The 200-Foot Rule

Whenever you go to the bathroom, cook, wash your hands, or set up camp, you should stay 200 feet away from water, trails, and other campers. There are a few reasons for this distance. For one thing, poop is gross, and no one wants a cat hole near their campsite—even a deep one. And no one wants to start digging their own cat hole just to find out someone else was there first. So 200 feet gives campers plenty of room to disperse.

However, the more important, scientific reason for the 200-foot rule is that human waste contains pathogens, the transfer of which causes more illne...