You planned everything: tent pitched, campfire lit, trail marked. But there is one detail almost nobody photographs and that, on its own, can take down half the Unit over a weekend: hygiene. At a camp with no bathroom, no sink and no running water, what keeps you healthy is not luck, it is habit.
Most camp illnesses do not come from venomous animals or falls. They come from something invisible: a dirty hand that grabs the bread, water that looked clean, a poorly buried waste that contaminated the stream where everyone filled their canteen. The result has a name and it is always the same: diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration, camp shut down before its time.
The good news is that the protection is simple and old. So old that it is written in the Bible, in one of the oldest field manuals that exist. This guide is for the Pathfinder aged 10 to 15, for the Counselor who looks after the tent, and for the parent who wants to understand why the Club brings a shovel into the woods. Let's get to what works.
Why hygiene in the woods is a health matter, not fussiness
There is a romantic idea that camping means getting dirty and that's fine. Mud on your boot, sure. Germs on your hand, no. The difference between the two decides whether your camp becomes a good memory or a night spent awake with a stomachache.
The mechanism is simple and no mystery. Someone uses the woods to relieve themselves, doesn't wash their hands properly, and then helps serve lunch. Or a poorly buried waste seeps into the creek and contaminates the water the group drinks. It only takes a few hours: it starts with one, the next day there are five, and by the time you notice, the improvised infirmary is full. This has a technical name: the fecal-oral route. And that is how almost all camp diarrhea happens.
The numbers confirm it. The CDC, the United States health agency, estimates that washing your hands with soap prevents about 30% of diarrheal illnesses — nearly one in every three cases. That is no small thing. It is the cheapest and most effective intervention there is, and it fits in your backpack in the form of a bar of soap and a little discipline.
For the Club, this is collective responsibility. You don't take care of your hygiene just for yourself. You do it because the hand you didn't wash could make your friend in the next tent sick. Hygiene at camp is service to others, starting with the most concrete form there is.
Handwashing: the single most protective gesture
If you could only do one thing right in the entire camp, this would be it. Washing your hands with soap and water is the number one shield. And there is a right time: always before handling food or eating, and always after using the latrine, handling trash or touching animals.
The right way takes about 20 seconds — the time to sing the chorus of a hymn twice in your head. Wet your hands, lather well, scrub your palms, the backs, between the fingers and under the nails, where dirt hides. Rinse and dry on a clean towel or in the air. No rushing here: passing water over your hand for two seconds cleans nothing.
Since there is no faucet, build one at camp. The classic Club trick is the 'tippy tap': a jug of water hung with a bit of cord and a piece of stick underneath, which you step on to tilt the jug and let the water run over your hands. That way no one touches the cap with a dirty hand and the clean water isn't contaminated. Keep the soap alongside, hung in an old sock so it doesn't fall in the mud.
Hand sanitizer is a good backup, but it does not replace soap when the hand is visibly dirty with soil or waste — in those cases it can't do the job. Save the sanitizer for the middle of the trail and leave real washing for before meals and after the latrine.
Water: your greatest ally and your greatest risk
Crystal-clear river water is deceptive. It can look perfect and be full of micro-organisms you can't see, coming from animals upstream or poorly buried waste. Never drink water from a natural source without treating it, no matter how clean it looks. That is the rule with no exception.
Mentally separate two kinds of water. Water for drinking, cooking and brushing your teeth must be potable — either brought from home in jugs, or treated on site. Water for washing hands, dishes and your body can be from the natural source, as long as you don't swallow it. Confusing the two is like slipping on the banana peel of hygiene.
To make water safe, the most reliable method is to boil it: bring it to a boil for at least one minute and let it cool covered. There are also chlorine tablets or filters made for the trail, each with its own instructions. Treating water deserves a chapter of its own, and the Club should train this before any serious camp.
Store treated water in a closed, clean container, separate from the dirty water. And mark clearly which jug is which — a colored piece of tape solves it. In the fatigue at the end of the day, it is easy to fill your canteen from the wrong bucket. If you want to go deeper into safety near rivers and reservoirs, see also the guide on water safety.
Read alsoMinimum impact camping: leave no traceThe field latrine: how to dig and use a cathole
Here is the heart of sanitation in the woods. When there is no bathroom, each Pathfinder digs their own 'cathole' — the name comes precisely from what a cat does: it digs, goes, and covers. Simple, and for millennia that is how humanity protected itself.
