This is How God Wants You to Poop (Outside)

I updated THIS chart from LNT to be theologically accurate.

Let’s talk about poop. Pooping is this totally normal thing that we do. I’m no scientist but my understanding is that after we eat food, it turns to moosh in our bodies as the healthy bits (or unhealthy bits) go into our bones and muscles and stuff. The leftover moosh builds up until we can’t take it anymore and we push it out our buttholes. We all do it. You might be doing it right now. 

Working as a backpacking guide in Colorado, I literally got paid to talk about poop. Taking a group of thirteen teenagers on a multi-day trip in the woods means they’re going to poop. It was my job to teach them how to do it responsibly. The normal range for daily pooping is from three times a day to once every three days. So let’s say the average person poops once a day. Thirteen teenagers plus four adults backpacking for five nights equals 85 poops, give or take. 

*insert Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park clip*

Nobody likes to talk about poop or pooping because of another science thingy: the psychological impulse of disgust. Once the thing — the poop — has been removed from our bodies it is other. It’s set apart and its set a part-ness makes it foul and icky. Unclean. This makes sense. Human communities are living things that must necessarily make boundaries between clean and unclean. This is good and practical. For example, you shouldn’t eat egg salad made on the back of a toilet in a truck stop bathroom. The impulse of separating clean and unclean is an ancient one. 

(SIDEBAR: This desire for purity is a good one. The danger comes when we start making distinctions between “clean” and “unclean” people. Please don’t do this. In the Gospels, we repeatedly see Jesus blurring the boundaries between clean and unclean through his table fellowship with tax collectors and prostitutes. Please do that.)

One of my favorite weird biblical texts is an obscure commandment made in Deuteronomy 23:12-14. Here, God sets the regulations for the proper method for disposing of the Israelites’ poop during a military campaign. 

"You shall have a designated area outside the camp to which you shall go. With your utensils you shall have a trowel; when you relieve yourself outside, you shall dig a hole with it and then cover up your excrement. Because the Lord your God travels along with your camp, to save you and to hand over your enemies to you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you."

These banal and mundane requirements of hygiene cloaked in theological language make practical good sense when large numbers of men are living close together in hastily-built and ill-protected conditions. In fact, modern outdoorsy-types familiar with proper Leave No Trace principles will recognize the most widely accepted LNT practice of waste disposal: the cat hole method (LNT Principle 3). For those taking notes, here’s a side-by-side comparison: 

Two out of three ain't bad. 

Although hygiene is the most obvious objective of proper poop disposal, Gerhard von Rad, Walter Brueggemann, and J.G. McConville all assert that the real underpinning behind the ancient Near Eastern Leave No Trace method is holiness. Holiness is, after all, the proper habitat of God. According to these scholars, the rules outlined in Deuteronomy 23.12-14 are determined by the cultic and ritual assumptions of primitive peoples. The cultic ritual is a precondition for Israel’s military success. 

But I'd argue that the rationale is not entirely cultic, nor is it totally about public health. It's somewhere in between. Actually, the whole reason is rather pedestrian. Let’s take a closer look at v. 14. It reads, “Because the LORD your God travels along with your camp…” Or in Hebrew: מִתְהַלֵּךְ בְקֶרֶב מַחֲנֶךָ or “God paces/walks with your camp.” See? Pedestrian. Israel must go outside the camp, dig a hole, and bury it is because God doesn’t want to step in their poop. 

What’s truly astonishing to me is that throughout the long editorial process of compiling what would become the Hebrew Bible, the ancient Israelites felt compelled to include this in their holy scriptures. The proper disposal of one's poop is enshrined forever in the 613 mitzvot. Perhaps you find it a bit nutty to consider what this ancient text and these pre-scientific people did or thought. Perhaps you fancy yourself a modern man, you're thinking, "I don't derive my ethics from ancient narratives, I get my morality from corporations like Amazon and Netflix." Yes, you're very sophisticated. 

Dismissing ancient wisdom just because you have an iPhone is insane. Instead, maybe do the work of finding principles within the Law and making application in a different setting and context? It adds flexibility to a law and allows it to find meaning when the particular circumstances of a law have changed. You can see how this can be helpful not just for pooping outside but also, for example: debt and loaning on interest, which is the paradigmatic evil in the Old Testament. 

