The Orange Band - Answering the call of nature

I've talked about food and drink already, but there's another vital question to solve for long days on the trail.  What happens when you get a call of nature?  Which leads also to, practically speaking - how much toilet paper do you need to pack?  

There are a number of the stages on the trail that have facilities at the stage end - campsite, restaurants and similar.  That's your best bet for a date with a nice modern water closet. Don't miss the chance!  After that your choices get more primitive.  Each stage of the trail has a wind shelter somewhere in the middle and each of those has a 'dass' nearby -  a dry closet or composting toilet.  These are fully functional, and in Sweden quite common for older more remote holiday cottages, but aren't quite that pristine polished ceramic experience we've become used to.  

The good news is though that they are by and large well maintained. There are a number of local organisations that see that they are stocked with paper, emptied and generally kept in order. There is some variation though - some have lime or mulch to put in after you've been to help with smells and composting, some have niceties like a brush to sweep out the floor, some are well stocked with paper, and unfortunately some are not. People use it so it's not surprising that paper runs out sometimes.  Along the whole trail there were four spots with no paper - so around one in four.  That's what you need to plan for...   How much paper does that translate to for you? Let's do a  quick calculation.  

If the average European uses 10.3kg  paper a year (according to the interweb) that works out to about 200g per week. If you use the facilities provided and only need your supplies a quarter of the time - that's 50g a week or say, 7.5g per day.  Only you know if you are an average user though...  If it helps I think I had less than this and it worked out OK - but not with much surplus. 

But the bears though?  It can happen you get caught short with only the woods to turn to. When a man's gotta go a man's gotta go right?  I'm not going to write a treatise on the right way to poop in the woods - there are others available online already like this one in Swedish from the Bergslagsleden YouTube channel.   But, you are going to need something to dig a hole with, and you need to dispose of the paper properly afterwards.  You can bury it - but animals are good at digging it up. If there's no fire restrictions you can burn it, otherwise good 'leave no trace' practice is to double bag it and carry it until you can dispose of it properly. That is, unless you are going paper-less as discussed here by Andrew Skurka.  

Lastly on this topic, you did remember to pack some hand gel right?  Even bears clean their paws afterwards.