It hasn’t happened often, actually only once a coupla years ago. Luckily I was doing a river day hike with 20 other hikers.
All of a sudden at 2pm or somewhere around there out of nowhere my gut dropped like an anchor into my bum in 2 millseconds. I stopped walking. My eyes were huge. I thought Whatdafuq? There’s millions of people all around me.
I pretended to do up my shoelace and wait for everyone to overtake me in the river. Luckily we were walking upstream.
The 2nd everyone was out of sight I dropped my pants right there in the river and went down and did my business.
I got away with it, thank heavens. It hasn’t hit me again like that before but it has always been on my mind since then. Hence I do not do hikes with too much food, and I also choose my food and snacks wisely. Not nibbling on a kilo of dried out fruit if you know what I mean.
Anyone else had Near death scares in the public and how did you handle it?
Well done, you spread e-coli into the stream, amongst other things…Disgusting.
The rule is to do it no less than 50m from any water. To bury it no less than 15cm from the surface, within the top 50cm, where living microbes will effectively break your waste down.
Sorry guys, yes I do realize the 50metre rule. Like I said I froze in a nanosecond and didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t move.
The good news is I have never had this again and have always been careful what I pack for the day hiking ahead.
This now makes me think of something very important. What does everyone do on the Fish River Canyon Hike? It is a constant move of hikers every single day. What does everyone do? I have watched plenty of YouTube vids on this trek but no one ever speaks of personal hygeine.
For those that have done the Fish River Canyon for 5 or 6 days what tips can you share? It’s gonna be awkward digging up yesterdays persons business on the trail.
Please don’t burn toilet paper - the last two fires in the Cederberg were caused by hikers trying to burn their toilet paper. Just carry your used toilet paper out with you in a separate trash bag - I’ve been doing it for a few years now and really not as gross as it sounds. Only thing that stays behind is natural human waste, which gets broken down fairly quickly.
…up to a year, depending on biological matter in soil, ie sand will be slower than a forest floor.
Also, though the process of abluting is natural what you bring to the environment is not. An animal living there eats there and so the microbiota is contained within a loop. Human microbiota is alien and may even contain heavy metals. What is considered pathogenic can at its simplest be merely foreign. Animals also traverse a landscape differently to us. Generally our faeces is deemed far more toxic. Though empirical research is mainly around human waste vs that of livestock.
did you walk like a stick man double clamping the valve to stay SHUT
