I Can Pee Like a Man

Prior to rock climbing, I'd never been as jealous of man's ability to discreetly relieve himself while enjoying nature. I think my envy really settled in last year on my first climb trip...

It was Memorial Day Weekend & I had signed up with 2 of my best climbing girlfriends for a fun weekend of instructional climbing in Acadia National Park, ME. We rented the "penthouse suite" of a bed & breakfast, so clearly we weren't planning on roughing it too much that weekend. We had comfy beds, a gourmet breakfast & a cute park-ranger-in-training chauffeuring us around and wooing us with crazy-thoughtful gifts. It was pretty much a perfect single girls weekend climb trip. Except for one small detail... how and where to discreetly pee on Otter Cliffs.

Otter Cliffs is an awesome cliff formation right at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean in Maine where you can set-up a top anchor and be lowered down just above the waves to climb back up. It's an amazing feeling to hear the waves crashing and echoing off of the rocks as you climb up the cliff. Nature and sport at their extremes and in perfect harmony. I loved every minute of it. Except when I had to go to the bathroom.

Otter Cliffs is missing one critical facility - bathrooms. In order to relieve oneself, you had to walk gingerly and strategically to a part of the cliff that no one was using and quickly do the deed. Even if you thought you were shielded from the tourists and climbers, there were still a lot of boats anchored or trolling in the waters off of the coast that I imagined all had binoculars or telephoto cameras on stand-by just waiting to capture hot climbing chicks peeing. I know, I have an over-active imagination. Maybe... Maybe not?!

Well, I'm now happy to report that there definitely won't be any weird peeing pictures of this climber chick floating around on the internet. I'm now the proud owner of a device sold at REI known as a "Freshette". It's a personal urinary directional device that allows women to pee standing up. I have not given it a test run yet, but plan to bring it with me on an upcoming climb trip to West Virginia.

Essential Climb Trip Gear