"Literalism is the lowest form of meaning."

Or you can roll your eyes all you want at these ancient “primitives.” But I bet if we had more folks think about what they did with their poop as thoroughly as the ancient Israelites, you wouldn’t wander off into the woods at Foster Falls and find a big ol’ pile of human excrement twenty-feet away from a popular sport climb. Yes, we're very sophisticated these days.  

So next time you're out in the woods and you have to take a dump, ask yourself what would ancient Israel do? God doesn’t want to step in poo and neither should you. So please, for God’s sake, leave no trace.

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The 5 Worst Kinds of People at the Crag

Josh at an empty crag near Chattanooga

It's hard to have the crag to yourself these days. That's okay. But there's no denying that our cliffs and boulders are seeing more people than ever before and climbing's ever-growing popularity has changed the landscape of the sport, sometimes literally. I'm increasingly and un-inronically convinced that the most ecologically responsible thing a climber can do is quit climbing. But nobody's going to do that. So whether you're headed to Ten Sleep or the New River this summer, there are lots of climbers out there and there's some that you should avoid and avoid being like.

5. The Bluetoothers & Hammockers

There are worse people on this list but the Bluetoothers and Eno Hammockers are my personal least favorite. These easy to spot (and hear) user groups are likely young granola types from the local university's outdoor club and they treat the outdoors like their campus's green space: bright colored hammocks strewed about with electronic toilet-noise music blasting loudly. Nobody likes your music. Nobody likes mine either. This is a forest/cliff/desert/mountain, not a chill hang-out spot to vibe with your friends. Leave your boombox and hammocks at home.

4. The Screamers & Wobblers

One time, my friend Julia and I went to the Obed for a day trip with a couple from Nashville. Julia and I were not a couple. In fact, I spent the whole drive talking about my friend Eli and now Julia and Eli are married (a point I did not neglect to mention when I officiated their wedding). Both members of that couple were strong climbers with even stronger personalities. They spent the entire day arguing about route choice, screaming about beta differences, yelling at each other about belay catches, and throwing humongous hissy fits when they did not send. Except for Julia, I never climbed with those people ever again. 

 

I understand being frustrated with bad climbing or bad belaying or obnoxious beta spraying but yelling, fit pitching, and temper tantruming (otherwise known as a "wobbler") is inexcusable behavior when other people are at the cliff. 

 

I also find screaming while trying hard a particularly annoying crag occurrence. There is some evidence that it helps with the send but it is really about the short, powerful exhalation -- not the noise. My friend Josh is a great example of a strong climber who exhales with purpose, rather than screams like a banshee. Noise pollution comes in many forms. Keep it down...

Cora and Josh being good land users AAA Crag in the U.P. Michigan

3. The Sandbaggers & Beta Sprayers

Everybody knows these guys -- usually guys -- and the Venn-Diagram of sandbaggers and beta sprayers is quite large. Sandbaggers undersell the difficulty of an objective while Beta Sprayers give unsolicited advice about how to accomplish the objective. Maybe you have had a conversation like this:

me: hey, we're looking for [5.8 hand crack in a dihedral].

Sandbagger: oh, you should totally get on this [5.10c overhanging splitter finger crack]

or like this: 

me: *falling off difficult-for-me boulder problem and not asking for help*

Beta Sprayer: bro! you gotta hand-heel match, then cross, then throw for the lip!

Both, Sandbagger and Beta Sprayer, are so plagued by their own ego that they feel the need to spray or "word vomit" all the information and not-so-humble brag they can muster to anyone in earshot. Everybody begrudgingly listens but nobody actually likes them. Don't be one of them.

2. The Non-Hole Digging or Wagbagging Woods Poopers

I'm not quite a crusty trad-dad yet, but I have been climbing long enough to see how climbing's growing popularity has caused growing pains at our local crags. Nothing demonstrates this more than the proverbial minefields of human feces that surround our most popular cliffs. I haven't climbed at Foster Falls in years (I refuse to anymore), but even a few years ago you couldn't wander into the woods to pee without stumbling on, what the Access Fund calls, "toilet paper flowers." AKA "flowers" or piles of soiled toilet paper erupting from the earth. Do we even need to talk about how reprehensible this is? 

