[pct-l] about potty trowels,

[CHUCK CHELIN]

Good morning, all,

I don’t use a potty-trowel; I use ready-made holes whenever I can.  I find
one of the zillions of gopher mounds, push aside the very loose dirt, and
take advantage the hole beneath.  If that inconveniences a gopher – tough.  He
can just excavate dirt elsewhere.

I’ve never been bitten when using such a hole, but I expect there's a WANTED
poster featuring my bare butt hanging in every gopher post office in the
mountain west.


Steel-Eye

Hiking the Pct since before it was the PCT – 1965

http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye

http://www.trailjournals.com/SteelEye09


On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 6:45 AM, Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes <
diane at santabarbarahikes.com> wrote:

> Those orange plastic trowels are really dangerous. I had one break
> and cut my hand on the soft part between thumb and forefinger. I
> never used a trowel again. I can't risk tearing my hand up in the
> wilderness. That's why I turned to using a rock. A flat, sharp-edged
> rock digs a hole better than a trowel. A trowel is shaped wrong for
> my weak upper body strength. It doesn't work for me to scoop
> underhanded from the side, it works for me to hack overhanded from
> above. I worry that a tent stake will bend. Using a rock, it doesn't
> matter if it breaks because there are more rocks. Site selection is
> key, too. Far away, through some tangled stuff so that nobody will
> follow by accident in the future. And find a place where the dirt is
> soft enough you can dig with a pine cone if need be.
> On Dec 14, 2010, at 6:10 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> >
> > Do you have a link to the type you're talking about?
> > My orange plastic one is starting to break, so rather than buy
> > another of
> > those, I'm looking for an alternative.
>
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