Trekking Hygeine

During an extended trek through the high mountains of the Himalayas your fellow hikers genuinely hope that you will show consideration by practicing at least some basic good hygiene. Some hikers believe it's ok to let nature take its course since there are no shower or laundry facilities and in the great outdoors no one can smell your sweat. Since you'll still be in close proximity to other people much of the time, especially when you zip airtight your two-man tent at night, don't count on then not retching whenever they're near you. You can still clean up a little, and the effort will go a long way as you're trekking in Nepal.

The best way to keep relatively fresh is to bring a large pack of wet wipes sealed in a Ziploc bag and to wipe down under your clothes every morning. If you supplement that with using an underarm deodorant you'll mitigate a great deal of the offensive odor. Every few days you can also get a pan of warm water and run some shampoo or even soap through your hair. It's best to wait for a warm sunny day or the luxury of a dining room with a hot stove fired up. Your cooking crew or any teahouse can prepare warm water for you and you might want to use that to wipe down with a rag too. It's a given that you will only have one or two changes of clothes with you, and it only takes a day or two for then to stink up a bit. Amazingly, the Sherpa people manage pretty well without automatic laundry machines. They keep clean by dousing their dirties in the water than comes down from the streams, by rubbing and scrubbing soap into them, then rinsing them out, all by hand. The only trick here is getting the clothes perfectly dry again, so they lay them out in the midday sun, hopeful that they'll finish by day's end. Again, wait until you have the sun or a hot stove to help you out.

If you're extremely considerate and adventurous you can rent out a shower at many of the lodges along the trail. You can reasonably get by with one shower every week or two if you have already figured out how to operate the wet wipes. The Shower is simply a little stall with a buck of warm water on the roof. You turn a dial to let the water flow down to you through a pipe. For a modest fee the lodge will heat some water for you (just a few gallons). Using just enough water to wet yourself down you can turn the water off and lather up. Using not much water at all you can rinse of and be very refreshed. All that's left is to dry off, which is the only real challenge since no one seems to use any towels up in the mountains. You can use one of your fleece sweaters to wipe down a little, then put your other clothes back on. Fleece does dry out really well, so it's a safe bet to get that wet. Do not get your cotton wet because it will take much longer to dry out. In summary, no, it's not cool to just let it go because even the yaks will want to keep their distance.