Our Cat Hole Digger was designed to be the lightest, most efficient, cat hole digger in the world.  1.8 ounces.  And it's one rugged piece of mandatory equipment.  So what's a "cat hole?"  A cat hole is a shallow hole - 6-8 inches deep - that a person digs to bury their poop and toilet paper.  We recommend [at minimum] an 8 inch deep hole.  Most people DO NOT dig them deep enough, and this attracts animals to their poop and toilet paper.  &nbsp.

We realized that it had to weigh just a few ounces, about the weight of a milkweed puff, yet be tough and long-lasting, or people wouldn't carry it in their backpack.  We also realized that it would have to pack within the toilet kit somehow, or it might get lost.  Most shovels and trowels that can really do the job of digging a cat hole turn out to be heavier than most backpackers are willing to carry, or they tend to poke holes in their gear, or are in some ways are simply too awkward to use and so are not used.   Our Digger leaves no excuses for not burying your poop.  And the wild places need us ALL to care about this growing problem.

Our Cat Hole Digger is lighter and easier to pack because its thin and round, but it also uses a far more economical digging principle...  We'll,  before we elaborate on it, a brief digression: We believe that to invent anything new, something that has genuine value, you must be willing to dream a little.  To see things others don't see.  You must somehow find a way into that place that isn't already organized.  That place we call "the what COULD be zone."  For that's the only place we know of where truly new ideas are found.  However, we also believe you must be equally willing to look at older proven ideas that can in some way be incorporated into new product ideas (we see that in all the Japanese cars and trucks).  So that's exactly what we've done with our Cat Hole Digger.

Our Digger uses a millennia-old mechanical principle: plunge and pinch.  If you've ever used a post-hole digger with its plunge and pinch principle, you'll get the idea.  You plunge a post-hole digger into the ground with a lunging action and at the same time squeeze the jaws together which pinches out the dirt.  Two things are accomplished simultaneously: you break into the ground and retract dirt (etc.) at the same time.  A lot is accomplished in a short period of time.  Simple, single-action process.  Very economical.  But we've added something else, something extremely useful when you're trying to dig in soil that has lots of gravel or small stones (like most forest floors).  You can pinch the tongs a little and create a scraper.  This allows you to plunge and pinch and scrape to dig a hole.  We try to do this with a shovel or trowel, but they're not designed to be scrapers.  In most cases, you can dig a hole in even rocky soil in about 8 minutes.

The Digger stows in the slot left when the seat is folded.  It's easy to clean and easy to use.  Weighing just a couple of ounces, it quickly qualifies as ultralight gear.   The whole Packit Toilet/Digger package fits easily in the small front stow space of the smallest kayak as well as your own backpack.