Going TP free, advice wanted.

" Keeps the coyotes away."

Or else makes them hump your leg.

…

"Viking taking a poo"

Ever try to clean chain mail with water and the "balls of your fingers"? Why do you think those guys in the dark ages were in such a bad mood all the time.

Cleaning? In the Dark Ages? What on earth for?

Fast forward to Medieval times, when men embraced luxury and became soft — a few towns started decreeing that inns must wash their crockery and utensils at least once a week. And Queen Elizabeth reputedly bathed once a month — whether she needed it or not. :)

Greg, two years, in the scheme of things, seems pretty quick. When I see the biomass of a single fallen tree, and the number of years it takes for one to decompose, and then compare that to t.p., well…

Also, I read that if you make a 'soup' of your…stuff by peeing on the whole mess, it makes t.p. decompose in under a season.

I may be wrong, but it wouldn't surprise me if there's more biomass in a single large fallen tree than in all the t.p. left by hikers in a single season. And the latter is widely scattered. And buried.

True, I very occasionally see dug up t.p., and it's not pretty. But other than this, I'm still not sure about why going tp-less is desirable, unless it's for purely personal reasons.

But I'm open for convincing. Maybe there's a larger environmental impact from t.p. than I'm aware of. The Park Service wants you to pack it out; for me, that's a bridge too far.

Here you go.

Soil conditions, stirred or not, shop towels versus single ply, etc. all play a role.

So do the approximately 1500 JMT hikers per year, averaging 15 days (dumps) per trip …
The Whitney Zone requires WAG Bags, and I too don’t want to see that applied to the JMT.

But, the OP asked for practical advice, not philosophical which will quickly devolve into Chaff, so enough on “convincing”.

HYOH, YMMV, and all of that.

Just finished jmt and the only things I used my tiny stash of tp for was blowing my nose, and blotting my glasses after washing them.

Rocks,sticks, and small pine twigs with soft green needles do the job just fine.