What do you use for a "sink" when you're in the woods?

EngrSorenson

EngrSorenson

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We backpack out a short distance to our favorite campsite, about half a mile up hill, so I try to back light enough for a 3 day trip but I also enjoy the luxuries of making legitimate meals.

The biggest pain is actually being able to effectively wash dishes, utensils and the like.

So how do you handle it, and what do you use for your "sink" in the woods?
 
It's hard to know what to say without more information, but my thoughts on this are that anything you eat or drink out of should also be doubling as your cookware. Adopting a minimalist philosophy is important. You eat from the same thing you cooked in. Each person should be responsible for their own cup/pot and utensil(s), and they should be made from food safe stainless steel, titanium, or aluminium if you're on a tight budget.

If you can boil water in something over a fire, then you can sterilize it, and you can also put smaller things inside of it to be sterilized.
 
Guy McVer said:
It's hard to know what to say without more information, but my thoughts on this are that anything you eat or drink out of should also be doubling as your cookware. Adopting a minimalist philosophy is important. You eat from the same thing you cooked in. Each person should be responsible for their own cup/pot and utensil(s), and they should be made from food safe stainless steel, titanium, or aluminium if you're on a tight budget.

If you can boil water in something over a fire, then you can sterilize it, and you can also put smaller things inside of it to be sterilized.
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That's a fair point- there's five of us who head out into the woods, and one of them is a (now) 4 year old.
If it was just my wife and I, this would be a lot easier, and I agree- minimal is best.
 
Danke42 said:
You can get the collapsible plastic accordion ones or the treated folding cloth but where is the water to keep it filled up coming from?
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There’s water about 1/4 mile from where we stay, so it’s a little bit of a trek. I’ll have a 1.25 gallon pot to transport it.

I think I know the ones you’re talking about- that might work. The flat packing is attractive.
 
Just brainstorming a bit here...

If you had a water bladder with a hose attached to the bottom, you could hang it from a tree and let gravity give you your water pressure for rinsing off dishes. I'm sure there must be several companies that manufacture something exactly like that. Then you could take any old large open-top container, fill that with water, squirt in some dish soap, and use that for your sink. So now you have a sink for washing dishes, and something to rinse them with.

The trouble is that you gotta carry all this stuff a quarter of a mile while it's full of water. It's not exactly ideal. So let's say that you leave your sink behind and just fill the bladder, using that to fill up the sink. Well, now you gotta make more than one trip. Two trips adds up to a whole mile of walking, half of which while you are carrying multiple gallons of water.

Not exactly my idea of fun.

edit: oh, I'm dumb. You could just carry the sink to the water, do the dishes there, rinse and dry everything off, and then bring it back.

Still a pain in the backside, but with 50% less walking. But you still need water for cooking and drinking. So I guess yeah... it sounds like a two person job. One person has to carry the water back to camp while the other has to carry the cleaned dishes.

Walking in pairs is better for safety anyway.
 
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Seatosummit isn't my favorite company, but they do make a decent pack-cloth washbasin, and I have one of their collapsing buckets that I've used as well. Lighter by far than the silicone gear. I do like them for cleaning stuff like cutting boards other stuff. I also carry a bit more capacity for water than I think I'll need. When I planned trips that didn't have vehicle water-drops at a camp site, we would pack extra empty water bags, the kind from boxed water at a grocery store. At a few grams each per gallon, you can fill them up, and bring them back to camp in your pack easy enough, and they are cheap enough to not worry about, I also made some mesh bags to carry them using shade-cloth, so that two kids could carry a bag one on each handle.
Another option is just a small plastic wash basin, since you would likely be able to pack your cooking stuff inside it when its in your pack, or just strap it to the lid. easier for a little one to use, and if you have a kiddo around, they might as well be useful! For the weight cost, the collapsible basin isn't going to be much lighter.
 
Sand and/or ashes mixed with water are great for cleaning dishes and are environmentally friendly.

i use my hands to do the dishes, sometimes i'll bring half of a sponge.

Also, check out Platypus bottles.

