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  1. #1

    Default That's a lot of crap!

    Was reading a trail journal last night which mentioned a privy which was full and overflowing. I bet it's not the only one. Wait until the rest of the crowd shows up over the next week or two. Watch out where you step

    That's an impact we hadn't really thought about when talking about the large numbers of hikers starting out this time of year. What to do with all that poop? I've had to go find a stout stick to knock the cone down in the privy more then a few times on my hikes. It's a nasty job but someone has to do it!
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  2. #2
    Registered User Walkintom's Avatar
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    Pack it out?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Slo-go'en View Post
    Was reading a trail journal last night which mentioned a privy which was full and overflowing. I bet it's not the only one. Wait until the rest of the crowd shows up over the next week or two. Watch out where you step

    That's an impact we hadn't really thought about when talking about the large numbers of hikers starting out this time of year. What to do with all that poop? I've had to go find a stout stick to knock the cone down in the privy more then a few times on my hikes. It's a nasty job but someone has to do it!
    A can't imagine a situation where I would knock down a pile of crap before I would walk off into the woods and bury my crap.

    Unfortunately not all of that pile is crap, a lot of it is garbage.

    Also unfortunate that the ATC encourages everyone to crap in the same place.
    The trouble I have with campfires are the folks that carry a bottle in one hand and a Bible in the other.
    You never know which one is talking.

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    Get rid of the shelters and the population will plummet. I know I am a broken record and it ain't gonna happen. What will happen is we will love the trail to death and regulations will come to protect us from ourselves.
    In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. - Abraham Lincoln

  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by BirdBrain View Post
    Get rid of the shelters and the population will plummet. I know I am a broken record and it ain't gonna happen. What will happen is we will love the trail to death and regulations will come to protect us from ourselves.
    At best, shelters only hold 15 people and 4 times that many show up. Every day for 2 months. The only thing getting rid of shelters would do is add 15 more tents to an already congested area. Get rid of privies and make everyone poop where ever? As can be seen in the Smokies and parts of NC, that's not a great way to go either but once the privy hole is full, that's what you have to do.

    Unfortunately, privies take maintenance and that's a job few people are willing to take on so they tend to be neglected. Combine that with the large numbers of people who pass through in the course of a few months, it gets to be messy.
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    Quote Originally Posted by BirdBrain View Post
    Get rid of the shelters and the population will plummet. I know I am a broken record and it ain't gonna happen. What will happen is we will love the trail to death and regulations will come to protect us from ourselves.
    BB,

    I'm afraid you are right. When I hiked the southern end of the trail in late April 2013 I saw some privies that had the cone up thru the toilet seat, it was gross. I guess if the shelters gotta stay they should build two privies at each of the shelters up thru and including the Smokys.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Slo-go'en View Post
    At best, shelters only hold 15 people and 4 times that many show up. Every day for 2 months. The only thing getting rid of shelters would do is add 15 more tents to an already congested area. Get rid of privies and make everyone poop where ever? As can be seen in the Smokies and parts of NC, that's not a great way to go either but once the privy hole is full, that's what you have to do.

    Unfortunately, privies take maintenance and that's a job few people are willing to take on so they tend to be neglected. Combine that with the large numbers of people who pass through in the course of a few months, it gets to be messy.
    That math assumes everyone stops at the same shelter each day. There are days when you pass multiple shelters. Some people try to stay in town as much as possible. I am not discounting your points entirely. I am saying if there were no shelters, it would change the mindset of the hikers, it would spread the population out, and discourage some from going. All 3 things would help. It is a fantasy. It is not going to happen. However, it would be preferable to the eventual restrictions that will happen.
    In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. - Abraham Lincoln

  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by WingedMonkey View Post
    A can't imagine a situation where I would knock down a pile of crap before I would walk off into the woods and bury my crap.

    Unfortunately not all of that pile is crap, a lot of it is garbage.

    Also unfortunate that the ATC encourages everyone to crap in the same place.
    Agreed with the garbage. Some people (some of them experienced hikers) using privies don't want to learn about them and how they work, using them as trash cans for metal and other trash that cannot break down. But I do have to defend the encouragement to use the same place to poop as common sense in both management and public health.

