Ha! I’d guessed that this thread might attract several geologists and/or geology students, and there it is in the OP!
I don’t exactly keep track of such things, but the contenders are:
Field Camp (1994, as a student), ~10 days with no shower (over 6 weeks)
Field Camp (2003, as an instructor), ~12 days with no shower (over 3 weeks)
Field work for Ph.D. dissertation (1998)… no, I’m pretty sure I managed showers every few days for some reason.
So, 10-12 days.
This summer I’m taking my grad student into the field for his Master’s field work for six weeks and I fully expect to break any previous personal record.
I’ve spent as much as a week at a time in the field, but always with access to a car and supplies, never backpacking. Consequently I’ve never gone more than two days :). I’ll “shower” ( wash my hair ) with bottled water in the desert, because I can’t stand not to. I have very oily hair and it positively freaks me out if I go more than a day or two without washing it - it feels icky.
About eight days, when I was in the field on a miltary exercise. As many have said, almost nothing feels so good as to get under the water when you get back!
I’ll take that TMI crown <yoink> thank you very much. Yes this is really, really gross, you have been warned. I went almost 3 days without a shower out of sheer laziness. I generate almost no armpit odor whatsoever, even after 3 days, but I’m not immune to “sack stank”. I had an itch down there and instictively scratched it. Needless to say my hand came close to my face, and I think I passed out. When I awoke, I took the kind of shower generally reserved for those who’ve fallen into septic tanks. Now, wipe that coffee of your monitor.
My first trip to Tibet in the winter lasted about 6 weeks. No showers or baths, it was too frickin’ cold and no facilities. I mean permafrost and below freezing 24/7 during most of the trip. The only thing I had was about 4 weeks into the trip, found a barber that cropped my hair down real short and shaved off the beard.
The minute I got back somewhere with a shower, I just dove in for about 2 hours.
Probably a year or two. That’s without bath or shower. As long as I wore reasonably clean clothes (washed within the past month or two) there was no odour. I did start to develop some sort of ringworm around my crotch and on my feet though, but that went away after the doctor gave me some powder.
(Note to aghast readers : this was 10 years ago, I’m quite the fresh, daily-washing guy now. I’m also no longer homeless.)
About a month and a half, after the worst sunburn of my life (as a result of 8 hours swimming off of South Padre Island with only one application of sunscreen in the morning, and me being seriously melanin-impaired). The most I was able to do was very carefully splash around in the bath (no scrubbing at all, for fear of losing a dangerous amount of skin). I wasn’t interacting much with society, though, being limited to lying in bed and leaking plasma, so I wasn’t too worried about it.
I’ve never gone more than two or three days without bathing,but I have gone over a month without washing my hair. Eeew, I know, it’s gross, but I did have a good reason. I was growing my hair out from a short haircut and I wore hairpieces every day. If my hair was clean they would slip right out, but if it was dirty they stayed in. And I had a theory that the oils would help my hair grow. I’ll add that I wasn’t dating anyone at the time either. haha. That might have gotten embarassing.
Finally I stopped wearing the hairpieces and nowadays I wash my long (it did work!) hair at least 2-3 times a week.
Except for illness I’ve never gone without at least 1 shower per day since my teen years. Always a morning shower. Additional showers if I work up a sweat. If I go camping there has to be facilities nearby or I won’t go. If I was in the research field I would take stuff with me for a spot bath but what I would want most is to wash my hair. Definitely want a daily hair wash.
First time: 17, summer week-long camping trip with my family through a good portion of HOT California . It was 4 days into the trip before we camped at a place that had COLD showers. I took one (I HAD to! My hair was a grease pit! It was disgusting!). That was the first and last time I tried to shave my legs in a cold shower. Yowch!
Second time: Burning Man 2001, Black Rock Desert, Nevada. I sluiced/rinsed off every day, but I wasn’t able to wash my hair for the entire time I was there (it was in braids). When I got home, I had to wash my hair 3 times for all the playa dust to come out. It was the best shower of my life.
Probably about 3 weeks total, camping in the Darien jungle of Panama. I bathed in the rivers whenever possible, but for about 2 weeks we were in the mountains and the streams were too small for a real bath - you had to rinse off as best you could by splashing and dumping a cup of water over your head. On the trek in, I probably went about 5 days without even that because we didn’t have the time, between walking and breaking and setting up camp. Boy I felt itchy.
