And then, as we topped over the Notch on the descent, I knew was home...





Saddest part was that Dave Kirk, the ranger stationed up on the MR most of the summer, simply stated:

"Job security."

Stay classy, world.

-L

Sounds like the Rangers enjoy hauling these gems down the trail. Maybe when the next generation of Rangers takes over, they will do some research and see how the National Park Service handles this problem professionally with a 21st century toilet system that works. The bad memories of the old defective system on Whitney will probably stick with this generation of Rangers until they retire. In the mean time, we get to see and smell these presents along the trail, and still pay the same fees that could run a toilet system.

Its not the problem with the toilet technology... Its the problem with people who throw trash and other non-biodecomposible items into the toilet. Those same people who leave wag bags on the trail are the same people who will thrown their trash into the toilet.

Bryan, you hit the nail squarely.

Same type of people who destroyed the doorknob on the summit hut. Has nothing to do with the "system" of waste disposal. This is just people being, well, shitty.

Simple question: did you ever see a wag bag on the main trail back when there were toilets? Of course not.

Are non-biodegradable items in a solar toilet a big deal? Not really, they fall into the basket and get hauled off. The National Park Service deals with it probably every day in the summer at one of the hundreds of backcountry toilet somewhere.

Would you rather see wag bags on the trail while you're carrying your smelling bag up and down the mountain, or have a modern solar powered toilet to do your business and no wag bags to deal with?

Let's face it, people screw up. All you can do is pick the best of the imperfect options.

No, if people weren't close to the solar toilet, they left their solid deposits in the grass in the bushes closest to the water crossings that they stopped at (and took water at) or at higher elevations, in the rocks near the trail. At night, sometimes even in the trail. During the busy season I normally started up the trail at 2am, about half the time there would be crap somewhere on the trail before sunrise. Sometimes they took their TP with them, sometimes not. The function of wag bags includes trying to change that. Does your solar toilet proposal continue to require wag bags elsewhere along the trail or not?


The National Park Service has restrictive camp siting rules to control where and how many (and not very many) people go and a fee structure charging for all entry. Are you suggesting those changes for Inyo NF as well, or are you making an unfair comparison? How many hundred solar toilets do you suggest the NPS "probably" operates in conditions similar to Whitney, economically, legally and environmentally?

Dale B. Dalrymple

A thread devoted to the topic of Wag Bags v. Solar Toilets:

Solar Toilets vs Carrying Wag Bags

Wow, with 96 posts and over 17,000 hits, this was (is) a popular topic. Started by SierraNevada.

Can one add new material to this well-digested and bulky topic? Or does the chamber pot runneth over?

Like the title says "grow up or go home"

Everyone else has to carry it out in a bag, its not just for one person. Nobody is going to point and laugh at you for having the bag hanging from your pack (maybe even might keep some people away!)

But the point is, everyone has to carry one so its no big deal. Just do the right thing.

Akichow, the argument continues ad nauseum. As Bryan said, this is about just doing what's right, right now. Between the wag bags left all over the drainage and the damage to the summit hut door that I saw, or even thinking back to how badly Trail Camp smelled when I passed through there last summer, this, to me, is a bigger issue of people just being, well, shitty.

SierraNevada, your concerns are (and have been, for a long time) noted, and I respect your attempts to communicate with the powers that be. I know your intentions are to make the WZ a more enjoyable place for all. But this is not the thread for it.

My intention here was to call attention to those who would simply take this sacred drainage for granted. Abuse it to death. Smear that entitled attitude all over the rocks, as it were. All I'm saying is that for all of us to derive joy and pleasure from whatever we do in the mountains, we all need to take responsibility for our actions. This isn't about existing policy, in that it is not an effort to change it.

Whitney, and her surroundings, hold a very dear place in my heart. I'm asking all who journey to her trails and routes and rocks and ice to treat her with the respect she deserves.

Grow up, or go home.

Yes, the human race does include slobs. Unfortunately, we get to mingle with their residue, up close and personal, in the mountains.

It isn't just a problem with wag-bags, but with an attitude. It's the same careless, "it's someone else's job" mind-less, casual, sloppiness that we see everyday, from city streets to the backcountry. "No one will see it..." Out of sight, out of mind...duh.

Oh that's not anywhere near as bad as what I saw on the west switchbacks up from Guitar Lake a few years ago. Rather dig a hole in the sandy soil there...someone left a standard clear gallon ziplock full of crap in the rocks, which was visible on a moonless night.

A solar latrine would never be put in the NF but if they were along the MMWT...that bag would not be encapsulating that human waste.

Let's separate these issues for the sake of logic.

Laura, thanks for pointing the wag bags and vandalism, but realize you're not the only person saddened or PO'd about it. Will vandals grow up or stop visiting the wilderness? I hope so, but I'm holding my breath. I think your quote of the Ranger's comment is quite telling, "job security" is how they view wag bags littering the trail. I'm thinking the next generation of Rangers might be a little smarter about this, maybe look to the National Park for better solutions.

