A solar shower bag. You can add hot water from a pot heated in a fire.

 

Don't use any kind of soap in a creek or in any watersource or near it. Even biodegradable stuff takes a long while to disappear.

Dirty water depending on the watersource can be a very big con. a lot of the dangerous virusses and bacteria you filter/boil water for, can also be gotten through little cuts and scrapes, and unless you come from that direction, you dont know what's upstream and possibly contaminating the water (and even if you're coming from upstream, who says there isn't a guy washing himself in a creek upstream from you, who came behind you, just at the moment you're trying to get fresh water )

I dont see any pro other than the feeling of bathing in a creek/river?

 

Don't bathe in creeks. Biodegradeable soap can still take a long time to degrade, and that stuff can really wreck a small stream or creek and others may be downstream using it for drinking water.

Instead, bathe away from the creek, at least a hundred feet or so depending on steepness of terrain and drainage.

The solar shower bag is great in the summer, in the winter the days are too short and the solar power may not be enough to warm the water. But you can still fill the bag up with water warmed over a fire or stove and use that.

But please don't bathe in streams and creeks.

Az

 

You can end up smelling like creek water, depends if the water is flowing or is a bit stagnant.

I haven't used a solar shower but if you get a plastic jerrycan and fill it from the creek and then sit it in the sun all day at your camp, it will warm up.

 

Some of us would call what you are using a "solar shower". We would just pour that water into a bucket with holes in the bottom is all.

 

Like so many above said don't wash in the creek/stream, get a bucket, boil and wash away from the shore line. Let there be enough space so that the grey water has a chance to be sifted by earth.
Also away from your sleeping site.

Someone down stream will appreciate it.

 

I have never "bathed" in a creek, but that is not to say I have never skinny dipped, is there a difference other than maybe some sort of soap?

 

Our creeks and rivers are spring fed and clean...great water for bathing but we don't get in the water to bathe...fouls it for everyone else...buckets with holes in them or Solar Shower bags are fine...

 

some of the slower moving water around here, you would have company to remove, after they had a snack, (leeches) rule # 1 though is never contaminate a water source. enough of it happens by accident.

 

On occasions I have bathed in creeks and will probably do so again in the future. Not the best option medium to long term but when the need arises so be it.

Regularly was my hands in a creek. A good way to get crud and blood of your hands is to lather up with mud.

 

Cons - it is almost certainly going to be cold. In some parts of the world there are also nasty critters in it.
Pros - fast easy zero prep time.

 

nasty critters in it.

Check these nasties out

 

Bathed in streams and lakes lots of times while backpacking. I won't bathe in every stream and creek but plenty of them are just fine.

I've also used a solar shower. Takes too long for the water to get warm and it's not worth the struggle with a big bag of water to get a short, cold shower. You'll never get the inside of the bag dry so it will stink the next time you use it.

And smelling like creek water is a lot better than smelling like me after a day of hiking.

 

Good chance you will pick up some worms that like to dig around and eat your insides. Whether you would actually notice it or not is another thing. The body seems to survive worm infestations reasonably well all things considered. You could also do a de-worming occasionally by drinking some boiled down black walnut hulls for a couple weeks.

Some areas have some really nasty Amoeba in the water that goes through your sinuses and eats your brain. Those are not so good for you. Louisiana I think someone here said?

Brain-eating amoeba found in Louisiana water

Brain-eating amoeba found in another Louisiana water system - CBS News

 

The amoeba you speak of have to be taken into the nasal passages...keeping your head out of the water works fine...La does have them, also most any warm,slow moving water source...the La cases were from people using Nasal Irrigators w/o boiling the water or using bottled water..sure death

 

I would concider triping on the back step and breaking my neck a bigger risk than occasionally bathing in a creek. Me and most of the people I know have grown up swimming in creeks and rivers.

 

swimmin is fine, i was 20 before i ever saw chlorinated water. dont soap it up. sand, take a dip and rinse off the funk of a three day ruck. just if your down near the equator, dont pee if your in a river or lake. Candiru might be tempted.....:upsidedown:

 

Yup, I used to swim in ponds, lakes and streams as well. No immediate ill effects, but when I hit age 45 I found that if I ate almost any fast carbs, I would get extreme gas, and almost immediate diarhea. Many people are diagnosed with the mysterious "irritable bowel syndrome". I think most of these folks simply have parasites. The parasites get all happy moving around and feeding on the fast carbs and it irritates the bowel.

I drank some black walnut hull extract for a couple weeks and the mysterious problem vanished. I went to the doctor at first and wanted him to prescribea general worming agent. Of course he said no. He wasn't a worm specialist. I told him the name of a couple drugs. He said he could order a bunch of worm tests, or rather the specialist he was going to send me to could.

I told him the treatment was harmless and I didn't need tests. Just treat for it. If I got better, then yippee. If not then that wasn't it. He wouldn't budge.