It's gotten so bad that WAG-bags -- special bags you poop in and carry out -- are being implemented at southeastern crags, like Deep Creek. These bags were once reserved for delicate desert and alpine environs but increased use and impact at southern climbing destinations has necessitated them. Fun.

1. The Dangerously Stupid Help Rejecters

I watched a climber deck at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch. It was from the first bolt so it wasn't as bad as it could have been but I'm pretty sure he was going home with bruised or broken heels that evening. After we checked on him, to our dismay, he started up the route again! This time, when he struggled at the first bolt, he put his finger through the hanger in desperation. We let out a collective, "NOOOO!" and offered to spot him for a downclimb and let us stick clip it, if he was still committed to the route. He rejected our help and we packed up and hightailed out of there because we didn't want to scoop up brains that afternoon. 

We were all gumbies at some point. I had a few helpful mentors along the way but I am very much a self-taught climber. I've built anchors I'm ashamed of and I've done things that have caused me traumatic flashbacks about how I could have died or severely injured myself. One thing I've always appreciated is when a more experienced climber offered me a teaching moment in a kind, helpful way. 

Pride, ego, and insecurity combined with stupidity is a dangerous concoction. Be humble. And when the visibly ignorant are openly recalcitrant, it's probably just best to pack your gear and move on.

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On Pooping Your Pants Outside

In the summer of my twenty-third year, I pooped my pants in Sunshine Canyon, Colorado. Eight years later, I can take you to the exact spot it happened, to the exact place I buried my underwear in shame.  

A few years ago, my friend Paul and I were hiking to climb at the Obed and discussing the lyrics of Ice Cube’s “Good Day” when somewhere along the way the discussion turned to pooping your pants. I recounted my experience in Colorado: my first real cross-country climbing trip with my friend Kyle. He was a vegan and I was not but to keep our budget reasonable we shared his diet for a few weeks. Of course, if you’ve ever made the transition to a totally plant-based diet you know that your bowels will take some adjusting. Mine did exactly that one evening after a very bean-y dinner. I reared back (as one does) and forced out what was supposed to be a hilarious fart. Except, it was more. It was a lot more. And I waddled off into the dark and dug a shallow grave for my underpants.

Most people think of pooping your pants as a bimodal probability across one’s lifespan, as an inverse bell curve: babies poop their pants and old people poop their pants. But, according to Paul, pooping your pants is a multimodal probability — not just for infants and the elderly. 

There must be some account for people who spend a lot of time in the woods. It would appear that another “peak” or “local maxima” should be added to our graph for the potty-trained aged outdoor folks who, for one reason or another, have their own muddy butt stories. Whether the inability to dig a hole fast enough, a beany vegan diet, or giardia, take it from professional rock climber Jason Kruk who reminded all of us about the statistical probability of pooping your pants when he said, “It’s just an odds thing, really.”

Here are some stories shared by friends, whose names have been redacted or changed (to characters from Gilligan's Island), where the odds were definitely not in their favor. They are posted here in solidarity with all those with similar stories, for educational purposes and, of course, a good laugh. You may notice a recurring theme of burying one's underwear in the woods. This is not LNT and should be avoided at all costs. Learn from us.

On Giardia or "Beaver Fever"

“Summit day, the first week of July. Two weeks prior, I’d come down from the summit with an inner-city group from Houston and three kids had run out of water so I gave them all of mine. I grabbed Ginger’s water bottle and started chugging before she told me that she had not purified it yet.

Two weeks to the day, I felt it stirring and had 10 seconds before I had to go. I went 55 times in 10 days and lost 14 pounds.

By the end of it, I got so sick of water and crackers, that I chugged a Coke. It shot through my system in 35 seconds and came out carbonated. In my pants. Still smelled like Coke.” 

On Our First Backpacking Trip 

"The most memorable was with you. The first time we used my water filter, we had forgotten to flush it out before using it. The first bottle was filled with purple water, black specks, and being young and dumb, I drank it. Since the system was now "flushed," your bottle was just fine. But I had to cut my man panties off and bury them in the woods. Then I stuffed my extra underwear in my pants to soak up the diarrhea that kept leaking out my butt while we hiked. Thanks for the memories!”  

