Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania
April 1998
Cleanliness is just as important on the trail as it is in the city. But because it isn’t as convenient as absentmindedly twisting a handle as you would do over your kitchen sink, daily chores on the trail take on more deliberate, thoughtful preparation and behavior.
If you have ever tried to wash both of your hands while holding your source of water in one hand — your water bottle — and the soap container in your other hand, you know that a certain amount of acrobatics is invoked. Hence, a 1966 invention that makes life so much less… acrobatic.
This invention is a liquid mixture of alcohol, thickening agents and other ingredients. When you apply it to your hands and rub them together, it evaporates, leaving behind cleaner hands than when you started. Wow! My backpacking companions and I discovered this “waterless soap” or “hand sanitizer” in the 1990s, when it gained wide public recognition and distribution.
One day I went to the sundries store to replenish my supply of waterless soap. The salesperson who helped me locate the sanitizer on the shelf was an older woman, tall, stooped and bone-thin. Like your ancient high school Social Studies teacher. She might even had been wearing a wig. On the shelf were three styles of H2O-less soap: the minty fresh, some blue stuff and strawberry. I unscrewed the cap of each one in turn to smell the soap. When I had the first one uncapped, I turned to her, offered the bottle and said, “Want a hit?” She peered at me over her half-glasses and replied, “No thanks, man. Not while I’m working.”