Camping and the Coronavirus

(How Safe is it?)

July, 2020

Last week Erin and I camped for four days near the wine country in Northern California. We are back at the same State Park this week for another five days. I went over the park’s flora and fauna in my last post. This writing will cover camping as it pertains to the new issues facing us in the year Twenty-Twenty, AC (after-Corona). Before the Coronavirus (BC), we camped about twelve-hundred nights in the nineteen years of our marriage. In one year alone we camped about two-hundred nights. Most of our camping has been in State, National, and Regional parks that have public restrooms, and sometimes showers. Living in campsites outdoors is as good as it gets for social distancing, but using the restrooms is another story, and the topic of this post.

If my memory serves me correctly neither Erin or I have ever gotten ill because of, or on a camping trip, except once. That one time was in Raleigh North Carolina, and I know exactly where I got the bug. We were in a pancake house in Raleigh and there was someone in the kitchen that was dripping sick. I could hear them coughing, sneezing, and snorting, and I got nailed. Other than that I don’t think we had one sick day on our seven-month trip touring the lower forty-eight.

I am pretty certain that camping is the safest activity you can do in a public setting. I’m also sure that even the restrooms are fairly safe if you use common sense. During our years of camping BC, we have used campground restrooms over five-thousand times and never picked-up any nasties that we know of. We are both fastidious when using public facilities. Just by using plain old common sense we stay pretty safe.

Being in outdoor settings has been shown to be as safe a place to be as any during the virus. Wearing a mask is very important when you are in close range of others outside of your group or pod. We don’t wear masks in our campsite when it is just us. We also don’t wear them hiking, but carry them to use when we run into other hikers. We absolutely use them when we go to the restrooms.

We have put together a sanitation station in a box that is now part of our regular camping gear. It sits on the picnic table near the washing station that has always been part of our camping equipment. It contains hand sanitizer, alcohol wipes, spray sanitizer, and nitrile gloves.

When we go to the restroom we put on a mask and gloves. From the time we leave the campsite to the bathroom, we never touch our faces, mask, or hair. We enter the facility, latch the door, do our business, turn away from the toilet, hit the flush lever and move quickly to the door. We unlatch the door with our gloved hand, hold the door open with our foot and strip off the gloves from the inside-out, toss them in the trash and walk straight out. If the door does not close by itself, we leave it open and walk back to camp. We don’t use the sink to wash up, we do all of our washing in our campsite. We don’t brush our teeth or do any grooming in the restroom. The restroom is for taking care of business only. We get in and out as quickly as possible. We don’t touch our phones or anything else while inside, nothing but peeing or pooping, period!

If we just use caution at all times while doing anything in public, wash our hands a lot, wear a mask, and distance ourselves from others outside of our safe group, we will be doing all we can to stem the spread of this nasty virus. I think that all of the new precautions will need to be carried on long after this particular virus is history. In my mind, if we take precautions, even the rates of regular flu will be way less. Happy Trails...