Steve records a couple who tell how far you should poop from major water sources, plus other interesting details. From the script:
EMILY RESSLER: And then another thing we like to talk about is what we call micro litter. And micro litter is any of the little things …that you’re dropping and you’re not really seeing, so when you’re …sitting down and taking a break, and eating your granola bar, it’s all those little crumbs that are falling out on the ground. And those may not seem like they’re that big of an impact, and it might seem kind of nit picky to even mention picking that stuff up, but if you think about birds in the area, or small mammals, they’re really going to be attracted to those popular areas because they are finding that micro litter that they can come along and have a meal and become pests, cause issues between humans and those animals.
J.D. TANNER: One of the most common phrases you hear with dispose-of-waste-properly, is “pack it in, pack it out.” So what do you guys think about the possibilities of packing out your human waste?
J.D. TANNER: It’s sounds kind of gross, but it’s possible. There’s all kinds of fancy little things these days. Uh, the WAG BAG, the Restop, are great little, I guess they’re called “toilets in a bag.” And [opening package] whenever you open up a WAG BAG and you pull it out or a Restop, either one, you open ’em up and inside you’ll find two plastic bags, and you’ll find some hand sanitizer, and just enough toilet paper to make you angry. And whenever you open up the bigger plastic bag, you look inside, and there’s a little bit of powder in the bottom. And we call it “poo powder,” and what happens is, when your feces and some of your urine come in contact with it, it starts to gel… And whenever it starts to gel, it helps to start the decomposition a little bit faster on that feces. And it supposedly knocks down the smell a little bit.
The third principle is Dispose of Waste Properly. The Leave No Trace site has the rest.
Previous LNT Steve-casts:
OK, it is not a pretty subject, but that doesn’t mean I’ll shy away.
In general, I think the notion of carrying out, uh, what is the “best” word here… feces? excrement? poop? Human waste? … is a bit over the top. Partly I think it is reflective of a way of thinking that is actually very foreign to the wilderness experience, and partly I think it is part of a mind set that regards humans as somehow not part of nature but merely visitors to nature.
On point #1, while you don’t want to let yourself turn into a total slimeball in the wild, you are not going to really experience the mind state of “being in” wilderness if you constantly try to hold your physical nature in check. Guess what – every creature out there poops, and so do you. It is not an unnatural thing to “relieve yourself” in the wilderness – in fact it is a completely normal and, I might add, necessary thing.
On point #2, I heard a Wildebeat podcast earlier this year in which the guest spoke eloquently about a problem with the “leave no trace” concept. (Let me preface this by saying that “leave no trace” is far better than no notion at all about how to behave in the wilderness, but it isn’t quite that simple.) On a certain level, “no trace” suggests that the world and the wilderness are things that humans are not appropriately part of. So far, no major issue, right.
However, by extension, a viewpoint that says the wilderness is something that we are not literally part of is a viewpoint that is not out of line with viewing this “separate thing that is not us” as something that we can treat in a _careless_ way with no consequences to ourselves. In other words, the same inclination that suggests that wilderness is a thing that we don’t belong to also, from a somewhat different perspective, suggests that it is a thing that we can damage without harming ourselves.
It may seem a stretch, but to me – at least if taken too far – there is a direct connection between the ideas suggesting that we are not “part of” the world and ideas suggesting that it is perfectly OK to treat it as an external source of resources.
So, a little poop – disposed of properly, please – and a faint trail across a Sierra pass or an encounter with a fellow hiker on the trail should not ruin the “wilderness experience.” Rather, they confirm and enhance our place in the wilderness.
Dan
Dan: When you look at the human waste problems in a popular and heavily used (abused?) “wilderness” area such as the Whitney Portal corridor, or the Half Dome trail, you realize that there’s no way the environment can possibly absorb and recycle that much imported organic matter. In these locations, I would argue that you did indeed pack-in the food. To maintain the wilderness quality of the location, you’d either have to severely restrict the number of people allowed to go there, or require them to carry the waste that results from that imported food back out.
20,000 mountain climbers and hikers a year would never be sustainable along the Mount Whitney trail eating indigenously-produced food. There just aren’t the resources there. So that many people dumping a “little” waste, becomes a monstrous problem, and the only viable solution is removal.
Dan, what choice would you make as a land manager?
Excellent points on both counts! I would opine / interpret that Dan is referring not to heavily impacted / congested areas like Steve refers to, but to those more pristine and less visited wild places, in which case I tend to side with him. Certanly, I see and agree with Steve on packing out all waste matter in areas where there are trail permit quotas etc.
Also, while it’s OK to bury your poop in remote non-impacted areas, I thnk it’s hugely important and necessary to carry out all your toilet paper. Why? Because, unless your waste is properly buried – and I DO mean 12 inches deep! – toilet paper is the first thing that gets dug up and scattered around.
By the way, I believe one of the most effective and environmentally sound disposal practices is using large rocks whose bottom third are under ground. Roll the rock over, and voila, there’s a perfect shit pit usually 8 to 12 inches deep. Even toilet paper could safely be left in this hole once the rock is returned to its prior position. (Nonetheless I always still pack out the toilet paper.)
Steve, I’m going to agree with you about the heavily used places – e.g. Shasta (who wants to drink “poop water” at base camp!? ;-), and now Whitney. My little rant was getting somewhat long, so I was skipping over some of the details – and your point is an important one.
I’ve backpacked in the Sierra for, ahem, 40 years now. (Yup, I’m at least 41 years old… 😉 I spend weeks on the trail every summer, and I honestly can’t remember encountering the residue of “human waste disposal” in the rest of the range – either the paper or the excremental kind. You’d think that if TP was really getting dug up and dragged around by wildlife all the time, that I would have seen the results of this at least once or twice during the time ( a few years in total) that I’ve spent on Sierra trails – but I haven’t.
But I don’t leave “dig up-able” TP either.
I like an approach that Colin (I’m resisting the temptation to misspell it as “Colon” -) Fletcher described: Dig the “cat hole” and then carefully burn the TP in situ. It does take a bit of care and time but the result is buried feces and a few ashes. Clearly one needs to take fire-related precautions in selecting the location and in doing the act but by, ahem, “sequencing related events in the proper order one can guarantee the ready availability of requisite fluids” to ensure that no TP still burns – if you get my drift.
I think that is a responsible way to handle the issue (again, another awful pun…) in most places, save those that are severely over-burdened as you described.
Dan
(Does anyone _really_ pack out two weeks worth of used toilet paper!?)
Dan – RE: “(Does anyone _really_ pack out two weeks worth of used toilet paper!?)”
YES. I have, a least a weeks’ worth. With proper technique, it’s a very easy thing to add to your “pack out” garbage bag.