notice it’s there!
I usually go with a double bag strategy. I take two gallon-sized ziplock bags, put the used teepee in one of them, and put the entire ziplock bag with teepee in the second one. This way, I never have to worry about odor or one of them coming undone, leaving me with used toilet paper all over my pack. Gross!
Wash Our Hands And Cover Our Cat Hole:
After we go and pack out our toilet paper, all there is left to do is wash out hands and cover the cat hole.
Now you want to cover up your cat hole with the earth you just dug up, using your trowel carefully as not to get any excrement on it. You want to ensure that it is completely covered so that humans or animals find your cat hole.
Afterward, please take a few seconds to cover your hole up with any nearby leaves or branches you want to make it look like you were never there.
Pooping In Sensitive Enviornments With Blue Bags Or Wag Bags:
Some parks prohibit the use of cat holes as a means of handling your poop and require you to pack everything out. It is necessary to use blue bags or Wag Bags for these parks to pack out your poop.
These bags act like a cat hole, except you are using a bag instead of going in a hole. I do not use these bags very much, so here is a video from Leave No Trace on how to use them!
How To Pee While Backpacking?
So we covered pooping in the woods, now lets go over how to pee when we are in the backcountry. Fortunately, urinating outdoors is far less harmful to the environment than defecating, however there are still some rules that need to be followed to limit our impact on the environment.
Where To Pee While Backpacking:
Peeing follows the same rules as backpacking regarding where you are allowed to pee, which is 200ft from the trail, water source, and camp. As mentioned, although urine does have less of an environmental impact, there are still good practices you can do to reduce your footprint. Some ways you can do this is by:
- Urinate on rocks or gravel away from vegetation: Some animals are attracted to the high salt content in our urine and can cause them to turn over or destroy vegetation in search of this salt. So urinating on a rock or gravel will help prevent unnecessary soil or vegetation destruction by native wildlife.
- Diluting your urine with water: Another way to reduce the allure of salty pee is by diluting your urine by spraying some water on where you urinated.
How To Pee At Night When Camping?
Peeing in the middle of the night is the last thing you want to do, especially after a long day of hiking. So I make it standard practice to limit how much water I drink before sleeping, and I always pee before turning in for the night. But alas, when you have to go, you have to go, so here are a couple of ways you can go about peeing in the middle of the night when backpacking.
Get up and go: Pretty self-explanatory, but if you wake up because you have to go, turn on your headlight and get out of your tent and hammock walk your 200ft from camp and do your business!
Pee in a bottle: If you are lazy or it is too cold to go outside of your tent, you can use the good ole pee in a bottle technique. There are even pee funnels for hikers to help make sure you keep your urine only in the bottle!
The Wrap Up:
I hope we answered all of your questions about relieving yourself when in the outdoors. It is the responsibility of all of us to leave no trace, even in less glamorous situations like pooping. If you have any questions or tips for going to the bathroom outdoors, I would love to hear them in the comments below.
