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Post by High Sierra Fan on Aug 19, 2023 10:20:03 GMT -8
That “the” should have been an “a”, my error. I hadn’t read the cdc recently so it seems to have changed. For instance anal sex wasn’t a Giardia risk iirc when I last read their site.
By rinsing I was thinking of my excess boiled water not raw. Though even my cold water has been filtered.
A good point about not exposing eating utensils to untreated water. Habitually everything I’ve got has been filtered so I didn’t consider that risk.
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Post by gcvrsa on Aug 24, 2023 16:17:07 GMT -8
The CDC suggests the commonest transmission route for Giardia etc. for backpackers is transmission via companions poorly washed hands and lack of human waste hygiene. Human pathogens and parasites are simply not a common inhabitant of a simply rinsed bowl. Odds are far higher you’ll get the Black Plague from unleashing your pet to roll in a plague killed squirrel and come romping back to you carrying plague carrying fleas. A fate I’ve got very mixed feelings about. 😎 This might be all true, however: a. Giardia is not the only pathogenic risk from poor hygiene practices. b. How do you plan on washing your hands if you don't have either soap or detergent? Look, if you are comfortable with not washing things, by all means, continue to do so. You do you. I'll do me, and carry small amounts of soap and detergent to wash myself and my dishes.
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Post by High Sierra Fan on Aug 25, 2023 9:38:10 GMT -8
Nowhere in my post did I write that a) I don’t carry soap or b) that I don’t plan on washing my hands. Though as I solo my non existent companions are safe in any case.
Of course as others mentioned the cleanup task for my freezer bag style of backcountry meal prep (I can hardly call it cooking) is laughably simple in any case. My spoon gets boiling water rinsed then thoroughly dried: done. My coffee cup gets flicked dry. Done. Then it’s back to the important stuff. 😎
I’d go back to underline my point that the greatest source of human pathogens is going to be your companions and their hygiene practices or lack thereof. Asymptomatic disease means vigilance can’t be lessened just because no one feels sick. Treating water is likely to be a critical strategy in our increasingly overused wilderness while situations may dictate optimism I’m on the side of filtering being too simple to not utilize just in case. Probably instilled by my one encounter with a confirmed bout of giardiasis from a lapse in vigilance when I unwisely, being tired of the old style chemical treatment’s taste, used water straight from the Tuolumne River. My excuse was it was mid May, the high country still blanketed in snow with few to no visitors for months… I’d clearly forgotten one of Guadia’s other names: Beaver Fever.
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ErnieW
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Post by ErnieW on Aug 25, 2023 20:16:28 GMT -8
Actually with the increase in hikers everywhere I worry about Norovirus. I know it has been really affecting the AT hikers. It gets all over the place. The shelters, the motels/hostels they stay in, the restaurants, grocery stores. Norovirus can stay viable on surfaces for weeks. Soap will not kill Norovirus but it does help wash off any virus from you hands (and into the waste water)
P.S. One of my twins brought home Norovirus this last winter. Ugh, we all got sick and sick and sick...
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rebeccad
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Post by rebeccad on Aug 26, 2023 7:44:13 GMT -8
Viruses will find a way. I just did 8 days on the trail, solo (but it was the PCT, so I met and talked with lots of people). On day 7 I got a sore throat, which developed into the first cold I’ve had since the pandemic started. There were a few exchanges of candy bars on the trail, and conversations from 6 feet away. No outhouses. So how did that virus find me? Was it lurking all along and sprang out when I got tired enough? Or blew in on the smoke I breathed for 3 days (I thought at first the throat was raw from the smoke, but the smoke was gone and the throat got worse; additional symptoms put that theory out of the running).
A cousin of mine claims she would get colds while solo sailing for weeks at a time (something I didn’t know she did—that’s the trouble with being far the youngest in a big family. No one tells you the good stuff).
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ErnieW
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Post by ErnieW on Aug 26, 2023 7:52:10 GMT -8
A cousin of mine claims she would get colds while solo sailing for weeks at a time (something I didn’t know she did—that’s the trouble with being far the youngest in a big family. No one tells you the good stuff). Salt spray can really irritate your sinus and lungs. I sometimes feel it after a day at a salt water surf beach. So if she was sailing in salt water it may not have been a cold just pickled sinus. As for where you might have caught your cold:
And
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rangewalker
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Post by rangewalker on Sept 16, 2023 7:52:01 GMT -8
Pocket hand sanitizer has done as much to transform hiking as LED lighting.
