Dear Sundog: A few years ago I bought a groover for river trips, thinking it a necessary bit of group gear. My river friends didn’t own one, and we always had to scramble to borrow/rent/steal one for each trip. It was expensive, like $400, once I got the accompanying seat and rocket boxes that fit into my rowing frame, but I didn’t mind as I thought it would make me the “good guy” who supplied something essential for our trips.

　　But now that I’m the proud owner of a self-contained portable toilet, I find that I’m just expected to carry it on my raft, unload and set it up each night, then break it down and load it back onto my boat each morning. In the past, when we rented a groover, we all took turns setting it up and carrying it. It’s not that big of a deal, but then, they start to stink after a few days, and now it’s a feature of EVERY trip I do.

　　What’s more, at the end of the trips, no one has ever offered to empty/clean it for me, so now I’m always stuck with that delightful bit of scrubbery at the Maverick truck stop. The thing feels like an albatross and I’m tired of hauling all my friends’ shit. Should I just tell them I don’t have it anymore and let them figure it out on their own? —Antagonized Shit Servant 

　　Dear A.S.S.: As a retired Water Sports Team Associate (aka “river guide”) I can see at least two sides of this conundrum. On the one, having dumped and scrubbed dozens of boxes of human excrement in my day, I can attest that it’s really not as bad as it sounds. As with most jobs, once you accept it as your lot in life, it becomes kind of normal. On the other hand, any chore done with the esprit de corps of an expedition, with everyone pulling their own weight, devolves to a bummer when you’re the one stuck doing it every time. Your generous purchase for your friends’ enjoyment seems to prove the adage that no good deed goes unpunished.

　　You’ll have to take a hard line with your buds: request some volunteers to deal with the mess before the trip begins. If no one steps up, then your groover can call in sick, and the group can scramble to rent something. In this heady age of technological wonders one after the next gleefully promising to make your life easier, there is not yet, to Sundog’s knowledge an app or a bot that solves the age-old dilemma of disposing of feces. However with the surge of COVID-era newcomers to the sport of rafting (if you can call all-day bouts of beer drinking a “sport”) there has emerged a new service that Sundog has sampled and hardily recommend: toilet rentals which include the cleaning. In this new-fangled scenario, all party members pitch in 20 bucks or so, people share the duties, and at the end you just drop the hot pot on someone else’s doorstep.

　　Readers respond: Should a woman go on a river trip with a guy she didnt want to sleep with? As one of the early female outdoor adventurers, I would tell her this: If you are not already sleeping with a fellow adventurer, always bring your own tent and make it clear from the beginning that is where you are sleeping alone. Always. It sends a clear signal from the beginning. It’s easier to move in if you become interested than it is to move out. If it’s an adventure worth going on, you need the sleep. And if you are competent to go on an adventure, you can carry your own damn tent.

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　　Maybe it is just where I live. Its expected here to have sex after meeting for a hot tea at White Castle fast food restaurant. I cant imagine being with a guy for 14 nights without sex being demanded. To watch football at friend’s house, I had to bring my own drink or have sex. Another guy would not make eye contact at Starbucks because he was mad I would not leave and have sex. I have not tried dating anywhere else.

　　Readers respond: Should a father teach his son to knock down cairns? Hey Sundog, that guy who goes around destroying cairns is a selfish asshole! What if he kicks down a cairn, and someone gets lost and dies. You need to gow some balls and call that idiot exactly what he is, a totally self absorbed asshole!!

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　　I so appreciated your comments on the wilderness fantasy in your cairn piece. I literally went to grad school to study history of the American West (after reading Mark David Spences Dispossessing the Wilderness) just to wrap my smooth brain around the quagmire of myth and reality that is nature in America. In just a few sentences, you explained the whole sitch so clearly and purposefully. I have always been a fan of your column and now am even more so!

　　Truth over purity.

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　　We have thousands of Cairns here in PA and there purpose is not 100% clear. Some speculate they are some form of native American marker or maybe placed by our first settlers, or both. If it is not your property, you likely shouldnt be modifying it one way or the other, or as little as possible with the allowed use of it.

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　　I volunteer on an officially sanctioned trail crew in the Gila National Forest, including in the Gila wilderness along the Gila River alternate of the Continental Divide Trail. I must say that there are marked trails in the National Forest, including in wilderness areas, and in some cases we use rock cairns because traditional signs wont work in some spots due to terrain.

　　In your article it sounded like you were saying it is OK to knock down cairns in National Forest or wilderness areas. I disagree. These cairns may serve the same purpose as they do in a National Park and can really help to keep people on the main trail.

　　In fact, in our area, where I hike extensively, I dont recall ever seeing cairns that were not intended to mark a main trail or trail junction.

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　　Sometimes they are a spiritual expression of presence.

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