Best towelDries you, then dries itself by morning
Sea to Summit Pocket Towel
Dries overnight in a cold lodge where a cotton travel towel simply does not — it never feels pleasant, and it holds a faint smell after a week however often you rinse it.
The honest necessity
Above 4,000 m, nobody is showering
Biodegradable body wipes
Large, unscented, biodegradable
Hot showers above Dingboche cost money, use a lodge’s scarce fuel, and leave you cold for an hour afterwards — a wipe wash is the realistic alternative, and "biodegradable" still means carry them out, not bury them.
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What you get
- Feel human again without getting cold
- No lodge fuel used, which matters more than it sounds
- One pack does a fortnight
What it costs you
- Must be carried out — biodegradable is not a licence to leave them
- Freeze solid in a pack overnight
- Not a shower, whatever the packaging suggests
Do not buy this if: Anyone unwilling to pack out used wipes. Then take fewer and use the shower.
Treks we recommend this for
Not every route needs it. These are the ones where our guides would put it on your list.
The alternatives
Everything else we recommend in hygiene & wipes, including the ones we think suit a different trekker.
Best towel
One bottle, five jobsBody, hair, socks and the dish you ate off
Dr. Bronner's Pure-Castile Liquid Soap
Concentrated enough that a small bottle does a fortnight of body, hair and laundry — it is still soap, so it does not belong in a stream, however biodegradable the label is.