I’d found the perfect meadow in which to “dispersed camp”. I planned to return immediately but a few weeks passed. The last week of the delay had been the worst; a complete meat grinder. By the time I finally headed out, I was hardly in a spry mood.
To further complicate things, my preparations hadn’t been entirely successful. I’m incrementally and cautiously leveling up my camping gear and skills. Someday I’ll be prepped and confident enough to ride out a blizzard on a glacier in Greenland (I exaggerate but less than you’d think). That’s a tall order so I’m moving slowly. Winter “dispersed” camping (which I did in my youth but that’s a long time ago) takes more skill than a State Park in July. Equipment helps (my hot tent is awesome) but that’s just one piece of the puzzle.
I’d planned an alternate vehicle to the trusty Dodge (which is a fine 4×4 for farm chores but too damn huge and unwieldy for deep excursions into the season of snow). The alternative didn’t work out. It’s been down for WEEKS and there’s nothing I can do about it. These things take time. (I’ll post about the alternative vehicle when it’s actually running… unless I don’t.) For the moment, I’ll just keep using the Dodge. It might become an issue in true winter but it’s fine for autumn.
Other details loomed and I wasn’t sure what I’d do about them either. The meadow I’d targeted for dispersed camping had waist high grass. How would that interact with a hot tent? I’ve zipped out the tent’s floor. How would a floorless tent work in deep grass? I still have the floor and keep it in the tent bag. Should I re-install it? I wasn’t sure. There are pros and cons to fabric floors. This is especially true when you’re playing with different surfaces like ice and snow.
If you’re thinking there’s no drawback to a zipped in floor, it’s because you’re thinking in theory but nor reality; or limiting yourself to summertime camping on designated tent sites. It’s a whole different ballgame when you start melting into the ice… or “dispersed camping” in deep grass.
Another thought was the lack of an outhouse. [WARNING: Scary details about being outdoors follows. If you like the outdoors only in terms of the Ansel Adams commemorative calendar you hang on the eggshell white walls your urban condo… run! Skip this part and wait for the subsequent posts which deal with more palatable issues, like man’s relationship with the almighty and the concept of organized religion versus individual spirituality; you know… the lighthearted stuff.]
At the most basic level, the lack of an outhouse is no big deal. Bring a shovel (or don’t) and do like the bears. I’ve done that for years. (Since I’m “truck camping” I’d tossed a long handled round pointed shovel in the truck bed. Why not have the best shovel for the job?)
However, I plan to “level up” with my camping. First to camping on full frozen ground and (eventually) lake ice. It’s a pita to batter a “cat hole” into frozen ground, and you can’t simply shit on lake ice! (Well, I mean you could but it’s socially unacceptable. Even in our modern fraying society, there are some things that simply aren’t done.)
The solution is simple enough. Two years ago I bought a “Luggable Loo” (that’s the name brand). The “loo” is nothing special. It’s a 5 gallon bucket (a nice high quality one) with a toilet seat & lid. The concept ain’t rocket science.
At the time I was a little embarrassed to have spent real American dollars on a special bucket when could just grab one from the barn. I’ve got a zillion buckets I’ve been using for chicken feed or whatever. However, there’s cheapskate and there’s stupid. I think it’s sound logic that once you take a dump in a bucket, the bucket has no other legitimate use for all eternity. I’m not going to re-use a dump bucket for the chicken feed. Nor do I want to approach every bucket in the barn as if it has a biological IED within. I wanted a discrete, special purpose, can’t be confused with farm materials, bucket. I have standards!
Even on the drive to camp I decided the “investment” was worth it. The lid is handy! It clamps down firmly and it’s either watertight or nearly so. I can (and did) toss it in the back of the truck and ignore it. It won’t blow open at 70MPH or have 6″ of stagnant rainwater within when you need it.
Further, the seat is non-trivial. It’s not great but it’s more than a tree stump. What man is so fiscally constrained that they deny themselves the luxury of a seat? Doth one’s buttocks not merit at least some comfort?
Not rocket science but worth having.
In addition to the “Luggable Loo” (affectionately and accurately called “the shitbucket”) I bought a 10 pack of Double Bag Toilet Waste Bags (affectionately and accurately called “shitbags”).
These aren’t ordinary bags and they cost more that ordinary bags. You’re talking $2.50 a pop!
They have some sort of chemical voodoo which the marketing blurb calls “a biodegradable powder that instantly turns any liquid into a gel“. This might be the sort of thing that’s more important for women? Men who are out camping aren’t putting anything liquid in the shitbucket. They mark their territory willy nilly. (See what I did there?) As for the other 53 sexes, they got bigger problems than camping logistics.
The second feature of the expensive bags is that each bag is two; a bag within a bag. At first that seemed gimmicky but as I write this (well after the campout itself) they impress me. When you seal it the thing it’s like a vault. Not stinky or yucky. If used properly, the bucket is nearly sterile when you’re done. If you’re going to be carrying the ultimate icky thing, double bagging is worth it.
Inner bag exposed.
Outer bag sealed so tight it’s like you’re storing it for future generations.
So yeah, that’s all TMI and also a moment of weakness in that I spent more than the minimum needed for equipment. But I have no regrets. All in all, it was worth it.*
One last note: outdoor equipment must be tested. If you’re doing stuff and you haven’t done that particular thing with that particular gear in that particular environment, do a little experimentation before it’s mission critical. Things never work exactly like you’d predict.