As for toilets vs wag bags, second simple question: How many complaints do you find about modern toilet systems at Rocky Mtn NP, Yosemite, Mt Shasta, Grand Canyon, Crater Lake and the other up to date systems? I bet we have more complaints about wag bags on this one forum for this one mountain than all the toilets combined. Can you imagine the outrage if people saw wag bags on the Mist Trail.

I cannot imagine doing one's business on the Mist Trail without:

1. Being trampled

2. Becoming a water rescue statistic

So, Laura, when you heard this did you take it to be:

1) The excited happy exclamation of someone who should be vilified for depriving us of solar toilets to achieve protection from possible future budgetary sequestrations? (Imagine the years of foresight that displays!)

2) The sarcastic statement of someone who wished he would have something more constructive to look forward to in the backcountry this summer?

or
3) Something else altogether? In this case, please share it with us.

Dale B. Dalrymple

Dale:

Pure. Unadulterated. Exasperation.

The rangers are not our handservants, whether they are assisting w/ the removal of wag bags or barrels.

This is why I usually try and haul the bags I find myself. I'm not above it, although, unfortunately, it simply enhances the "ethic" that "someone else will clean up after me."

Pathetic.

I don't understand the concept of using the wag bag if you are just going to leave it out there.

It's strange to me the amount of laziness that can be in people that worked so hard to get into the mountains. I have turned over rocks in the backcountry to find candy wrappers put under them. I would think with a wag bag that a person not willing to pack it out would just not use one at all. It would be better that way.

Yeah, I was alone near a backcountry trail junction, and went looking for a spot to do my business. Turned over a rock, and there was a plastic candy wrapper. I wish people knew how long it takes for plastic to disintegrate -- decades or longer!

SN, I know I'm not the only one appalled over the WB situation. It's a constant bother to look almost everywhere and find them stuffed into corners or just laying around waiting for that elusive "someone else" to trot them back down the trail. As someone who has actually hallucinated over what the bag might be (coming down from the push of Onion Valley to WP in a day, and the thing, I'm not kidding, morphed into a dragon...), I'm well aware of the eyesore these things produce.

And so, while the post is sarcastic and caustic (because I'm so fed up with both the bags and the people who leave them), it is at its base an impassioned plea to all those seeing this site, who visit the Zone, who have any remote dreams of exploring this drainage or its heights, to please, PLEASE, do what's right.

Any visitor to the wilderness becomes, by default, its steward. Let's try to act like it.

This is a part of the problem that plagues this mountain. People wanting all but are not willing to pay the price. We see this all quota season long with the questions they ask here. Where to I rent crampons, what's the best motel in town, do I really need to acclimatize, etc.

This will continue until the Forest Service tags on an environmental fee onto the permit and builds a modern toilet system on the sites where they once were. This is a problem created by the forest service in the personage of Garry Oye, not a hiker problem...neophyte hikers and once-and-doners are only going to do what they always do. They knew the volume of people who went up this trail and the type of hiker who went up this trail. They made the problem, let them deal with it. It is not our job to cover up for their mistakes.

Mr. Oye in a letter to me said his people were not paid to handle hazardous waste. The end result is his people are handling hazardous waste daily during the quota season rather than one to two times when waste helicoptered out.

On a lighter note...

I was talking with a couple of guys during my workout yesterday, and one related that he was planning to hike Whitney this year, and I mentioned my Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim plans. That got him to recall a story:

A number of years ago, his brother-in-law made the trip through the Grand Canyon with rafts. As was required, their group carried their poop along on the trip, so they had a 5-gallon bucket with a plastic bag full-o-sh!t. At the end of the trip, they packed up all their gear in vehicles, and the 5-gallon surprise got transferred into a VCR carton. (This was back when VCR's were new and expensive.) They taped it all up so the contents would stay packed well inside.

Somewhere along the way home, some thief broke into their vehicle, left all the camping/river gear, but stole the VCR box! :D

On even a more lighter note...

Ran across this article about the first turd in space problem.

3 guys in Apollo 10 and some solid waste is floating around and all claiming it's not theirs.

A description of the first wag bag system:

The Apollo astronauts had a rudimentary system for disposing of solid waste — basically, by doing their business in a bag, sealing up the bag, kneading it to mix in disinfectant, and then putting the whole thing in a waste receptacle. The process required "a great deal of skill"

here is a possible solution, although it takes staffing


when I was on Aconcagua, we were given a burlap sack. it had to come back with trash and be presented at the park entry on exit, otherwise , a very hefty fine.

could the same be done with wag bags? bring it back used or unused,but bring it back. Would that work? lots of logistics and manpower to do this, but I think the hefty fine was something like $200 and made it work well in Argentina. Not sure about here in the land of crap-entitlement

We preach to the choir- the lazy and ir-resonsible aren't aware of these web sites, let alone read them. Its all about them, what they want, and they're entitled because their mothers told them they are 'special'. More and more visitors to the outdoors are clueless as to the environment into which they go-and behave like they do in their 'normal' environment.

If I were to dump my trash or deficate in their yard- I'd get sued; yet they don't think twice to do that in our yard. 'Our' includes them- since its public lands. One on one education in varying methods hopefully will 'eat the elephant'-one bite at a time. But its worth it; because the alternative of letting their ignorant and bad behavior damage the outdoors- to me is unacceptable.....