Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Urine on the trail

Funny story:
About 12 years ago I went on a hike with a man named Rick Sylvester (he was a friend of a friend). For those of you who don't know, he was a Hollywood stuntman and was most famous for doing the famous stunt at the beginning of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, where Bond skiis off the top of a mountain and while freefalling deploys a parachute with the Union Jack on it.
Anyway, we were hiking in a group of five people and without even thinking about it he stopped on the trail, dropped trou, did his duty, picked it up with a zip-loc, threw it in his backpack and kept hiking. We were all slack jawed. He just stopped and dropped right in front of us. I guess he had spent so much time in the mountains he didn't even think of going behind a tree or a rock. Talk about doing your business on the trail.

Hi Folks,
I am new to the site and am planning a first time hike to Whitney later this month. I should admit that this whole carry-out stuff is freaking me out more than the dangers of altitude and distance (which are not trivial problems for me). Isn't human feceas bio-degradable? Why can't this just be buried in the dirt? I can understand that the toilet paper should not be left behind - but why take everything ?
Regards.

Peeing is not crapping.

Agreed. I was just curious about how broadly you were defining "going." After all, when one's gotta go...

Whatever actual content there was to my post followed that obviously silly comment.

Sherpa,
Not enough dirt, too much poo.

This is discussed at length elsewhere, but the short answer is:
1) There are too many people up here, and
2) There's not enough dirt (especially at the higher elevations).

Edit: eka, you beat me to the punch by 6 minutes! :-]

What dirt!? This is all way above treeline. There isn't any dirt, just rocks. You're lucky if you can find a few inches of gravel or sand.

But this isn't the main point. The main point is that this trail is so heavly used by people that even if only 1% of them left something behind, the trail would soon been smelling like a open pit outhouse. It only takes a few irresponsable people to ruin it for everyone.

200 people a day get permits
6 months a year ~
6 * 30 * 200 * 0.01 = 360 messy smelly spots a year.

That's the entire idea of the permit system, to limit the # of people and the resulting impact on the area.

Well, I move pretty quick when the subject is ... so ripe.
But reinforcement is always good ;-}

Thanks for the replies. Makes sense. That's why we have experts.

Just from my one time experience, the environment above the treeline is very rocky with few insects. Not good conditions for something to bio-degrade. Plus you would need to carry a shovel wherever you go.

Being a numbers guy I get real intrigued when someone resorts to numbers to prove a point. So I will add some more numbers to show how ludicrous this discussion can get.

The main trail in rough numbers is 11 miles. The area exempt from defication is 100 feet on either side of the trail. That means there are 266 and 3 quarters acres of reserved "poop free" space.

So if the 260 "messy smelly spots a year" actually occur, there is about 1.5 of them per acre (for all the anal retentive, I realize my numbers aren't accurate because of the space lost between switchbacks but the 360 number has more holes in it given the stats this year for unused permits but that's beside the point).

Now apply those numbers to hiding Easter eggs and your annual budget for buying, boiling and dyeing eggs takes a big hit. And if you dye them the right color, even the best little treasure hunter would spend the better part of the day trying to find 1.5 per acre.

Now back to a serious point of view, human waste management has more to do with preserving the natural state of the trail. Human defication contains waste products infused with left over chemicals the body did not absorb in the digestive process. Animal waste contains far less which is one consideration why pack animal waste is excluded from removal policies.

With the volume snow and rain water covering this mountain all year, the dilution of any amount of urine one can calculate (I have elected not to calculate that number), this discussion is much ado about nothing. Oh, and I believe the term bio-degradable applies to more than just insects (such as soil chemistry, humidity, temperature, micro-organisms, UV light, etc).

The fact that something is biodegradable is meaningless withougt considering the rates involved. Many years ago I met a biologist on a hike who had a figure for how many years it takes human feces to degrade at elevations above timberline (like Trail Camp). It is obviously connected with the concentration of micro-organisms in the soil. I have forgotten the number, but it was impresively long. In a heavily-travelled area, waste builds up in the convenient dumping spots because it accumulates much faster than it degrades. That's why there were toilets at the major camping spots in the first place.

And the other part of that equation is that the waste in not evenly distributed. Places like Trail Camp get hit hard because it is a popular campsite, and also a convenient stopover point on the way up and the way down. It is the last place with cover (meaning boulders behind which someone can hide) on the way up, and the first place with cover on the way down. Naturally, it is a poop magnet.

Wow Memory Lapse I am still trying to figure out what you just said...lol
Bottom line is no matter how unpleasant we must all pack it out on the Whitney Trail.There is no other way.There is no current other option. I think compliance would be higher if there were wag bag drops at Trail Camp and Outpost Camp although that might smell so bad it would ruin those areas.
Until they figure something out, those of us who love the Whitney experience, must set the example and continue to encourage the "others" to do so also.After it is all said and done it isn't that bad.Like lots of things in life it is just one of those things that must be done.

DRD,

I'll summarize it for you.....I fully support the wag bag program, I am a huge believer in taking personal responsibility for anything I do and I think talking about urine odor on the MMWT is pure silliness. My response above was intended to be somewhat abstract and non-sensical much like the complaining in this thread about the urine odor.

I think the Forest Service should install sniffers at the trailhead to see who put on deodorant before heading up the trail.

One very good downpour will wash away several days urine accumulation and the odor.

I read the document the FS put out a fews years back and if I recall correctly (I'm old, I forget), they stated that they would leave "drops" on the mountain for a short time. They did. There was one at TC, but it disappeared a couple of seasons ago.

I really agree that they should put it back up there.

Joel M. B. -- Wow. That number puts it into perspective. That's 8 'dumps' per quarter mile (so, imagine a high school track with 8 toilets around the perimeter..but no flushing!). I was up there 2 weeks ago and it really struck me, more than the other 10 times I've been up, that the place smelled like a Port-A-Potty all along the trail. Very unpleasant.