Going to Bathroom in the Woods

Tim MacWelch: Hi, I am Tim MacWelch of Earth Connection School of Wilderness Survival and Ancient Skills in Fredericksburg, Virginia. This is our video series on how to go camping. In this clip we are going to show you how to go to the bathroom in the woods. Now first off, we want to consider where to go to the bathroom. We don't want to go right next to our campsite and we don't want to go next to any body of water, where we might accidentally contaminate that water source, worst than that it already is.

We've got our two most important supplies, when going to the bathroom in the woods. We have got a little trowel to dig what it's called a Cat Hole. This is a little tiny one use latrine in which we are going to deposit solid wastes and if you wish number ones as well.

Now the purpose of digging a hole is several different objectives. First we are going to bury the waste in such a way that it mixes in with the top soil and composts naturally. The second reason is to keep from having a forest full of land mines, which we might step on when we are hiking around. This is part of our leave no trace set of ethics, to try to leave no mark of any kind that we were ever there.

So once we have dug a small Cat Hole about 6 inches deep, maybe 4 or 5 inches across, we would use it, then use our paper, then we would bury the whole, the paler middle soil first and then the top soil afterwards and we'll try to restore the area in such a way that it doesn't look like anybody was ever there. In our next clip we are going to cover Camp cleanliness; how to wash your hands and your dishes and your clothes.