June 24-29, 2013
Living in a remote field camp for a week gave me a bit of an insight to what the staff that live there all summer experience daily. There are 3 tent platform structures. These are put up and taken down each year. The first one you see is the cook tent, it has a table, sink, stove/oven and many bear proof food boxes. There is a small propane heater here as well for those cold wet days of southeast AK. This structure is surrounded by a solar powered electric fence as even more assurance of bears not getting into the structure.
The staff and volunteers stay in one of two tent platform structures. There is one for Fish and Game folks and one for Forest Service folks. There are cots inside and a heater just in case it gets a bit cool. We never had to use it, but I am sure it is nice for those wet cold SE, AK nights. Each night I laid in bed reading (with my head lamp) and enjoyed the quiet of living so remote. One of the nights it rained, because of the tarp over the tent is sounded as if it were POURING, but it really wasn’t… the rain was a great white noise for sleeping!
Using the ‘outhouse’ is certainly a part of life in the wilderness. The outhouse on Windfall is really just a tarp with a nice seat! The view is my favorite part of using the throne at camp! Before entering the toilet area you must first turn the sign around to indicate that it is occupied… when you leave you rotate it back to VACANT.
Typically holes for outhouses need to be moved after a few years because they become too full or the smell too much to handle… however, this field crew has learned if you burn your TP after use and not put in the hole, it does not fill up so quickly AND the staff put a packet of RTB 740 into the hole… this speeds up the natural degradation process in the composting/outhouse toilet. Not only does it increase in digestion efficiency, odors are controlled by preventing their formation. Pit toilets will not have to be emptied or moved as often and composting toilets will function better with less chance of overload. It was amazingly nice for an outhouse.
Lastly a few other shots of important parts of the field camp on Windfall Island!
Timi, you do the coolest stuff! I am jealous as hell! You put my motorcycle camping trips to shame. Keep up rhe good work!
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Good read! I’m going to get myself a OCCUPIED/VACANT sign for my next camping trip 🙂
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