41n73VjqzdL._AC_SY1000_.jpg
 
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GAGL said:
Sand and/or ashes mixed with water are great for cleaning dishes and are environmentally friendly.

i use my hands to do the dishes, sometimes i'll bring half of a sponge.

Also, check out Platypus bottles.

41n73VjqzdL._AC_SY1000_.jpg
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Sand, ashes Ive done many times, little bit of water bolied in the dirty pot, tiny bit of soap and steel wool on aluminium pots works pretty good, but a modern sack like this is to me ten times better than the suggestion of humpin a steel jerry can!!, if you wanna transport fuel sure , water, mmm I reckon I could carry more faster an further in condoms than most here could drag an empty jerry can!!
An a 1/4 mile? Is that a mountain trail or an out o town driveway?
 
I know this isn't the answer you are looking for but I'll give it to you anyway. When looking for a camp site, the main prerequisite (for us) is water near by, next is shelter from wind and a soft, flat place to pitch a tent. The top of a hill is nice for the view but often lacks the necessary elements for a good camp site. When you camp by water you don't have to haul water or a sink. The stream is your sink. There's almost nothing better than falling asleep next to a babbling brook. We very much like to fish when we camp. In fact, the reason for the camp is to fish.

Now to actually answer your question, we use our biggest pot in the cook kit as a sink to wash dishes if washing of dishes is required.

Everyone looks for different things in a camp out, Have fun on yours.
 
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Ever seen those hospital foot tubs? We fill one of those with other gear and pack it. It weighs practically nothing. As to water you can boil whatever is nearby well enough for dishes or just wash them in that water anyway. Usually dried dishes aren't going to make you sick.
 
SimplyMinded said:
Usually dried dishes aren't going to make you sick.
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This really baffles me. When I was researching the steripen, you would see people scoop water into their container, sterilize the water, and then put their mouth right on the rim or threads of the container to drink it. :eek:

Of course, I'm freaking out every time I see this. That was just in the water! You didn't sterilize that part! Plenty of viewer comments were about this exact same thing. The common response? It's not enough to worry about. If it bothers you, you can JUST WIPE IT OFF before you drink. o_O

My head is still exploding.
 
It really depends on your risk model, there is a big difference between crypto and e.coli, heck, in the before times a track in Australia had a cholera outbreak traced to a water-tank handle. Depending on how you use something like the steri-pen it will trap some water/bugs in the mouth of the container, away from the light. But all of the filters I've used have some place or process where you can contaminate your water if you are not being careful. It is amazing at both how resilient and how fragile some of the little critters are. Know your risk model, know who is giving info from their research team, whos giving it from the primary shareholder, and who from the legal dept.
 
There's a similarly insane procedure for using tablets: dribbling a tiny amount of the tablet water over the threads of the bottle it's in.

@#$% what? That's it?! And this is always just glossed over like it's no big deal. Um, excuse me... I have thoughts. These thoughts raise questions.

:mad:

At least with boiling, you're raising the temperature of the whole container. And yes the water acts like a heat sink, but by the time it's boiling, that's really not an issue. If the container is hot enough to burn my fingers, then I'm not going to worry about live pathogens still being on it.
 
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Odds are good that your fingernails get you sick before your water bottle. But that having been said, I'm one of the last people to tell someone to be less careful, just make sure that your risk assessment is accurate. There are four vids, they are long, but there is a lot of very accurate info in them. Start here. (for all I know, I have something drastically wrong)
 
I am an older, "eat a peck of dirt before you die" or so my grandmother taught me ... kind of farm-raised camper who values hygiene either on or off the road. When I see the exhausted 'survivor shelter' builders on youtube frying steak as dusk falls - well ... I wonder who is doing the dishes, and how?

So I am enjoying this current discussion and thought one similar in past may be of interest to some?

Camp Sink??

I was looking at some camp sinks for this coming season and dont even know where to begin. I have seen some seattle sports one which get ripped in the reviews as well as some sea to summit...which seem to do better in the reviews. Then there is also the method of cleaning...some actually boil...
www.bladeforums.com www.bladeforums.com

ps: the silica in dried horsetail and scouring rushes are a sound substitute for grit/sand
 
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