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Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 14:50:00 EST
From:         Blue eyes cryin' in the rain <TRAVEN@VMS.CIS.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: details, we want details!
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.EDU

>  A very nice tale! Highly evocative. Stories such as yours often make
>me feel that I would like to go canoeing, or trudge through the Northern
>wilderness. Unfortunately, it quickly occurs to me that I would very soon
>miss the civilized amenities, like kitchens and bathrooms and television.
>But perhaps it's time to put this to the test.

	Indeed.  I have similar trepidations, yet have gone on a couple of
	extended wilderness forays.  If you're among experienced trekkers, and
	have brought appropriate materials, such trips can be remarkably
	comfortable.  One eats quite well on the river -- you can carry far
	more 'real' food in a boat than on your back.  A river kitchen can be
	very well stocked.  Our trips always include a cocktail hour,
	specializing in planter's punch (a drink which I've never imbibed
	anywhere except beside a wild river, and have never tasted with ice).

	The absence of communications with the 'outside world' is easiest to
	deal with; within a day, you'll adjust to the rhythms of sunrise and
	sunset, hot and cold, wet and dry -- TV and the like simply disappear
	from your consciousness (note:  I haven't done any such trips since
	joining WORDS-L, so I don't know whether it too would become
	unimportant).

	The two primary difficulties to be considered, at least on the desert
	rivers I've floated, are water and wastes.  Obviously, there's plenty
	of water about, but it's often quite muddy and always needs to be
	purified.  Settling overnight and pouring through cloth (an old
	undershirt works well) takes care of its appearance and crunchiness.
	Filtration removes bacteria and parasites (giardia is the primary worry
	in the US), but is very slow and tiring -- you literally push the water
	through the filter.  To kill or inactivate them requires chemicals of
	some sort.  On our first trip, we used iodine, which gave everything a
	nasty medicinal flavor.  Next time, we used a couple of capfuls
	(capsful?) of Chlorox in each 5 gallon bucket; left overnight, the
	chlorine sharpness all but disappeared, leaving fairly tasty water.

[note to the squeamish -- discussion of human wastes follows]

	The ecology of the desert is so fragile that it could be immensely
	altered by the nutrients and the bacteria in human excrement,
	particularly in places where campable sites are rare and human traffic
	is heavy (e.g. Grand Canyon).  Therefore, on both of my raft trips, we
	had to pack out our shit.  Yep, the fecal materials deposited by 9
	people in 18 days all had to be carried with us as we proceeded down
	the river.  It's carried in large air-tight ammo boxes (mortar shell
	size?), inside several layers of thick plastic garbage bags.  A
	chemical deodorizer was remarkably effective.  One of the more odious
	(and potentially dangerous for one who didn't know how to open the
	boxes) daily jobs on the river was that of releasing the accumulated
	gases from the shitboxes.  An important part of setting up camp each
	night was determining the appropriate site for the toilet, near enough
	(but not too near) and with sufficient privacy; we usually tried to
	place it with a pleasing view of the river and canyon.  BTW, no
	special provisions for urine, since it's basically sterile, other than
	having to go some distance from the river.  An important part of the
	pre-trip check-out by the National Park Service is assuring that there
	are enough ammo boxes, chemicals, etc. to pack out your shit, and you
	have to sign forms promising not to dump it in inappropriate places
	once your trip is over.  For an under-the-table fee, the Hualapai
	tribe, whose reservation includes the the Diamond Creek take-out on the
	Colorado, will let you dispose of your shit in their system; otherwise,
	we might have had to carry it with us to Las Vegas.

[long-winded ... now I'll head back to near-lurkerhood]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
neal    traven@pittvms                  Bitnet          412-624-0097 (office)
        traven@vms.cis.pitt.edu         Internet        412-624-0110 (fax)
                    "You're only young once, but you can be immature forever."
                                          -- Larry Andersen, relief pitcher
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