Re: Perhaps a silly question, re: contacts (for eyes)

As others have said, you really have to wash your hands before cooking or eating anyway. When you can't wash with soap and water (for example, on winter trips), a hand sanitizer like Purell works very well. It turns out that most cases of "giardia" in the back country are actually from eating without washing your hands. And most cases where an entire party comes down with digestive problems come from the cook or server neglecting to wash their hands.

But, Barb (my spouse of 40+ years) used to wear contacts. She had problems a couple times getting dirt in her eyes (from blowing dirt in at least one case) and scratched her cornea. That healed, but was very uncomfortable. Later she developed pterigium (sp?), which it turns out many people who spend lots of hours in the outdoors develop, even non-contact users (apparently promoted by lots of UV exposure, which us high altitude wanderers get a lot of). This makes contacts a no-go). So, her advice (and her opthamologist's) is use glasses for backcountry use and where blowing dust, sand, etc may be an issue.

But sterilize your hands in any case - soap and water, hand sanitizer, "baby-wipes", whatever. You really don't want to get stomach ailments when out in the backcountry.