Tossing your morning constitutional off a big wall or squatting in the woods when the urge overtakes you seem as natural, well, as the urge itself. After all, what are you going to do with the stuff? Pack it out with your?
More and more, the answer is yes. Human waste has become a major problem at climbing areas throughout the U.S.. In Yosemite, the bases and bivi ledges of popular big walls reek of feces and urine. The area surrounding the Gallery at Red Rocks, Nev
ada, is littered with toilet paper and catholes. And at Mount Rainier, Park officials are considering charging a climber fee to help defray the expense of human waste removal. Land managers and climbers are working to find solutions to human-waste probl
ems, but efforts are complicated by lack of climber compliance, inadequate funding, disposal issues and differences in ecosystem types.
There are three basic locations where climbers must deal with getting rid of their waste: on a big wall, in the backcountry and on snow and ice. Big-wall climbers have traditionally depended on a paper bag and the law of gravity to take care of the
problem. Although the ground strikes eventually break down (after months or even years), traffic on popular big-wall routes guarantees that bags will accumulate faster than they disintegrate--unless they're picked up later, something climbers rarely do.
The visual and olfactory impact at the base of these walls is startling, but even more important are issues of health and safety. Animals and rain transfer feces into streams and lakes, raising fecal coliformbacteria levels and changing sensitive aquati
c ecosystems. And, although there are no reports of anyone actually getting hit, bags of feces falling at terminal velocity could cause injury--not to mention psychological damage!
According to Mark Fincher, a climbing ranger at Yosemite, it has always been illegal to toss human waste off a wall or to leave it in situ. Rangers have turned their backs on this for years, but those days are over. Beginning in May 1995, climbers
will be required to carry their waste with them (morning telescope scans of walls will enforce compliance). The disposal system goes like this: climbers will defecate into a lunch-sack-size paper bag, seal it in a sturdy, reusable plastic container (the
Park recommends Nalgene bottles with a little kitty litter) and dispose of the filled bags in a vault (rather than flush) toilet upon returning to the ground.
By using paper bags instead of plastic, Yosemite's system circumvents one of the major obstacles to proper waster disposal: what to do with the soiled plastic after use. It is unsanitary to simple throw it in the dumpster, and it causes expensive-to
-remove clogs in pit toilets. Paper breaks down in septic systems; the only disadvantage is that climbers must provide and clean their outer container.
Park officials are hoping that peer pressure will develop among climbers to encourage use of the system, and that compliance will be good. "With more climbers packing waste out," suggests Fincher, "there may be a more widespread feeling that the act
ions of one person can make a difference."
For climbers who are not on walls but who are away from facilities, the recommendations are to dig a 10-inch-deep hole, bury all waste, and pack out the toilet paper. Yet problems arise from this system as well. Burying works well with small numbe
rs of users and in active soil that breaks down feces quickly--especially if dirt and rocks are mixed in with the feces to speed its breakdown. In desert and alpine environments, however, soil activity is slow; waste breakdown can take a very long time.<
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One possible solution is a technique known as smearing, in which excrement is spread in a thin layer across a rock in open sun, exposing it to the elements and thereby hastening its breakdown. This technique is taught by the National Outdoor Leaders
hip School, "the waste dries," says instructor Molly Absolon, "and blows away quite quickly." There are some unknown variables regarding this technique, however, including the potential ingestion of the smears by coyotes and/or rodents and the possibilit
y that any giardia cysts present in the feces could remain viable after drying.
Zion National Park, Utah, and Red Rocks National Recreation Area, Nevada, are examples of arid areas where soil activity is slow. According to Zion's Denny Davies, visual human waste impact in the Park is notable. Many of Zion's trails travel throu
gh canyons in which water runs, so environmental impact is a concern as well. Currently Zion recommends burying, but is considering a system in which the Park would issue plastic bags to users; used bags would be packed out and deposited in a dump statio
n at the trailhead. The details of this plan have yet to be worked out, however, it remains to be seen what will happen to the waste-filled bags after they reach the dump station.
At Red Rocks the problem is compounded by the absence of toilets at parking areas used by climbers. According to BLM spokesperson Dave Wolf, money is not available to deal with waste problems, including a "major sanitation problem near the Gallery."
