Below we answer the questions we get asked the most about backpacking.

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1.  Where do you go to the bathroom when you are backpacking?

 

This is the question everyone is curious about! The truth is that you go to the bathroom where ever you can find privacy. If you are going #2 then you also want to find a place where you can dig a deep hole with your trowel/hand shovel (your #2 goes in that hole). After you are done, use your hand shovel to cover your business with dirt so that no one steps into it! If your dog poops while you are exploring mother nature, you are also responsible for burying your dogs poop or picking it up and carrying it out. No one wants to unexpectedly step on poop (whether it is your poop or your dog's poop) so please bury or carry out your waste. Dog poop or human poop does not break down like horse poop or other vegetarian animals; this is why you need to bury it or carry it out. In addition it is very unsanitary to just leave poop out. 

 

For humans: You will need to bring your own toilet paper. However, never leave your toilet paper in the hole because animals dig up the toilet paper and the poor park/forest rangers will have to pick up your mess. No one should have to pick up your used toilet paper. The number one rule when you are out on the trail is to "leave no trace." This means that you never leave evidence that you were out on the trail. We bring a ziplock bag, wrap masking tape around it (so that it is not see through), put another zip lock bag inside it, and use that as our trash bag for the bathroom. The double zip-lock bag system prevents any smells from leaking through and you also have a back-up bag in case your first zip-lock bag rips. 

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Last, if you are near a water source (a river or lake), be sure you are 200 feet away from the water in order to prevent the water from being contaminated from your waste. REI has some great tips about going to the bathroom when backpacking: https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/hygiene-sanitation.html
 

2.  What do you eat when backpacking?

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We generally bring oatmeal for breakfast, different snacks for lunch throughout the day, and dehydrated backpacking meals for dinner. Most of the time we buy ready made dehydrated meals for dinner, but every once in a while we make and dehydrate our own. We also like to treat ourselves and bring chocolate or other sweets for dessert.

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For Poppy, we bring freeze-dried food. See our post about our "Our Must-

Have Adventure Essentials" under the Backpacking Info and Tips tab for more details about dog food.

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3.  How do you pack your food?

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Most of the time we pack our food into a bear canister because there are bears where we will be backpacking. Although it is bulky, we find a bear canister much more effective than hanging our food from a tree (there are places where bears have figured out how to get the food down from a tree). In addition we found that our bear canister does a pretty great job at sealing in the smell of our food so that bears don't come near us in the first place (another reason we prefer a bear canister over hanging our food). The trick to packing a bear canister is to minimize packaging as much as possible (food is usually over-packaged). For example, instead of taking 8 over-packaged individual packs of oatmeal, we combine all 8 packs into one zip-lock bag. Another trick is to make sure you don't have dead space in your bear canister. The way we do this is by making sure we are filling in the sides of the bear canister and any space between items. We use a BearVault 500 canister because it is see through and thus we can identify any dead space. 

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If there are no bears where you will be backpacking, then the nice thing is that you can just pack your food straight into your backpack!