When nature calls/How to crap in Indian Himalayas?

I need to know more about this thread ...! Hilarious Name .

Em, now to think of it, I guess yes.

Aye! We Americans are skilled at both crapping in the woods and taking a crap, while somehow leaving it behind. We're like Houdini that way.

On the subject of making like a bear and crapping in the woods, there is good advice in this thread that can be summed up as:

• No, a tiger is not going to eat you, so go ahead.
• Choose a spot that will not have traffic.
• Choose a spot at least 30m from any water. Your business can become Giardiasis for someone otherwise.
• Either burn your TP or properly bury everything. Burying is better as everything disappears that way.

For fans of "how-to" videos: http://www.howcast.com/videos/429392...-while-Camping

Throwing this issue on the table cause I went through serious brain-raking handling this last year during the Guptkhal expedition.

"How do you relieve yourself in the night, when its snowing bad outside the tent and you are on one of those vast sub-zero snow fields in the High Himalayas? " :-)

Hmmm... I guess the expression tough shit had to have come from somewhere .

How to crap in Indian Himalayas? hmmmm.. how do they do it in Nepal Himalayas?

A related question is the disposal of the product. The venerable Himalayan Club conducted a survey on this and some other topics in 1994 and 1995, the limited findings of which appeared in an article with the imposing title Protecting the Himalayan environment in the Himalayan Journal. The article has a section titled `Toilets at High Altitudes,' which concludes with the words Awesome. Also, I guess most of us who travel in the Himalaya do only that, `just survive.' However, in a trek last month near the Nanda Devi Outer Sanctuary, I saw a toilet tent being used in Lata Kharak by one of the the groups with foreigners. I forgot to ask how they disposed of its contents. Probably dumped nearby.

Raghu.

This year in March I was in Chile camping on a glacier as part of a Leave no Trace program..

following are some tips from my side..

1.) Use toilet paper.. cold water is a horrid experience!!!
2.) Burn your toilet paper (better then just burying it.. since toilet paper takes over a month to decompose).. Keep a good lighter handy.. coz low temperatures and high winds can screw the regular lighters.. just imagine the situation -- u poo in 2 mins but spend 15 mins burning the toilet paper ;-)
3.) Instead of digging a hole, find a rock somewhere and poo on top of it.. and then find another small rock and smear all your poo.. This helps in decomposing the poo faster once the sun comes out and shines on the rock
4.) Hand-sanitizer -- Absolute must!!!
5.) We had all the above 3 items i.e. Toilet Paper, Lighter, and Sanitizer in one zip-loc that we called "Shit-kit"!!

Apart from the above, vko has given some great tips!! esp. the one about shitting away from the water sources.. very very important..

just my 2 cents

Nice tip!
Time to get my own "Shit-Kit"

11) "Wet Wipes" man do they feel nice used them at -2 deg and worked like a charm only thing to worry about is that you should use them when you are done with the Toilet Paper coz well it'll freeze up your nether regions butt(pun intended) well the clean feeling is worth it !!

'bump'
gotta keep this thread going!!

Pasting from http://www.hitthetrail.com/backcountry-etiquette
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Dig a hole about 6″ deep, commonly called a “cat-hole.” (For the best trowel I have found for backpacking, check out my blog post “MontBell’s Handy Scoop Gets a Thumbs Up.”) Do your business, cover the feces with soil removed from the hole, and return the looks of the area to normal as much as possible. The reason for using a shallow hole is because soil is biologically active within the top six inches. Naturally-occurring bacteria assists in breaking the feces down into humus, a rich soil. Go too deep and decomposition will not occur; not deep enough and animals could expose it, possibly spreading disease. Pack out, do not burn or bury your toilet paper.

I cannot emphasize the importance of the last statement enough. I’ve heard stories from folks who had either buried or burned their toilet paper and ended up with nasty endings. I personally know of someone who had burned their toilet paper and lost control of the flame, causing a lot of damage to the fragile desert environment. And I have a friend who experienced it first hand as well. A hiking partner burned some toilet paper and started a serious wildfire which they were fortunate enough to put out—after a very large area and its vegetation was destroyed! Don’t think it can’t happen to you. The National Park Service’s video tape on hiking Grand Canyon safely even has a woman talking of her experience of starting a wildfire, which ended up burning trees that were hundreds of years old, along with all of the other vegetation in the area. Please, please, please don’t burn your toilet paper.

Another avid hiker of Grand Canyon told me the story of what changed his mind about burying toilet paper. He buried the used toilet paper in the cat-hole he had dug, but as he was walking away, a raven flew overhead with a lovely streamer of toilet paper hanging from its beak! Animals are notorious for doing things like this! Don’t contribute to their delinquency!

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Generally sound advice, but I think that it would be more geared toward Rajasthan - or the southwest US - than the Himalaya. The Himalayas during the rainy season are a wee bit wetter than the Grand Canyon. You can probably bury your TP.

Quibbling aside, It's good to see someone advocating LNT.

This made me smile and laugh out loud.
I guess a smear and run on someones tent would not be acceptable. Lol
So many choices lol.
Combat wise we use plastic bags, you make it, you carry it. We have a friend hold the bag on your bum for you.
Would this make for team building is a tour group lol

Just as a side note, i got up before dawn in Goa, i wanted to take a picture of some rocks and a bay as i was getting ready for my postcard pic, i noticed about 50 people squatting amongst the rocks, emptying thier bowels in the ocean amongst the rocks. Even photoshop didnt help. Was funny at the time. I joined in. When in Rome!