20 bucks later I walked out of HEB with some black walnut extract and 2 weeks later, cured.

This used to be commonly done by rural families 100 years ago. You treated for worms every year and you didn't get mysterious "bowel syndromes".

 

any downsides to drinking the black walnut extract?

 

As I kid I went skinny dipping all the time creeks and ponds.

I don't know how I survived to be an adult with all the amoeba, worms and parasites in the water.

I also drank out of a fast moving stream plenty of times.

Things must be different now?

 

Like I said, the Amoeba is pretty rare and the body tolerates worms pretty well. We did evolve swimming and drinking ground water so that is not too surprising. I think a good portion of the population is probably walking around with one or more types of worm inside them without symptoms.

CDC - Parasites

Just 1 worm -
"Toxoplasmosis is considered to be a leading cause of death attributed to foodborne illness in the United States. More than 60 million men, women, and children in the U.S. carry the Toxoplasma parasite, but very few have symptoms because the immune system usually keeps the parasite from causing illness."

And with all the raw salads people eat, and the occasional sushi and raw oyster it would be amazing if year after year a worm or worm egg didn't go long for the ride. Hook worms just go into your foot when walking barefoot outside. Toxocara from dogs and cats, Chiagas from Wheel bugs (300,000 cases in the US, this killed millions in South America), Trichomoniasis (an STD infects 3.7 million in the US), tapeworm infection, also known as taeniasis, and cysticercosis occur globally.

Can't remember someone's name? Maybe a worm ate it

Like those watercress sandwiches? Liver fluke.

"Fasciola hepatica, which is also known as "the common liver fluke" or "the sheep liver fluke." A related parasite, Fasciola gigantica, also can infect people. Fascioliasis is found in all 5 continents, in over 50 countries, especially where sheep or cattle are reared. People usually become infected by eating raw watercress or other water plants contaminated with immature parasite larvae. The immature larval flukes migrate through the intestinal wall, the abdominal cavity, and the liver tissue, into the bile ducts, where they develop into mature adult flukes, which produce eggs. The pathology typically is most pronounced in the bile ducts and liver..."

Our modern medical system doesn't seem that well versed on worms. If they can't find the root of the problem, they will say you have a "syndrome" and send you home with a bill.

 

Food grade diatomaceous earth should also get rid of any parasites, we mix it in a glass of water and drink it every now and then, just as a preventative measure. We have the better part of a 50 pound bag that we bought for the chickens and the garden.

 

I have used creek-water to scrub down quickly, but never actually got in the creek. I finally bought a solar-shower because there was never any enjoyment in bathing with cold water.
I didn't use soap (which I don't use much of anyway) and just did a quick thorough scrubdown with a wash cloth.
Does anyone know if natural soap would be okay? Not store-bought natural soap...but home-made with Lye and oil?

 

Use all soap away from the creek. I think all soaps and detergents are biodegradable these days (even number of carbon atoms in the chain), but it takes time for the microbes to do their work.

There is a lot more stuff in the water these days. Crap from chemtrails, farm or industrial runoff, more people and pets in the back woods.

 

You can wash in a creek, but standing water is not advisable (make sure the creek is flowing). As others have mentioned, don't use standard soaps. However, there are plenty of environmentally friendly soaps that can be used (Google castile soap). Personally, I would get an eco-friendly soap that has sulfur it in. Sulfur helps with skin issues as well as kills/prevents many body pests you have to deal with. I use it frequently after camping because it kills body mites (chiggers) and helps with healing the bites quickly (also kills bacteria).

 

Just because it says eco-friendly, doesn't mean its good. I use a "biodegradable" soap, but most things are technically biodegradable. It just takes forever for it to happen. Just keep all soaps away from water sources. People will come after you (timewise, not coming to look for you ), and use the water for drinking and cooking. Personally i dont really want to drink water (filtered or unfiltered) when upstream there can be a guy taking a bath who just had the runs, or take water where someone did his dishes and the soap is probably still in the soil around the water.

It's not just about 1 person, it's about the people who will follow you to the location. Same reason that on trails etc, you can't go in certain places or have to pick your waste out. 1 person leaving one brown "paper flower" isn't a big issue, but 50, every day over the same trail, would add up fast.

 

Bathing without soap may actually be beneficial for you. Use the GOOGLE for viewpoints.

 

I quit using soap a long time ago, except for washing hands. I haven't found myself to be any more or less stinky...and yes I've asked people, under the guise of "I'm trying a different kind of soap and I'm not sure if it works...do I smell fine?" So far, no issues or complaints.

 

FWIW, liver flukes are also common in countries and populations where rice is planted by hand and people wade in muddy water all day.

 

and dont forget what asian countries fertilize a rice paddy with.

 

I don't see a downside.

 

Not recommended in Florida due to the presence of amoebas that eat brains.

 

So congress has snorted a lot of swamp water.
I always suspected.