Article

By Bridget Lyons

Feb. 20, 2024—To pee or not to pee?

For an outdoorsperson, that’s not really the question. If you’re at all tuned into the importance of staying hydrated, you’re going to need to pee in a natural area if you’re in one for more than an hour or so.

For those of us who like to spend time away from 21st century plumbing, the real question is, “Where to pee and where not to pee?”

To answer this question, I’m going to back up a bit and talk about LNT. Somewhere along the line, you may have heard this acronym. It stands for “Leave No Trace,” a set of ethical guidelines developed to help recreationalists minimize their impacts on the ecosystems they visit. There are seven LNT principles in total (if you don’t know them, read up on The 7 Principles of Leave No Trace here!), but it’s number 3—Dispose of Waste Properly—that comes into play when we’ve been steadily sucking on that Camelbak hose and need a little relief.

If you go to the LNT website to research Principle 3, you’ll find that much of the information is devoted to the appropriate disposal of solid waste. This makes sense; after all, human solid waste can drastically alter any environment. You have to scroll down the page through several more topics before you arrive at “urine,” and then you’ll only find two paragraphs about it. That’s because urine doesn’t significantly alter our natural spaces. While it’s not actually sterile (a common false claim), it’s not dangerous to other living things.

So, does that mean you can pee anywhere you want, anytime you want?

Not exactly. For starters, a variety of animals like the salts and minerals in human urine—so much so that they’ll seek it out. If you pee on or near a plant, an animal attracted to your liquid waste might either eat that plant or dig it up in an attempt to get at those salts and minerals.

This is particularly true in the desert. In arid environments, I’m careful to pee on rocks as much as possible. If animals want to take advantage of the puddle I leave, they can do so without harming any vegetation. In the oak and redwood forests of our Santa Cruz Mountains, peeing on bare soil, pine duff, or dead leaves is often the best option, since rocks can be moss- and lichen-covered.

Another consideration is the effect urination can have on your fellow visitors. The LNT principles consider the social impacts of recreation as well as the ecological ones, and peeing typically requires a little thought in this regard. Not many folks like to watch strangers in the act—whether they have the kind of plumbing that allows them to stand or the kind that requires them to squat. For this reason, it’s ideal to get far enough away from trails to avoid affecting others’ enjoyment of the area. The official LNT guideline is “200 feet from trails, campsites, and high-use areas.”

Here’s where it gets dicey for me. I’m someone who has to squat to pee, and I am severely allergic to poison oak. (Like, even though there’s no medical proof of rashes forming from mere visual contact, the mysterious patches that appear on hidden parts of my body sometimes make me wonder!) For me, walking 200 feet off the trail can be like entering a war zone. So, I use my judgment. If I’m deep in the redwoods, I can probably do the walk safely. But if I’m in the chaparral, I’m more likely to stay close to the trail or wait for an opening in the underbrush. In this case, I’m thinking about the last time I saw another hiker or biker, how commonly used the trail is, and whether or not I hear any voices before I assume the position and get my business done quickly.

Leave No Olfactory Trace

There’s one more element of pee that needs to be considered, and that’s its smell. Part of the reasoning behind the 200-foot guideline described above is to prevent visitors from experiencing that lovely odor we tend to associate more with stadium rock concerts or port-a-potty lines at carnivals than with the great outdoors. It’s important to note that this guideline shifts near big bodies of water. In frequently traveled river corridors, such as the South Fork of the American River or the Grand Canyon, boaters tend to get out and pee in the same spots, day after day. If they all urinated on the sand or onto the nearby rocks, these spots would quickly start to stink. For this reason, LNT encourages peeing directly INTO rivers with moderate to high volumes (more than 500 CFS, or cubic feet per second). The rationale? The catchy phrase you may have heard at an environmental-ed camp somewhere in your past: “Dilution is the solution to pollution.” Keep in mind that the San Lorenzo River runs about 200 CFS on an average winter day, so unless you’re hiking near it at flood stage, this is a water source you’re still peeing 200 feet away from.

Those of us who live near the California coastline have the great good fortune of being able to recreate near the ocean. We’ve got stellar hiking trails that run along the coastline, world class surf spots, and beaches that beg for picnics and afternoons of exploration. Some of these places have outhouses; if they do, it’s best to use them. If not, the ocean absolutely counts as a high-volume water source that can dilute the effects of your liquid waste. It’s totally appropriate to pee into it—keeping in mind the need to minimize your social impact in the process.

With all of this talk about LNT concerns, it’s easy to forget that peeing in nature is a pleasure and a privilege. My bathroom at home is nice enough, but I’ll take the view from my favorite trail, riverbank, or oceanside cliff any day, thank you very much! I’m incredibly grateful to have access to these inspiring vistas, and when I pee, I like to pause and remember that.

In addition, the need to stop and relieve myself forces me to slow down and change my perspective. As a squatting pee-er, I find myself much closer to the ground than I usually am. There, I spot tiny wonders: mushrooms, mosses, insects, leaves, marine crustaceans, worms, fish, kelp, patterns on rocks and water—you name it. I am forced to look down around me, and, in doing so, I see things I would not normally take the time to notice. And that, of course, is why I’m outside in the first place.

So, keep up that hydration regimen and enjoy the scenery! Just follow a few guidelines to keep us all enjoying our natural spaces.

Subscribe to Hilltromper's free e-newsletter to get the latest outdoor articles and events in and around Santa Cruz, inlucing them thar beautiful mountains!