I clean up my kitchen with boiling water, some times soils and sands in the sink of an uprooted tree. I quit freezer bags for FBC and went to Fair Share mug (GSI) or Evernew 900mL post with cozy that is my bowl. Hours and days of conversations with hiking partner (Phd) physiologist on heated plastics and endocrine disruptors. through her and listening to Andrew Skurka, used bidets for clean up on body, and use of soap, drops of Dr. Bonners, prior to handling food. Even solo. Even in winter. Also used FBC pouches reek in a day in the garbage bag when you trying to contain odors.
And I want to start a fight....I pack out tea bags and coffee grounds. I have had Giardia twice. Both times solo and from water infested with the little monsters and transmitted into the water sources I was using. In the mid 70s when there was a lot of ignorance and using Korea war era military Halazone tablets. In ineffective and bad for your gut also. Fast forward three decades later, and in was a swim and soapless bath in the North Winds creek when I swallowed some water downstream of North Americas largest Big Horn Sheep herd on first run-off
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ErnieW
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Post by ErnieW on Sept 16, 2023 11:17:18 GMT -8
Fast forward three decades later, and in was a swim and soapless bath in the North Winds creek when I swallowed some water downstream of North Americas largest Big Horn Sheep herd on first run-off This reflects what I read on the CDC page. Even a tiny bit of water in your mouth or up your nose can infect you. I definitely hear you on the heated plastics thing but leaving behind human food smells and a tiny amount of food from cleaning your cookware particularly in high traffic areas may not be the best thing. At least for me the newer commercial FD meals come with a zip lock seal. I find if I seal them up they don't smell. As for coffee grounds I just have been using high quality instant. I get a good cup of coffee quickly and no grounds to deal with.
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rangewalker
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Post by rangewalker on Sept 17, 2023 7:24:38 GMT -8
I definitely hear you on the heated plastics thing but leaving behind human food smells and a tiny amount of food from cleaning your cookware particularly in high traffic areas may not be the best thing. At least for me the newer commercial FD meals come with a zip lock seal. I find if I seal them up they don't smell. I do hear you as well, but it is about balancing risks depending on location and your waste stream. There is no perfect clean room solution for waste handling, either food or feces, in the wild. I am a fan on my cut up credit card scraper to get every bit of food scrap out of pot. And it is a given in a food prep area there is going to be human food scent for a time. The idea is not to leave a reward. That is my experience in high traffic grizzly country to truly wild wilderness where plague ridden rodents are the worst. Everything smells. Some longer trips in the last years, I have packed along an older Ursack that is still viable for a garbage hauler. If you are outdoors a lot, and are open to the sensation, there are a myriad of scents, far and beyond blooms. And my Dentist does want me to spit out the high dollar toothpaste I have to buy from him (grins)
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ErnieW
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Post by ErnieW on Sept 17, 2023 9:24:13 GMT -8
I used to backpack often enough that making my own meals made sense. Besides the $$$ it was something to do that was backpacking related at home and helped build anticipation of the trip. Now that is not the case. With freezer bags or vacuum seal bags I do have some concerns about plastic byproducts leaching when using them with boiling water. I don't think the mylar lined bags do that much but the cost of that is the don't break down for a very long time in the trash heap. Again like you said it is balancing. As for tooth brushing I'm sort of surprised to not see much on this. It is a attractant smell. I try to dig a toothpaste cat hole if I am going to spit and rinse. Sometimes it is just using a tiny drop of tooth paste and not spitting and putting the tooth brush away not rinsed. If the next day is a trail day I do the cat hole thing, rinse before the brush then rinse the brush water supply permitting.
P.S. I use fluoride tooth paste and now I just spit out the excess\ but no longer rinse. Leaving some fluoride toothpaste is supposed to help it work more.
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TrailElder
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Post by TrailElder on Jan 23, 2024 5:48:34 GMT -8
Backpacking Light podcast did a really solid episode on this topic recently, overviewing all of the current approaches to cooking and cleaning up in the backcountry.
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