West Coast mountain trails are losing their outhouses; hikers asked to “pack it out”

Here’s an interesting (and humorous) feature in today’s New York Times on personal sanitation issues when hiking in the high mountains –

No More Privies, So Hikers Add a Carry-Along – New York Times

SUMMIT OF MOUNT WHITNEY, Calif., Aug. 29 — The highest outhouse in the continental United States is no more.

High-altitude sanitation is too hazardous a business. Helicopters must make regular journeys up the steep-walled canyons in tricky winds while rangers in hazmat suits wait below to tie 250-pound bags or barrels of waste onto a long line dangling below the aircraft.

So from the granite immensity of Mount Whitney in California to Mount Rainier in Washington to Zion National Park in Utah, a new wilderness ethic is beginning to take hold: You can take it with you. In fact, you must.

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The kits — the most popular model is known as a Wagbag — are becoming a fixture of camping gear. On high western trails, Wagbag is now as familiar a term as gorp (a high-energy mix of nuts, seeds, dry fruit and chocolate) or switchback (a hairpin turn in the trail).

“It’s one thing to take a risk to fly up there to pick up a sick or injured person,” said Brian Spitek, a forest ranger who works in the Inyo National Forest. “To do it to fly out a bag of poop is another.”

Other options, like burying waste, are ineffective where there is too little soil, too many people or both.

The pack-it-out ethic has long been practiced by Grand Canyon river rafters, who used old ammunition cans.