The BLM is considering making "pet bags" available; these would be disposed of in garbage cans near trailheads. This raises questions about the public health hazards that may result from disposing human waste in landfills. According to Linda Reekie, w
ater-quality coordinator for Colorado's Boulder County Department of Health, "It's no big deal if it's well-sealed in a sturdy plastic bag. Modern landfills are lined, so it wouldn't get into the water supply." Reekie points out, however, that the pract
ice is illegal.
Waste poses the biggest problem on snow and ice, because it doesn't dry out and isn't broken down by soil microorganisms. In remote backcountry areas, digging a cathole in the snow will provide temporary cover--look for a spot with relatively slow d
rainage. Where available, the classic method of throwing one's waste into a crevasse removes it from view. However, crevasses are not permanent hiding places, as glacial movement and recession will ultimately disgorge the contents of today's crypts. In
the meantime, runoff will be contaminated.
On Mount Rainier, where thousands of people climb each year, the Park Service has been experimenting with disposal techniques. Conventional and solar toilets have been installed at 10,000-foot Camp Muir, and along several of the more popular routes
there are 55-gallon drums behind privacy screens. Climbers are also issued double-layer "blue bags" for use away from these facilities; they're supposed to transfer used blue bags to the drums or to an off-mountain disposal site.
The system is working, but imperfectly. The toilets at Camp Muir and the barrels along the routes must be emptied by helicopter, which is very expensive. Solar toilets help reduce the volume of waste, but their effectiveness is hampered by frequent
cloud cover. Climbers often fail to deposit their used bags into the appropriate barrels or simply don't use the bags at all.
According to Park spokesperson Glenn Baker, climber compliance has been improving, but the real issue is money. Contracting helicopters to carry waste off the mountain is extremely, and a climber fee to help defray costs is being considered for next
year. Baker says the amount hasn't been determined, but that "it will definitely be less than the fee for Denali" (currently proposed to be $200 per person).
On Mount Denali, the current system is barely working. At camp or on low-angle routes, climbers are supposed to use the plastic bags the Park provides, then throw them into an open crevasse. On steep routes, climbers are told to frisbee feces down
the mountain on a crust of ice or snow. Sounds easy, but according JD Swed, South District Ranger, a number of climbers don't dump their bags into crevasses, and the problem is compounded because there's not always a crevass when one is needed. Waste is
accumulating with alarming rapidity along the West Buttress route, especially at the 17,000-foot camp. Rangers on Denali are considering a number of options, including mandatory climber education programs paid for by money generated from the forth-comin
g fee system.
Waste disposal on big remote mountains such as those found in the Himalaya presents yet another set of problems. Robert McConnell, Chair of the International Committee of the American Alpine Club and founder of the Everest Environmental Project, led
expeditions in 1990 and 1992 to Mt. Everest that focused on trash removal. Upon arrival, however, the expeditions found that human waste on the mountain was a more critical problem. Climbers are rapidly running out of room to dig holes at basecamps, an
d conditions are disgusting and unsanitary. In 1993 McConnell teamed up with Michael Reynolds, the inventor of the Earthship (a house build from recycled materials and designed to operate "off of the utilities grid") to try out a low-tech solar toilet in
the Himalayas.
The design of these toilets is simple: an insulated box with a toilet lid on top and a tempered glass wall on one side to let the sun in. Under proper conditions, the box can reach an internal temperature of 1770C, hot enough to kill pathogens and d
ry the waste into a more manageable dust. Reynolds donated one of the toilets designed for his homes to the project, but was unable to get it through Chinese customs. Undaunted, he fashioned two solar toilets out of materials available on the site--a Pl
exiglas window and a pit made of rocks for insulation--and installed them at the 15,000-foot basecamp in Tibet.
According to McConnell, intermittent reports indicate that the toilets are functioning well, reaching a temperature of
1020C when the sun is out. This is hot enough to kill most pathogens, as well as to substantially reduce the volume of the waste. Unfortunately, because of the rock pit, this type of toilet can't be used on an active glacier (such as the one at the base
camp on Everest's Nepalese side). In May, a portable toilet was build using styrofoam for insulation and left with Nepal's Sagamartha Pollution Control Project, which will install it.
Solar toilets may be part of the solution, but technology can only go so far. The problem originates with climbers; the solution must as well.