OUTHOUSE & FACILITIES

Brushing teeth at midnight -- before crawling into the bag. One question that is often asked is: How do the team members go to the bathroom? Their answer.." Take a shovel, walk a short distance away from camp, dig a hole, sit down take care of business…and enjoy the beautiful view! – And if it stormy, you get it done real quick"! Normal toilet paper is used. The explorers are always concerned about having enough and you probably would be too. Since, once you run out, you are out. Having to go to the bathroom outside at 40 below zero, you really do start thinking about how to take care of things the fastest possible way and what you are wearing.

The explorers must drink at least 1 gallon a day. How much do you drink?

If you had to take off all your clothing: parka, jacket, shirt out of the pants, gloves and maybe even the hat when you pull your parka off -- you loose way to much body heat before your "visit" is over. And that is dangerous. To solve this problem the explorers wear special pants.

The pants are held up by suspenders. On one side of the leg (outside) there is a zipper from waist to bottom of the leg, and the same on the other side. So, all you have to do is zip down each side and a flap on the back falls down letting you go to the bathroom right there…It is very efficient, saves you lots of energy which again means you have to eat less, travel lighter and go faster. It is all interconnected.

There is one rule about going to the bathroom. You gotta go when you gotta go!

If not – you get cold. When there is urine in your bladder, your body will try to keep it a certain temperature. To do this, it pulls heat (blood flow) away from your extremities: hands and feet. You get cold. Try to think about it in the future, when you are standing around and are getting chilled it is very often because you could go to the bathroom, it is just not urgent yet.

Another rule is to drink as much as possible even though it means you have "to go" more often. In short, it is very dangerous if you don’t drink plenty when you are traveling in the Arctic.

Check out more about the importance of drinking plenty water when traveling in the Arctic.

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