Suggestions, please, to a FEMALE on how to pee in the middle of the night without getting out of the backpacking tent. Currently I use a Coolwhip container with lid, which is light but bulky to pack in. Any better ideas? Thanks.

Well, if you can make the cool whip container work, how about a heavy duty ziploc type bag? I just suck it up and drag myself out into the night, but I'm not willing to risk the sanctity of my down bag!

I use a freshette director and pee into a bottle...just like a guy, but tidier (they're available lots of places but here is the link to REI: http://www.rei.com/product/407267).
There are other similar products out there, too, I just like this one. I can add a longer tube for peeing while kayaking, etc.
I haven't lost a pi$$in' contest since I got one. Just ask my husband! ;-)

My wife just put this on her wish list. I think you'd have to get out of your bag, but may help in other situations:
http://www.go-girl.com/

This one does not look as user-friendly as the freshette director and those who have used it tend to agree but YMMV.
I carry mine in my front pants pocket so it always at the ready while hiking.

One of my female friends pees in our floorless shelter. It's really awkward to wake up to.

Are you serious? That is gross!

Might sound odd, but I look forward to getting up mid night. Then I can stretch my back!!!!

Yep, no joke.

My wife has one. Aside from the ridiculous price for a piece of molded plastic, she thinks it's the greatest invention since goose down. She was never keen about dropping trou to take a leak in the great out doors and tended to hold it in a lot longer than she should have. The freshette has made for a great improvement in the hiking experience for her.

I used to carry a whiz freedom and a 1 litre platypus bottle. Then I realised it was all just extra weight for something I could go out side and do for no extra pack weight.

Ooh...lol! No kidding!

A couple years ago I was on a trip with a couple ladies. I wake up to hearing major cussing one tent over. Seems someone who "loved" her device had an accident. The bottle had tipped over, pee everywhere - her bag got soaked.

At that point I turned my ipod on and drowned out the 2 am cuss-a-thon. If I didn't I was going to bust out laughing.

No pee bottle and device = getting to carry ipod to cover up hiking partners mistake. Priceless.

Sarah, that sounds like a story I heard 50 years ago, which the woman in question discovered that the coffee can she'd taken into the tent with her on a rainy night was upside down.

At my age, I have to exit several times per night. I just grit my teeth and do it. I tried the Freshette. I couldn't get it to work without leaking and discovered that I have to pull my pants down to use it anyway.

I made my own urinary device out of a wishbone salad dressing bottle. Cut it diagonally from the bottom corner to the top near the neck where the cross-hatching pattern begins.

I used my cookpot to pee in. Urine is sterile until it meets your urethra, so it's not like you're gonna poison yourself. Just wash your pot in the morning. The urine gets the baked on crud off good.

To use the device, I had to position various skin folds correctly. Then afterwards, I would insert a small plastic bottle of water with a flip-top lid into the hole and flush myself and the device with water.

I have a Freshette and have used it. I never liked hauling the stinky wet thing out of a plastic bag so just started holding up the coolwhip tub to me so as not to miss. I never thought about rinsing/flushing it right into the container---Duh! How much water (ounces) does it take to rinse?

The ziploc bag has been considered but how do you make it "stand up" and not collapse at a critical moment? Is it really leak proof if it flops over during the night after use? It would be a good solution for the bulkiness of the coolwhip container if it is secure enough. I assume it is rinsed out in the morning and reused?

Diane, you are my new hero. I like that you can leave the little Brillo pad at home now.

I eliminated getting out of the tent by getting rid of the tent. It's a lot easier to roll out of the hammock. I go the distance, do the deed, and come back - thought about the pee bottle thing but find that not having to winch myself off the ground, out a zipper door between guy lines, actually made it less hateful a task.

Brillo. Could use it as tp.....

Edited by hotrod on 11/23/2009 21:34:47 MST.

The other reason to get up at night is I love seeing the sky. You know when you open your eyes and above you is a sky that is so dark yet so brilliant? There is nothing like that, in an alpine meadow at 2 or 3 am. Or at 4 when dawns first light is slithering up.

Or in winter when it is snowing lightly. So much snow that night is light. No sounds but the snow crystals by your ears.

Granted when rainy and windy it sucks. lol....

Getting a little off-topic here, I remember backpacking for two weeks on the PCT in the Cascades in Washington, and exiting the tent for my usual middle-of-the-night call of nature. I was mesmerized by the entire sky, even south, being filled with an incredible display of the northern lights. I was the only one of us that enjoyed that, thanks to my full bladder.