Squatting when hiking

Last summer I went hiking for around 10 days along a popular forest and mountain trail together with a lot of other people.

The toilets at the cabins mostly were of the most primitive long drop type, smelling and dirty. The first days I did not open my bowels at all.

But the third or fourth morning I woke up with so much pain in my stomach that I understood that I just had to go to toilet.

I went over to the outhouse, picked up some paper and went for a walk in the nature. Well away from the cabin I stepped aside from the path, went into the bushes, pulled down my shorts squatted and got it done.

The remaining week I managed to open my bowels once or twice a day, every time squatting somewhere in nature.

I do not know what the others did as we did not discuss the issue. I think I managed to maintain sufficient privacy.

I should have been very embarrassed if anyone showed up just as I was squatting, and I do not want to think of the feelings of a possible co-hiker suddenly facing a 50+ woman... (Well, I flush just by thinking of it.)

But it helped me to keep fit and comfortable for the rest of the hike, so no doubt - next summer I will use the same method when hiking in the wilderness - squatting.