"THE" big question for women on river trips in Grand Canyon
Okay. I know nothing about this. Sort of.
Being married to a rather adventurous wife, who insists on rowing her own boat through really big rapids nowadays, but sleeps in my... oops, OUR tent next to me, I kinda get it. Back home I'm married to the only woman in the world who gets pissed off at me for NOT leaving the toilet seat up (she's only 5 feet tall... so her feet don't hit the ground with the seat down. I'm dead meat for sharing this with you.) But in the wilderness, she doesn't have penis envy, she just pulls out her handy-dandy FUD. Now THERE'S a cool tool.
She books river trips for the company I row for, OARS, inc. She gets a lot of wives doing these trips because their husbands insist, but also a lot of adventurous women on their own or with their pals. The question inevitably comes up: what's with the toilet situation?
We supply a standard, Army issue rectangular ammo can, 20 millimeter size, for the solids. Every little bit of waste gets taken out of the Grand Canyon, as in most rivers these days, the only exception being liquid waste. This gets diluted by the river at one pint of pee times twenty people per campsite, versus 10,000 cubic feet of water flowing by every second. Better than camping on a beach that smells like a pair of wet diapers. The ammo can has a nice toilet seat on it, and gets changed over before, well, before the pyramid starts getting a little close for comfort. Most people end up hiding their deposit with a nice little pile of toilet paper, though we discourage that (we don't want to end up using rocks and twigs, do we?). Thus, pristine beaches for all 22,000 of us river runners.
The urine goes in a bucket, likewise made comfy with a toilet seat. This gets tossed in the river each morning when breaking down camp. "But, hey", I hear you say, "what about during the day?"
Well, for us guys, no problemo. Its a meditation, sort of. However, the gals end up having to squat, usually starting out the trip strolling down-beach and behind a willow or cottonwood tree, and ending up after two weeks having a conversation with a formerly complete stranger while doing the deed. Kinda liberating. But the squat means perhaps having to dip your bum in the cold water, not to mention fiddling with shorts, leotards, raingear, etc. Hence: the FUD–Feminine Urinary Device–or the WHIZ, another brand. Essentially, a plastic or rubber cup with a little tube on the end. Sounds disgusting, perhaps embarrassing, maybe unclean in some vague way.
Not so. Carrie loves hers, and will whip it out at a moment's notice from her life jacket pocket, where it resides. No squat, no fiddling, no bum-in-cold-water, no clothes around knees, no long stroll, holding it in with all her might. Just turn her back wherever she happens to be, just like us guys, as long as she's below the high-water line or standing in the river. When she's done, she rinses it in the river, and returns it home (something I cannot do with my little whizzer). It didn't take her long to get the hang of what has taken me my whole life, and which, sadly, I'm starting to LOSE the hang of. Nuff said. If you're a female going into the Wild, get a Whiz or FUD. If you're a male, get one for your best friend. She'll love you for it.
