Minimalist camping without a fixed blade

shinyedges said:
If ounces count why not pick up the poop with a trowel and fling it a few feet in the woods where it can break down with YOUR crap...
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Fling it a few feet, huh? Why am I not surprised?

In that single post, you made my point for me. Seriously.
 
leghog said:
Fling it a few feet, huh? Why am I not surprised?

In that single post, you made my point for me. Seriously.
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Ooook, hey enjoy carrying crap and contributing plastic to landfills rather than simply moving the biodegradable crap off the trail. I've exposed the ridiculous flaw in your logic well enough.
 
Thomas,

My reading of several of your posts has been (paraphrasing) that LNT techniques are fine until something unplanned for happens, in which case a fixed blade is needed.

Here is the most recent such post.

I apologize if you're making a slightly different point and I'm missing the nuance.

Thomas Linton said:
Bro, decent point about "camping" vs "survival," but I hope to survive camping and have found that "survival" often comes on without intent, sometimes when "only" camping.

The most likely place for me to face a survival situation "camping" is in the wilderness. When younger and living in SoCal, I went there, including the Sierra Nevada, Rockies, PCT and Sonora Desert, with the gear I thought wise, usually including a 4" fixed-blade, utility pocket knife, and small saw (Boy, have saw choices improved!). Other gear for other places. And I was, of course, responding to the post that no "widely accepted" authorities advocated fixed-blade knives. If you don't accept the authorities who do suggest a fixed-blade knife, that's your judgment.
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While we are talking shit, dog shit.
Anywhere there is a serious volume of people with their waste, or regular dog walkers, especially dogs on leads, the the cumulative effect is pretty unpleasant. Faeces come with their own health issues, especially when produced on an industrial scale. Basically it requires management.

Some habitats are more sensitive than others to these waste products. For camping then use facilities that are made available when possible, that includes dog waste. If no facilities then burry it. The hole should be a decent depth and not a scrape hole. I put up earlier the Titanium spade; for a group specialist tool its big enough for the task. I've dug holes without a spade but it isn't easy. If you use a blade the edge will have its edge dulled; not much but noticeably. Better to cut a digging stick which should work if a bit more effort. What I hate seeing in a dump on the ground with paper and a few leaves tossed over.
Having said that sometimes with jelly belly there isn't much time for any planning. Here you have to do your best.
Wet wipes over loo paper may well get you clean, but due to the construction takes an age to disintegrate.

If you think its sensible to bag up waste products to take out of an area then do. One gripe I have with doggy bags is poor disposal of the offending filled plastic bag. These need disposing correctly and many people don't finish the job dropping them anywhere bar the bin; mad.

Whatever the environment, do make your own judgement and do think how to minimise the effect. A lot of people just don't care.
 
GREENJACKET said:
The hole should be a decent depth and not a scrape hole.
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But not below the depth of biological activity which is different in different environments. So, yes, in some environs you have to pack out even your own shit. What some here would apparently be surprised by is the fact that on some public lands you are actually required to pack out your own shit. Required. And that list of places is growing. Some locales have had such regulations for 20 years. Mount Shasta estimates 2.5 tons of human excrement is packed out annually by climbers alone. I could find no info on how much in tampons and feminine hygiene products are packed out, which should be packed out always regardless of environment and/or locale.

When you do bury your shit, you should bury it at least 200 feet off the trail, campsite, water source, and drainage. Many don't bury the shit paper, but burn it in a small can just for that purpose or take it out.

A lot of people just don't care.
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And many find that saddening and maddening.

whitney-sign-250.jpg


Think about it --- just the climbers on Mount Shasta = 2.5 TONS of shit annually. 2.5 TONS.

Managing human shit in the outdoors is becoming a problem. We shouldn't add to the problem.
 