The measurement is precise and worth memorizing. Dig the hole 15 to 20 centimeters deep — roughly the length of a field shovel's blade. In that range is the most alive layer of soil, full of micro-organisms that break down waste quickly. And choose a spot at least 60 meters away from any water: creek, lake, spring or well. Sixty meters is about 80 to 100 teenage paces. That distance is the natural filter that keeps the water the group drinks from being contaminated.
Using it has three steps: dig, use, cover. After using it, push the soil back and disguise the spot with leaves or branches, so no one steps there by accident. Toilet paper is the point most people get wrong: the ideal is to collect it in a plastic bag and take it away, because it takes a long time to break down and animals dig it up. If the Club chooses to bury it, let it be deep and well covered — never left exposed.
For larger groups, the Counselor can set up a communal latrine: a longer, deeper trench, with a shovel beside it and the rule that each person throws in a layer of soil after using it. Screen it with a tarp for privacy, mark it clearly and keep it well away from the kitchen and the tents. Before leaving, everything is closed and covered. The camp has to disappear.
The 'law of the shovel': the sanitation the Bible already taught
Long before there was a health agency, one of the oldest texts in the world already described with precision what we now call a cathole. It is in Deuteronomy, in the instructions given to an entire people who lived camped in the desert. Among campers it is known as the 'law of the shovel'.
The text is direct. In the New International Version: "Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement" (Deuteronomy 23:12-13, NIV). Notice the three elements: a separate place, a tool to dig, and covering the waste. It is exactly the modern protocol, written thousands of years ago.
The following verse gives the reason, and it unites the practical with the spiritual: "For the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you (...). Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent" (Deuteronomy 23:14, NIV). For the people of that time, caring for the camp was caring for the place where God walked. Cleanliness and reverence went together.
For the Christian Pathfinder, this is beautiful to see: hygiene is not only science, it is also a way to honor the body and one's neighbor. Adventists understand caring for health as part of faith — the body is a gift from God and deserves respect. If you want to understand where this care for health comes from in the movement, see the origin of the Adventist health message. And rest easy: you don't need to be an Adventist to apply this. The shovel works for everyone.
Trash, wastewater and utensils: the invisible camp
Sanitation does not end at the latrine. Every camp produces three kinds of waste that need somewhere to go: solid trash, wastewater (the dirty water from washing dishes and bodies) and the grime on the utensils themselves. Poorly handling any of them attracts animals and spreads germs.
The golden rule of trash is short: what comes in, goes out. Everything you brought, you bring back — packaging, cans, paper, non-organic scraps. Bring sturdy trash bags and don't count on a 'bin on site'. Organic food scraps can be buried deep and far from camp, but never left on the surface, because they draw ants, rats and larger animals during the night.
Wastewater also needs care. Don't pour dishwater straight into the river: it carries grease and scraps that pollute. The right way is to scatter it, far from natural water, or strain out the little bits of food (which go into the trash) before disposing of the liquid well away from the source. Use as little soap as possible, and preferably biodegradable.
Kitchen utensils and plates deserve extra attention, because they touch the food. Wash them with clean water and soap, let them air-dry on a cloth or a raised grate — never on the ground. A poorly washed pot one day becomes food poisoning the next. And each person with their own marked plate and mug: sharing cutlery at camp is sharing germs.
Personal hygiene and the routine that holds the camp together
Beyond your hands, your whole body asks for care — and it's not vanity, it's health. Brush your teeth (spit far from natural water and the tent), change your socks and underwear, and keep your feet dry, because a foot wet all day cracks, blisters and gets infected. A foot in good shape is what carries you back home on your own two legs.
Treat cuts and scrapes right away, no matter how small. In the woods, an open, dirty wound gets infected fast. Wash it with clean water, cover it with a bandage and keep an eye on it. The Unit's first-aid kit has to be accessible and the Counselor needs to know where it is. Remember: this is awareness, not a first-aid course. A serious injury, high fever, dehydration with vomiting that won't stop — none of that is solved by improvising. In an emergency, call your local emergency number (in Brazil, SAMU 192) and seek care.
The secret to all of this is turning hygiene into routine, not into a lecture. Before camping, the Counselor goes over the rules; during, they assign tasks — who sets up the tippy tap, who handles the water, who organizes the trash. When hygiene becomes each person's job, no one has to nag. The whole camp breathes easier.
In the end, the measure of success is quiet: you take everything down and the place looks as if no one had ever passed through. No trash, no smell, no open hole, no trace in the water. That is the Pathfinder that nature would like to welcome again — and it is also, in the old-fashioned way, a camp that remains holy.