Leaving the Den, Shaving in odd places

[Yuritau]

Curiosity time! So what's the weirdest place y'all have stopped to have a shave?

I was on a camping trip this weekend in my favorite campground, Conkle Lake Provincial Park in British Columbia, and found myself waking up with the sun at about 5am on Saturday morning and decided, what the hell, let's go down to the beach and have a swim and a shave while I have the entire lake to myself!

Prep consisted of swimming/floating/flopping around in the chilly mountain lake water for something like half an hour, and rubbing a handful of sand across my beard to simulate facial scrub the manly way! Then I stood chest deep in the water (somewhere vaguely to the rightish in the pic below) and had myself a fairly unique shave. Let my VDH Deluxe float around me in its tupperware dish, used the lake itself for a mirror (at 5:30-ish the ONLY ripples on the lake were fish jumping and me rinsing the razor), and did 3x WTG passes with a travel Tech loaded with a fresh Astra SS. The shave was perfectly comfortable, not even a hint of irritation, but not very effective, just barely SAS. I didn't care about that much though, the view I had, and the satisfaction of knowing I rocked a DE in a spot where I can be fairly certain no one else ever had more than made up for the lack of closeness! It's probably my favorite shave ever at this point.

I doubt I'm the only one to do a particular shave just to say I did it, so I'd like to hear some of yours!


Yeah, it looks like that pretty much every day of every summer. If you ever wonder why people like BC so much, this is a good candidate!

 

[dfollett_98]

Jeff:

Wow, that is beautiful and serene. I can see why you enjoyed your shave in that location.

My favorite odd place to shave was waist deep in a medium sized river somewhere in the Yukon in the early 60s. It was so cold I couldn't feel my legs or feet. It was a dry and VERY quick shave, but it got the job done. I got tired of looking like a wanna be mountain man.

Besides, I had to convince my two travel partners it wasn't really all that cold. They jumped in and immediately jumped out. I learned some new profanity that day.

Enjoy your shaves.

Don

 

[Go West Young Man]

Not sure that shaving soap is particularly good for the lake.....

 

[TankCommander1554]

Great looking picture...congrats dude.

 

[Snargle]

Not sure that shaving soap is particularly good for the lake.....

I concur. Soap and pristine lake waters don't coexist real well. Better to have scooped up a bowl of water, shaved, and dumped the soapy water far from the shoreline. Leave no trace and all that good stuff, ya' know...

 

[alitkty]

I wouldn't say no to a sea shave..

 

[CorAnd]

The following isn't said for the sake of being disrespectful, but I think it warrants saying that that was very stupid of you. As another poster already said, even scooping out some lake water in a bowl and shaving OUTSIDE of the lake would have been better than floating in the water and rinsing the shaving soap in the lake. What you did isn't manly. Im not impressed.

Look, I know you guys love to shave. That's great, it really is. But leave your shaving creams and soaps at home. There is absolutely no reason why you can't muster up a modicum of sensible discipline and gentlemanly restraint and go without shaving while you're out in the wild. That stuff doesn't belong out there. Same goes with shampoo and bath soap--I don't care if you bought it from a hippie at some organic store or not.

I am aware that itis impossible to have zero impact on the wilderness while we are out there, because just by being there, you've changed it. But this kind of thing is bordering on the other end of the spectrum.

 

[Yuritau]

The following isn't said for the sake of being disrespectful, but I think it warrants saying that that was very stupid of you. As another poster already said, even scooping out some lake water in a bowl and shaving OUTSIDE of the lake would have been better than floating in the water and rinsing the shaving soap in the lake. What you did isn't manly. Im not impressed.

Look, I know you guys love to shave. That's great, it really is. But leave your shaving creams and soaps at home. There is absolutely no reason why you can't muster up a modicum of sensible discipline and gentlemanly restraint and go without shaving while you're out in the wild. That stuff doesn't belong out there. Same goes with shampoo and bath soap--I don't care if you bought it from a hippie at some organic store or not.

I am aware that itis impossible to have zero impact on the wilderness while we are out there, because just by being there, you've changed it. But this kind of thing is bordering on the other end of the spectrum.

I understand where you're coming from on this one, and if it was something that I was doing regularly, or that was a common practice, I might agree with you. But neither is true, this is the only time I've ever done it, and I typically don't even take soaps of any kind with me when I go into the wild. I decided to do it this time because I knew with certainty that it would have absolutely no impact on the lake in any way. My diploma in Water and Wastewater treatment included three semester courses in microbiology and freshwater biology, and one semester course in limnology. I know that soap isn't good for nature, but I also know that the tiny amount I added to the lake (didn't use a brush, only rubbed a thin film on my face with my fingers) was too insignificant to have any effect whatsoever.

Maybe you think that's no excuse to have done it at all. That's an opinion you are welcome to maintain, but your last sentence greatly over-estimates the impact I had on my surroundings.

 

[Go West Young Man]

Granted, you have a point, but there are regular-as-clockwork posts from guys who want to shave daily on week-long camping or backpacking trips.
We try to nip that kind of thing in bud, unless you have access to a campground sink soaps and shampoos have no place in the wild.

 

[Le Buzz]

This sounds like a cool experience. OTOH, I'm pleased to see a conciousness for conservation on this forum, it gives me hope for humanity. CorAnd, I think that was a little harsh though, which is why the op got so defensive and consequently it's going to be difficult for him to admit his error... Even though you're right you're not going to change his position by making him lose face.

I agree it probably would have been better to just forego the shave, even if the impact was small. Theres 7 billion of us on the planet, and 7 billion small impacts... Well they turn into one gigantic impact.

So unless you have some skin condition which is alleviated by the shaving/exfoliation process, I don't think there's any reason to shave while camping. I think there should be an unwritten rule amongst the men of this world to skip shaving until you're back in civilization. I mean, what's the point of looking all spick-and-span while you're wrestling bears, jumping off of waterfalls, and doing all kinds of manly stuff anyways?

 

[Yuritau]

I don't think there's any reason to shave while camping.

There isn't really. And I typically never do. I chose to this time just because it seemed like a fun thing to be able to say I did once.