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shinyedges said:
Ooook, hey enjoy carrying crap and contributing plastic to landfills rather than simply moving the biodegradable crap off the trail. I've exposed the ridiculous flaw in your logic well enough.
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Repurpose and reuse. Especially plastics. That's why I buy most durable goods used.
 
leghog said:
Repurpose and reuse. Especially plastics. That's why I buy most durable goods used.
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What else do you use them for? Now I'm genuinely curious...
 
shinyedges said:
What else do you use them for? Now I'm genuinely curious...
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Plastic shopping bags? Packing material, bottle seals, rubber gloves, "emergency" rubber boots, kites and parachute toys when my kids were tots, freezer bags, covers for left overs, lunch bags, cooler bags, shop rag storage, picking up brass others leave at the range, storage of HAZMAT until the next annual HAZMAT collection by my county. I keep one in my first aid kit too. Sadly I often use them to pack out garbage others leave in the outdoors. I even use them to store other plastic bags. Their uses are endless. I even keep some in each car.
 
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My water bottles now are wide mouth gartorade bottles. You can get years of use out of them. They're plenty tough and lighter than Nalgene.
Gatorade%2520Water%2520Bottle.JPG


There's one in my left cargo pocket in this pic.
Chimney%2520Rock%2520Scramble%2520%28Resized%29.JPG
 
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Oh, I thought you meant reusing the plastic bags that had crap in them.
 
leghog said:
I could just use your method and "fling" them a few feet away.
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The Crap Or The bag? I said move the crap from the middle of a trail to a few feet into the woods.

Being purposefully dense doesn't change your flawed logic of saving the environment from canine crap and disposing of plastic bags into a land fill.

Nor does it change that you leave your own crap behind, but carry the dogs. All kinds of silly illogical things coming from you, keep them coming though.
 
shinyedges said:
The Crap Or The bag? I said move the crap from the middle of a trail to a few feet into the woods.
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Might as well not bother.

Nor does it change that you leave your own crap behind, but carry the dogs.
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Can't control where a dog shits. If you are going to leave it properly, you'll need to pick it up off the trail, carry it 200 feet away from the trail and any water source or drainage and bury it.

You speak of silly yet you suggest just flinging it a few feet of the trail. Me thinks you don't spend much time in the backcountry (or even fore country).
 
Just so I have this straight leghog, you don't carry a fixed blade because every ounce counts...

You:

Bury your feces.

Pick up and carry the dog feces that would have degraded in weeks, in a plastic bag that will take hundreds or more years to break down.

Got that right?
 
leghog said:
Might as well not bother.

Can't control where a dog shits. If you are going to leave it properly, you'll need to pick it up off the trail, carry it 200 feet away from the trail and any water source or drainage and bury it.

You speak of silly yet you suggest just flinging it a few feet of the trail. Me thinks you don't spend much time in the backcountry (or even fore country).
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I live on my 60 acre farm, next to 10,000 acres of state land, and have been actual rural camping most my life. Wrong again. But hey, you should be used to it.
 
leghog said:
Might as well not bother.

Can't control where a dog shits. If you are going to leave it properly, you'll need to pick it up off the trail, carry it 200 feet away from the trail and any water source or drainage and bury it.

You speak of silly yet you suggest just flinging it a few feet of the trail. Me thinks you don't spend much time in the backcountry (or even fore country).
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You come up with all these rules about how far crap needs to be from a trail and the irony is wild animals crap anywhere including on the trail.

So if your dog crap ends up 5 to 10 feet off a trail it's perfectly fine. The trees won't die, people will survive, the world won't end. Talk about someone out of touch with reality, jeesh.
 
shinyedges said:
I live on my 60 acre farm, next to 10,000 acres of state land, and have been actual rural camping most my life. Wrong again. But hey, you should be used to it.
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Then your favorite spots should be full of shit by now with toilet paper blooms every spring.

Have fun. I'm off to a gun show.
 
The fish, beavers, otters, and other critters crap in and around water. You're hypochondria is amusing though.
 
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