Back to the story…
Unfortunately, my timing was a disaster and I never got that extra time I’d allocated to testing and unforeseen issues. I intended to arrive around noon. I failed. I got to the meadow an hour before sunset!
Showing up at noon would give me hours to figure out if I did or did not want a zipped in tent floor. I wanted time to experiment with grass management techniques. Ignore it? Stomp it down? Throw down a tarp? Should I bring a gas weedwhacker? Remember, this is a hot-tent. There would be a wood stove on top of the dry grass and it would be inside the tent.
Nobody wants a grass fire inside a fabric tent! (OK, the subsequent blog post would be epic… assuming I survive. But that’s the only positive I can imagine.)
An early arrival would also give me time to test my little electric chainsaw. I’d cut up a righteous pile of fuel from the nearby logging slash.
That’s how things go from “no big deal” to “somewhat chaotic”. With my new tent and an unknown surface and other gear slated for testing and a cold moonless night coming up, things were not “dire” but they were approaching “interesting”. Maybe the word isn’t “dire” or “interesting”. How about “sub-optimal”? Regardless, I was behind the eight ball before I even started.
Then came a huge plot twist. More on this in the next post…
A.C.
*One last note: two years ago I purchased a Luggable Loo for $19.99 and the 10 pack of Double Bag Toilet Waste Bags for $21.99. (At the time I was pissed off that 10 bags cost more than a whole bucket!) Now the $22 bags now go for $26 and the $20 shitbucket now goes for $45 (!!!!). Just like there’s two consecutive quarters of declining GDP and the press tries to find words other than “recession”, I suppose we can describe a 125% increase in the cost of a shitbucket as something other than “inflation”. As always YMMV.
Forgive me, but I had to chuckle.
It’s ‘amusing’ that such a basic, universal, occurrence remains almost taboo, so much so I’ve grown to ‘judge’ (accurately) the experience of my fellow outdoorsmen by whether or not they have their own trowel (a real ‘old hand’ is one who remembers the baby-wipes, whilst total newbs have to have the ‘techniques’ explained – I favour one-handed tree holding myself when an option, although the ‘ski-pole lean’ is OK too when nothing else is available … not being flexible enough any more just to squat, well not without having to call for assistance to get back up again afterwards and possibly/probably requiring medical treatment too).
Winter it becomes a non-trivial and somewhat more important and difficult proposition (my Arktis salopettes with the zip open ‘rear’ have caused many a guffaw … until a call of nature occurs in the middle of a blizzard and/or its well into negative numbers. “No, I may be team medic but I am ‘not’ checking it for frostbite”). Certain assumptions about ‘composting’ need to be re-evaluated in arctic/sub-arctic (and high mountains) too – explaining how ‘spreading’ is required is always a ‘difficult’ conversation.
Over here the ‘gold standard’ buckets are those made for ‘carp fishing’, and so I (of course) purchased a top of the line (with quilted insulated seat to prevent the chilly morning shock to the system. Jealous?). Bags remain costly but you can DIY with double small trash bags and “water crystals/powder” (I buy mine in bulk from a local florists or plant nursery) as reserve/back-ups.
Wait! Did you say quilted insulated seat? Holy cow, I need to find out about that!
I agree that wilderness crapping is the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of experience. Speaking of which, if it’s the old hand who knows about baby wipes what’s the level that knows that they suck when they freeze? Also, since I’ve been camping near my truck I got in the habit of bringing a full size shovel and man is that great. (The little trowel is now relegated to backpacks, canoes, my little sailboat, or the dirt bike.)
I’ll check out the flower shop crystals. I know some of them can be handy fire starting devices. It’s been a while since I had one hanging around but I think ethylene glycol will set them off. (That’s the old kind of engine coolant.)
I still haven’t camped on the final frontier, which for me is remote lake ice. I’m not much of an ice fisherman so I’ll have to start from scratch. I got inspired when I realized my new tent could serve as an ice shelter. Ice fishermen know all the good ways to stay alive in very bad conditions… and they seem to enjoy it too.
If the Bidenites succeed and drive plastic double doggy bags and the rest of civilisation’s benefits into oblivion, consider a composting toilet. The manufactured ones can get ridiculously expensive, but the principle is simple and you have the components already. A little research and ingenuity will save the day.
A couple of years ago I had a side gig renovating a forest cabin. The owner was a hipster homo and he and his clan simply shat in buckets and flung it into the blueberry patches. Soon after getting to work I built a proper latrine with a seat, paper roll and shelf for disinfectant wipes. It was the Tarp Taj Mahal of off grid pooping. The female visitors were duly impressed. The homos were ambivalent, but perhaps because the latrine trench was suspiciously large enough to dispose of them as well, they kept stumm. The filthy sodomites also snaffled the blueberries I’d harvested from the now undefiled berry patches, so I drank all their booze.
My brother and I built an outdoor outhouse out of pallets with 4×4 corners and plywood hinged door at the ranch. It is also used for taking showers. About a 4′ square concrete slab, with standard 5 gallon bucket. We hook plastic shopping bags across the opening for the contents, and double bag them after tying them closed. We’re pretty cheap but it appears to work.
Surplus wag bags in bulk may be a bit cheaper, if you plan on multiple excursions.
If you don’t have the water crystals a handful or 2 of sawdust will work in a pinch. You mentioned sawing firewood nearby so bingo instant free sawdust.