No trace !
During an expedition to the very beautiful and wild Huayhuah
Cordillera in Peru, I found on the back of the map of this area a set of recommendations
and practical advices named
"Environmental responsabilities in the Cordillera Huayhuash"
The organization who established this set of rules and practices (Friends
of Huayhuash) has now apparently disappeared but theses rules are still completely
valid.
In addition they have the great merit of being practical and directly usable.
Garbage : pack out, what
you pack in
if you can bring food and supplies with you, either in your own pack or on
the backs of animals, then you casn very easily carry all the garbage that
is created from your food and supplies back out of the mountains and back
to the city where you started
- do not leave organic foods like orange peels, egg shells, and banana peels
on the ground. Because of the high and dry climate it can take many years
for orange peels, eggs shells, banana peels, and other items to biodegrade.
- bring plenty of garbage bags to have available around your campsites. During
the day have an extra plastic bag with you to collect your candy wrappers,
orange peels, egg shells, plastic and any other garbage you create.
Do not :
- do not drop your toilet paper, cigarette butts, candy wrappers or plastic
bags and bottles on the ground,
- do not leave orange peels, eggs shells, banana peels on the ground where
you stopped for lunch or a rest,
- do not hide or throw any garbage into rocks and holes along the trail,
- do not burn your garbage. All garbage does not burn completely and is left
laying in the fire pit,
- do not bury your organic waste. This waste will not burn completely.
All buried garbage will attract the local dogs to come and dig up the garbage
looking for things that smell good to them.
So you will find this recommandations here.
For an easier construction of toilets, I provide the whole document : you
can download and use it freely.
Please read these lines, do not hesitate to implement these simple steps.
When leaving a place, be sure to leave no trace !
Toilet and human waste
the worst thing to see and deal around camp sites
is human waste.
Be respectful of your campsite and be respectful of those trekkers who arrive
after you.
It is everyone responsability to have and use an organiszed toilet at all
campsites that you use
Do not :
- leave your human waste laying on the ground with
a rock sitting on top to keep the toilet paper from blowing away !
- if you are trekking with a group of any size, dig a proper toilet hole for
the group to use.
- if you do not have a group toilet, then find a large rock to turn over,
and use the hole in the ground from the rock as a toilet. When you have finished,
burn your toilet paper and return the rock bach onto the hole.
I am proud to present and promote the Kathleen
Meyer's amazing book that combine humor and practical approch of human waste
management - book to read and to buy !
“How to shit in the woods”
This book present and develop practical solutions for managing a sometimes
theme
Available on Internet web sites and good
travel shop
Toilet construction and
maintenance
Click on picture to open whole document
Trail ethics and care
Stay on existing trails when following them. If you have animals carrying
your equipment make sure your animal drivers keep the animals on designated
trails.
- do not allow your animals to follow you on very small or faint trails. This
will cause trail erosion and makes news trails deeper and wider.
- do not build rock piles to mark the trails or the mountain passes. Rock
piles are a form of human trash and only detract from the natural setting
of the mountains.
- do not build rock piles to mark the very small or faint trails. Leave the
adventure and exploring for all those who follow you.