The Text Message that Inspired this Post

"Me and Mary Ann went on a breakfast date this morning and stopped at the skateboard park. I skated around it once and destroyed my pants. Like an explosion of diarrhea in my jeans. I had to strip naked in a parking lot and just throw my underwear away." 

On Inadequate Wiping Opportunities

“Well not as much 'pooped the pants' but I had diarrhea at the top of the big hill at Radnor. I barely made it off the side of the trail and I dropped trousers just in time. But there was nothing good to wipe with. So I had muddy butt the rest of the hike back to my truck.”

On IBS and Possible Divine Judgment 

The following comes from a phone conversation with my friend Gilligan: “You know I have more poop in your pants stories than you could ever handle. If you ever write a second edition and it’s not in the woods, I have some amazing stories but I did poop my pants in the woods hardcore once…”

“I can’t remember what mountain I was guiding but I was with The Professor and Mr. Howell. I left them with the kids at high camp, I snuck out and hiked to the truck and drove into Buena Vista, which we're not supposed to do, and I go to K's Dairy Delite and get hamburgers and milkshakes..."

“I have IBS, I don’t know if you know this but I’m lactose intolerant and have irritable bowel syndrome and a spastic colon so that’s a good detail. And of course, I load up on ice cream and cheeseburgers and the whole deal...”

“So I’m trying to be sneaky and I’m hiking back off trail and I remember my daypack is full of burgers and I’m in the middle of nowhere, like this big field with tall grass and nothing else and I had to fart, so I just let it out and I diarrhea’d everywhere.”

"I’m in the middle of nowhere: no leaves, no toilet paper, no wipes, nothing. I wiped with clumps of grass — think about that — and then sacrificed my t-shirt. And I just left it. It was destroyed and I littered. It was not good... For me, it's the textures: my hairy legs, the runny poop, my merino socks, the clumps of grass, and the smell of burgers. I returned to high camp shirtless and covered in poop and nobody ate the burgers."

Have your own story to tell? Leave it in the comments and take full advantage of the anonymity of the internet. 

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5 Ways to Poop With Your Ice Ax

"The ice ax and skill in its use allow climbers to venture onto all forms of snow and ice, enjoying greater variety of mountain terrain during all seasons of the year." - Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills

The ice ax is among the most basic and essential of climbing equipment. It has helped mountaineers reach their summits since the nineteenth century and by 1889 the tool was heralded by the Italian Alpine Club as an "inseparable companion of the mountaineer."

As mountain guides working in the summer months on mostly non-technical mountains with teenagers, passer-byers often ask us why we have ice axes on our packs. Yes, it is true we are required to carry them in the early months for emergency glissading; but also, and perhaps more importantly, because they are valuable pooping posture facilitators.

"The ice ax, an inherently simple tool, has many uses," says Freedom of the Hills but what it does not include in its bountiful purposes is taking a dump. The ice ax is perfectly -- though inadvertently -- designed for disposing human waste according to Leave No Trace's cathole method.

First, we must reevaluate the anatomy of the ice ax. The adze is more than adequate for chopping through hard ground and digging a 6-8 inch cathole while the pick or the spike help stabilize the practitioner and find solid ground no matter what angle terrain they find themselves in. If you are one to carry toilet paper with you, the shaft is an excellent toilet paper dispenser. Just make sure you pack it out.

Here are five ways your ice ax can enhance your high country pooping experience.

1. The Standard AKA "The Tug and Poop": This is the "standard route" of using the ice ax as a toiletry tool. Dig your cat hole with the adze, turn the ax around and thrust the pick into the ground. Grab and squat with your pooper over the hole and let it rip.

"welcome to my woods."

2. The Harley Davidson: This method is perhaps the most effective but only below tree line. After preparing your poo receptacle, simply wrap your ax around a sturdy, stable tree and hold on like you're on a fat hog and let her ride.

"hey girl, where yo aspen?"

