The Winehiker’s Trail Tips No. 3: Wilderness Etiquette

I seldom feel like ranting. But sometimes it’s just my turn. And I feel my turn coming on.

I don’t smoke. But even if I did, I can’t even imagine throwing my butt out the window or crushing it on the sidewalk, leaving it for some hapless animal who might be too hungry and confused to think that it might not be food. And I’ll be damned if I leave my crap for somebody else to deal with.

For me it’s the Golden Rule magnified: do unto your planet as you would have your planet do unto you. It goes without saying that if we want to stifle the life out of this planet, we can just keep on brainlessly despoiling it as we’ve been doing, then needlessly suffer the awful consequences of a looming doomsday before we’re ready to. What we need here is a fundamental and damn quick change in our collective human mentality.

Tick, tick, tick….

Yes, I’m the guy who will take trash bags with me on the trail in which to place the remnants of syphilization that I pick up out there – at least the litter I can safely reach. It’s good that there are many others like me who do the same. There’s just not enough of us yet. Meanwhile, I’m attempting to set an example out there for others; we’re trying our best to keep the planet – and each other – from devolving too much.

It also comforts me to know that still others believe in practicing leave no trace principles when hiking in the wilderness. Some principles of this leave no trace approach are not always easy to talk about, but they are tried and true, and what they suggest is easy to do.

So, what is leave no trace? It’s a guideline for reducing our impact on the environment – and therefore each other. It’s a pretty simple guideline, really:

trails. Use existing trails, and avoid cutting switchbacks. Shortcutting does not particularly save time, but more importantly, shortcutting can and will cause serious erosion problems. If you think about the route of a trail in terms of our collective impact on it over time, you’ll begin to understand why the trails are built the way they are. Next time you’re out hiking and see a trail-building crew, stop to talk to them. Ask them why they build switchbacks instead of more direct, shorter trails. You might receive an earful, but you might also develop an education and an appreciation for staying on the trail.

refuse. Pack out all garbage, litter, and extra food; leave no trace of your passing behind you. Food scraps such as eggshells, banana peels, peanut shells, and orange rinds take a long time to decompose – whether in the jungle or the desert – are eyesores to others, and just plain don’t belong where they don’t belong.

sanitation and hygiene. Good sanitation and hygiene practices in the wilderness are important to keep both you and the environment healthy. Observing these practices every time means that you stand a better chance of avoiding and not spreading sickness and infection.

do your doodie. When answering nature’s call in the wilderness, it is advisable to carry toilet paper with you on the trail and to use established latrines where available. If latrines are not available, use the cathole technique, which follows.

1. With the toe of your boot, dig a small hole in soft earth not less than 6 inches deep at least 100 feet away from all water sources, campsites, and trails.
2. Do your business.
3. Bury your business completely and make sure to pack it down tight.
4. Camouflage the site with ground cover (leaves, pine needles, etc.) so that it cannot be seen.
5. Wash your hands with a good waterless hand sanitizer. Washing your hands is especially important in the wilderness to avoid transmission of intestinal parasites.

Tip: It’s a good policy to carry toilet paper with you on the trail. It ain’t called mountain money for nothing.

There are other techniques for dealing with human waste that work better than the cathole technique, but the above is usually appropriate for wilderness areas that don’t receive inordinately high traffic (such as the Mt. Whitney Trail). For information about these other techniques, I recommend the Leave No Trace website.

wash up. Soap is not generally known to occur naturally, so when using soap in the wilderness, it is important to make sure that you minimize its impact on local ecosystems. To that end, the following tips will help to minimize the environmental impact of lathering up:

minimize use. The best way to lower the environmental impact of using soap is to limit the amount that you use. Makes sense, right?

use biodegradable soap. When water is available for washing purposes, use only soap that is biodegradable and therefore designed to break down quickly into nontoxic forms. It is a good idea to use biodegradable soap for all daily purposes, since it all goes back into the environment whether you are at home or in the wilderness.keep away from water sources. When you use soap, make sure that you do it at least 200 feet from any water source to limit the amount of soap that enters the water. This rule applies to pouring soap out as well. Soap needs time to break down as it leaches through the soil.

don’t use it. Look at the alternatives to using soap in the wilderness. You can use baby wipes, alcohol-based sanitizers, or sand and water.

Tip: Consider carrying an antibacterial gel product such as PureTouch that instantly kills germs without requiring water.

trail etiquette. Part of caring for the environment is caring for each other. When it comes to hiking on single- or multi-use trails – that is, trails shared by horses, bicycles, and hikers – bicycles must yield to hikers and equestrians; hikers must yield to equestrians.

The previous sentence is the stated rule, but in my experience, hikers are safer when they yield to bicycles. Plus, I’ve repeatedly found that when traversing a hillside on single-track trail, hikers should know to step to the uphill side of the trail when a bicycle approaches. Getting hit by a bike, then, can mean falling a short distance against the hillside. But that’s a lot better than a tumble downslope with a hard landing and somebody’s bike on top of you. When a bicycle approaches, your hike leader, trail sweeper (that fellow hiker in the rear) or tour guide should call out “Rider up!” or “Rider back!,” depending on the riders’ approaching direction, to signal all hikers to step to the uphill side of the trail.

Because there are numerous single-track trails in the California wine country that are prime territory for hikers and bikers, it pays to know how to react in time, and often in unison, to the often-sudden approach of a mountain bike from around that next blind turn in the trail.

tread lightly. “Take only pictures, leave only footprints.”

I believe we all can adopt these simple leave no trace practices wherever we go, wilderness and doomsday scenarios notwithstanding. By following these wilderness etiquette guidelines when we’re in the wilderness – and even when we’re not – we’ll each be more confident of the notion that we can someday show our friends and our children how well they can do unto the many wondrous landscapes that we’ve got every reason to respect.

Also see:

• The Winehiker’s Trail Tips No. 1: Basic Hiking Gear
• The Winehiker’s Trail Tips No. 2: Optional Hiking Gear

~winehiker

Related posts:

• The Winehiker’s Trail Tips No. 1: Basic Gear
• The Winehiker’s Trail Tips No. 2: Optional Hiking Gear
• Solipsistic Saturday links

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 5:41 pm and is filed under grape squeezins, winehiker's trails. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.