"How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art" by Kathleen Meyer

The book addressed the problem, probably in the first surviving form, by demanding that people walk away from others with a spear or spade, dig a hole, and cover it. That method works well where the traffic is light. It works less well on heavily traveled forest trails. The author continues to expand her investigation into better methods of conduct in the outdoors, reviews health concerns, and shares some of the extraordinary mail her book has generated.





Few experiences do more to mar the outdoorsy afternoon or the 8 day backpack trek than stepping over a log and discovering your expensive waffle-stompers are filled with the leavings of another hiker. The problem is as old as mankind. At least, it's as old as mankind after he began noticing what was between his toes.

Meyer offers 102 pages of suggestions, anecdotes and solutions for novices who want to experience the woods, don't want to create a problem, recognize it's a necessary body function and must be addressed.


Contents
Introduction
Author's Note
Chapter 1 Anatomy of a Crap
Techniques — Style — Getting Comfortable
Chapter 2 Digging the Hole
Why and How and Where to Dig an Environmentally Sound Hde — Transmission of Enteric Pathogens (Intestinal Diseases) — Symptoms ofGiardia — Cryptosporidium — Soil Types — Locating the High Water Line — Stirring — The Latrine — Problems of Winter and Ocean Disposal
Chapter 3 When You Can't Dig a Hole
Toiletry for Rock Climbers, Arctic Trekkers, Sea Kayakers — High Use Areas — Sensitive Ecosystems — Packing It Out — Group Shitarees — Organic Sweeteners
Chapter 4 Plight of the Solo Poop Packer
Beconung a Poop Packer — Containers for the Individual — Backcountry Solar Outhouses — Beetles and Such — Erosting a Rock
Chapter 5 Trekker's Trots
Diarrhea — Coping with the Unexpected— Prevention — Field Water Disinfection — Filtration Systems — Virus Protection — Travelers Medical Sources — Recreational Reading
Chapter 6 For Women Only: How Not to Pee in Your Boots
Peeing Techniques — Managing Menstruation in the Wilds — The Feminine Funnel
Chapter 7 What? No Т.Р.? or Doing Without
Wilderness Alternatives — taring Like a Horse
Definition of Shit
Afterword

Author's Note
For several years, How to Shit in the Woods lay dormant, a collection of scattered ideas on scraps of lined yellow paper tucked in a drawer, while I grappled with a seemingly insurmountable problem: terminology. How was I to refer to this stuff that is pushed and squirted out of the body in response to eating and drinking?
Since the days of Adam men have been announcing that they were going off to take a piss, leak, dump, or crap. Although references to the subject do not abound in history, conjecture would have Eve and her female descendants declaring the same until those allegedly delicate of heart, weak-stomached Victorian ladies began fainting at the sound of such language. Daintiness and propriety contracted an allergy to the foregoing diction that is considered odious to this day.