3. The Jackhammer: Soft ground? Jab the spike into the ground and grab the head (pick and adze) like a jackhammer and pound that poop out.

"mmm, corn!"

4. The Throne: Feeling frisky? Situate your ax like the jackhammer but instead of grabbing on, plant your posterior on the pick and adze and let it drop 60 to 70 cm to its target. It is very, very important that you aim well and sit far enough back that you don't crap on your shaft.

"Robin, you look like a woodland nymph when pooping." - Jamie

5. The Dangleberry: Feeling even friskier? Dig your cathole and dangle over the target area from a select and sturdy tree branch.

Note: select your branch carefully

Special thanks to the lovely ladies of Wilderness Expeditions, Robin and Jamie, for modeling.

The Best Outdoor Pooping Experience Ever

the best outdoor toilet there ever was.

After a life of family hiking trips, I started backpacking with my best friend as soon as we could drive. Every weekend we would backpack Torreya State Park, "The Mountains of Florida," on the the high bluffs along the Appalachicola River; so much so, we got sick of it. Then we made a copy of the key to the same friend's church's trailer of canoes and started taking long paddling trips on Florida's scenic rivers. Not once did I ever poop outside. 

I wasn't scared of dropping deuces in the woods, though Deliverance didn't help. And I wasn't grossed out by wiping with leaves. I just preferred the comfort of my own toilet, my own toilet paper, reading material, and privacy. I could hold it for a weekend.

Until one time on the Wacissa River the weight of the world dropped in my stomach while portaging through Slave Canal. There was no waiting this one out. This wasn't prairie dogging, this was a raging black bear charging through my digestive tract.

And at that moment, at a safe distance from any water source, I became a man.

Pooping in the woods is a rite of passage. In an instant one may go from discomforted dayhiker to liberated mountain lover. As made evident from a recent post, it only takes a few nights outdoors for even the most insecure nature newcomer to embrace their ancestral instinct and be completely open about it.

You can google "how to poop in the woods" and get more than 3,890,000 search results. And aside from some important Leave No Trace principles, it just seems a bit ridiculous. Are we that far removed from our ancestral roots that we can't put 2 and 2 together to take a #2 sans toilet?

Our ancestors pooped au naturale. Our human brothers and sisters across the globe still wipe with corn cobs and river stones. Yet we won't talk about it unless it's in an off color birthday card and middle school boys won't even admit that girls do it. Our indifference to pooping outside forces the question, "Are we not human?"

I hope then we shall answer, "Nay! We are mountaineers! Dirtbags and trailrunners! Climbers and kayakers!"

Let us celebrate the fact that we can crap amongst the pines and the hemlocks while the rest of Western Civilization poops anxiously in dimly lit public restrooms.

Let us celebrate that we can defecate serenaded by cicadas and frogs and the distant sound of streams while our classmates and coworkers listen in on noisy stall neighbors, on phone calls and flatulences and explosive diarrhea.

Let us celebrate that we can drop a load surrounded by mountains while friends and family settle for wet seats, hemorrhoids, and single ply toilet paper.

Let us then speak the good news of pooping in woods! Let us tear down the social constructs of lavatory amenities! Let us share the liberating power of backcountry pooping!

The best excretion experience I had in the backcountry was somewhere in Sunshine Canyon outside Boulder, Colorado. If you follow Mapleton Avenue out of town, up the mountain meandering through the mountain community of Gold Hill and then down the canyon, you'll find yourself in the solitude of the foothills of the Rockies. It is truly lovely.

In the half-light of morning, coffee brewing on the tailgate of the truck, I wondered down the hill, shovel in hand to find a fabulously fallen tree resting perpendicular with the ground at an angle prime for squatting. Small limbs broken off over time made an actual toilet paper roll. An eight inch cat hole purposely placed for perfect aim, a mountain vista, the cool breeze on my posterior, the Stephanie Davis memoir, High Infatuation and I was in poopoo heaven. It was like MTV Cribs meets Little House on the Prairie.

I didn't want it to end.

Any attempt to articulate in words this majestic experience would be an understatement. So allow this picture to suffice:

Let us celebrate our forested fecal fertilizations!

What's your story? What's your best or favorite outdoor crap tale?