Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Solar Toilets vs Carrying Wag Bags

Update mid-April 2012:
I received a response from the Inyo Forest Supervisor acknowledging the appeal letter sent last October. The letter has a cooperative tone. The information I've requested is being gathered and he will finally read the Rocky Mountain NP Engineer's report I sent entitled, Performance Report on Backcountry Solar Toilets

He side stepped the NEPA legal issues, which is fine with me at this point, as long as they take a truly fresh look at this situation.

Well I feel like I'm stepping into the lions den. I'm about to just say a thought that just crossed my head but here's what I was thinking.

I was thinking what if each wag bag had a number that was traced back to a reservation number and if any wag bag was found they could easily trace it back to each person or group and have tickets sent out in large fines. I must say I hate red light cameras and anything where the government intrudes into my life but I think when a $250 fine shows up for left wag bag people will take it more seriously .

I also believe in education even if people were required to take a class about taking care of the wilderness and shown pictures of all the trash and wag bags I think people would have a different outlook. I know that education in other areas has left me thinking twice. Tickets and classes might decrease the issue and possibly the number of visitors but less is ok for me. I love the mountains and if people can't carry out there own crap then don't come out. Anyways Im all for toilets and it was a random thought not a educated well thought out thought but I thought I'd share it.

Several ideas like yours have come up before about solving the human waste problem with more policing. The first thing that would happen is people would just not use the bag at all - why leave evidence behind. The other problem is that Inyo has no legal basis to require anyone to use a wag bag, so therefore they can't enforce it. Technically, its a voluntary program. The reason they have no authority is they didn't complete the environmental process necessary to issue a Forest Service Order. As described in this thread, they went forward with Alternative 5 of the Environmental Assessment to remove the toilets and give out wag bags without bothering to complete the environmental process.

Despite this, everyone should use a wag bag and carry it out because it is the right thing to do in this circumstance. Without toilets, there is no other way to go.

I can think of another way to go.

Stop being lazy and going right by the heavily used campsite areas. Hike way up off the beaten path and far from any agua, do your thing on a flat rock, smear it out very thin with another rock.

The sun takes care of it shortly after. Welcome to crapping in the mountains.

I'm never napping on another boulder again...

On the other hand, I love Burchey's version of happy little clouds...

That feels better...........

Yeah, that's what I thought.

The smear and dry method may be appropriate in some rocky mountain areas where you can't dig a cathole, but not so good on Mt. Whitney with 200+ people a day smearing it around, 17,000+ each season. It's just too many people and they tend to camp in 2 main areas. This is where toilets are the best solution, in my opinion.

Do that many fools actually go up the Main Trail every season? It's less mountain and more amusement park.

> but not so good on Mt. Whitney with 200+ people a day smearing it around, 17,000+ each season.

> Do that many fools actually go up the Main Trail every season?

Permit quotas: 100 day hikers, 60 overnighters, 25 Trail Crest exits. So the max number to enter is 185. But those overnighters are there at least two days, so boost the max to 245 person-days per day. Granted, they almost never are at capacity, so that 200 number is a good estimate.

...It ain't wilderness.

Steve, don't forget to factor in the people who just cruise to either Lower Boy Scout and Lone Pine Lake without permits.

Come to think of it, it's hard to believe that the entire lower portion of the trail isn't one giant shitpile.

Am I the only one that is able to go for more than 6 hours in a row without crapping my softshell pants? Does something about the hard-packed earth between the portal store and 10,000 feet magically squeeze the waste from ones bowels? It's magic! Some sort of Harry Potter wizardry?

I'd invite those day-hiking below the Whitney Zone to use the restroom at the trail head before they go. Might help.

"But, daddy, I don't HAVE to go!"

"well then honey, you'll have to stay in this nice bear box until I get back"

Nice move, dad. Maybe you should just lock the kid in the trunk? ;)

That's against the law. You aren't allowed to leave any foodstuffs in the car. Even if it is hidden in the trunk the bears will be able to smell that tasty little morsel. And you can imagine the sounds of little Bobby banging on the trunk lid being much like a dinner bell.

Laura, I'm surprised that you would encourage someone to break the law like that. Somebody is asking for a parking ticket with a big ole warning note slapped to the windshield.

Remember a fed bear is a dead bear!!!

'Twere simply a suggestion, not encouragement.

Encouragement would be handing him the keys... ;)

Sorry to get back on topic, but the typical day hiker leaves around 3am and gets back in the afternoon. Do we need to get into statistics about what time of day most people take a crap? Surely nobody expects overnighters to hold it for two days. We talking 17,000 people a year - the capacity of an NBA arena.

Toilets have been a part of the Whitney trail experience since the 1960's. If you compare Long's Peak well-maintained system of solar toilets in Colorado to the wag bags littering the trail on Mt Whitney, I think it's clear toilets are the way to go.

I wish the Forest Service would have finished the environmental process and constructed new toilets as planned in the preferred alternative of the Environment Assessment. I'm hopeful they will work their way back to this solution over time.

I believe that the current wag bag policy is just a conspiracy to make a Mt.Whitney hike less appealing in order to decrease the actual number of people on the trail.

I do think that was part of Mr. Oye's thinking, Yury. I ain't got anything the way of proof, any proof I had burnt up the mysterious outhouse fire in 2007.