FeatherSticks · Skills
Leave No Trace in Practice: The 7 Principles for Bushcraft
The best camp is the one nobody can find the day after.
Quick facts
- Principles
- Seven, from planning to consideration
- Water
- Camp, wash and toilet at least 60 m away
- Fire
- Only where allowed, small, dead wood
- Goal
- Nobody can tell you were there
What you need
- Strong rubbish bags, one opaque for used toilet paper
- Small trowel
- Camping stove and, where needed, a fire pan
- Collapsible bowl or bucket
- Cloth or mesh strainer for dishwater
- Headlamp with red or dimmed mode
- Lightweight groundsheet for carving
Step by step
-
1 Plan and check the rules
Check access and fire rules, weather and route before you go. Pack bags for rubbish, a trowel and a stove.
-
2 Camp on durable ground
Use established sites or bare, durable ground, at least 60 m from water. Avoid moss, flowering meadows and banks.
-
3 Pack out all waste
Everything you carried in goes home, including food scraps and used toilet paper. Bury human waste only in a proper cathole.
-
4 Small fire, dead wood only
Light a fire only where it is allowed, in an existing ring or fire pan, with dead and fallen wood. Put it out until cold.
-
5 Give wildlife space
Watch animals quietly from a distance, never feed them and store food out of reach. Keep dogs under control.
-
6 Restore the site
Dismantle what you built, scatter wood and shavings, fluff up the ground and pick up any litter, even if it is not yours.
Common mistakes
- Camping right on the shore of a lake or stream instead of at least 60 m away.
- Leaving food scraps such as orange peel or nutshells because they are "natural".
- Burning rubbish and foil in the campfire.
- Cutting living branches for poles, beds or firewood.
- Building a new fire ring next to an existing one.
- Leaving a pile of feather-stick shavings or a practice shelter standing.
- Burying toilet paper instead of packing it out.