Adventure Oddities #3 Doing dishes in the backcountry:

As I have discussed previously we practice "Leave No Trace" principles. One of the ways that we do that is we lick our personal dishes clean. While we still do the sanitation practices required of us by the health department this is the first step in our system for the back country. Why is that? Because any food particles that go into the dish washing water must be strained and then carried out in someones pack. So it is easier to just have people remove all those food particles in a way that will eventually lead to a nice scat hole somewhere in the woods.

Some meals are hard than others to lick clean and one of the first things you learn as a guide is as soon as you are done you lick your bowl. If you allow it to dry then you might need to add a little water which then needs to be drunk. I don't do so well with drinking that water so I am quick to clean my bowl and if needed I might find a friend to drink mine... I am burly but sometimes those squeamish things come out that I have yet to overcome. 

*Note the picture is from training where we created a competition of licking a bowl it is not normally ideal to have the food all over your hands and face but in this case the Hershey's syrup wasn't so bad to have all over.