    The ATC (and many other land/trail maintenance groups) encourage people to use the same place to relieve themselves, especially in high traffic areas. Hundreds of people utilizing the same areas of the trail, were they to relieve themselves wherever the mood struck, would cause pollution issues that would foul the land, air, and water, spreading sickness and eventually causing the trail to close. One reasonably well maintained outhouse can service waste pollution of hundreds of people to the comparable level of just one or two people per year. It may not be a perfect solution, but it is the only one that tends to work reasonably well.

    Of course, if everyone dug proper cat holes it would be perfect. Unfortunately, few know how and it appears fewer practice it. Controlling human waste on the trail follows a similar path as it does in civilization, using the same places for relief, disposal, and treatment so we do not foul the water, land, and air. Diseases from this are common throughout our history, to ignore it is to make the same mistakes.

    Maintenance is the real issue with these structures. Having some experience in this, when large numbers of people start using trails, maintenance that would provide a month of worry free use other times of the year may only last days. In hiker "bubbles", maybe not even that long if trash is part of the mix. The location of some of these structures can be difficult for those responsible to check daily and frankly, its asking a lot from volunteers. The compromise tends to be trying to educate people about how they work and provide as frequent inspection as possible.

  9. #9
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    Most newer privies use a moldering or a composting system. Unfortunately once the bin reaches capacity they need to sit and do their thing for months or even years. Many locations have a second bin that is used once the first is full. They do take maintenance. I have considered this issue and have mentioned it in posts. I ran into this problem in April 2010 down south so I can't imagine what it will be like this year in a couple of weeks.
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    Quote Originally Posted by BirdBrain View Post
    Get rid of the shelters and the population will plummet. I know I am a broken record and it ain't gonna happen. What will happen is we will love the trail to death and regulations will come to protect us from ourselves.
    I agree, I wish the huts in NH would be gone as well.
    Everything is in Walking Distance

  11. #11

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    Gooch mountain shelter's privy gets so much traffic, it has three bins. It was just changed March 18, and it was full.

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    Speaking of crowded privys and shelters.... the Hiker Hostel posted this today on their FB page....

    "Saturday at Springer parking lot. 44 cars and already 77 thru hikers at Springer today!
    We have passed the tipping point. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy needs to have a real plan. "Educate and self regulate" is not a plan."

    I don't know how the GATC keeps up with the shelter/privy/trail maintenance these days.

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    Hold it until you get home.

  14. #14

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    Thread reminds me of the time I had giardia in Nepal.
    Had to go about 6-7 times a day.
    One place we stayed had a privy that was full and overflowing.
    It was like the Eiffel tower coming out of that seat, and about 2' above the seat.
    But at least it was frozen solid.
    and i added to it.
    Shame that was before digital cameras and I didn't think to take a picture of it. (too many more important things to photo in the Himalaya)
    Don't let your fears stand in the way of your dreams

  15. #15

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    The AMC has very high volume of campers at several of their campsites. Particularly Liberty Springs campground gets hammered with high thruhiker, weekender and dayhiker traffic. Guyot campground also gets very high usage. Both are in very thin spoils. Their solution is to charge campers $8 (may have gone up) a night for a caretaker. The typical interface with a camper is meet and greet, but during the day time their pimary job is to open up the hatch on the back of the outhouse, haul it over to a composting station and then work with crap for a couple of hours a day. They also have the unpleasant task of digging out trash and sanitary products from the crap. The composting raises the temperature of the waste to the point where any pathogens are killed. The compost is then spread in the woods and used for revegetation. They have been doing it for years and the process works. RMC in the whites used large composting privies that require less hands on but still require a caretaker. MATC uses the double composting privy where the privy is elevated and can be slid over to the side to double the capacity, this system requires less caretaking but still requires some and can only deal with smaller volume of waste.

    Thus human waste can be and has been successfully managed at backcountry locations but it requires human intervention and few folks would care to volunteer to shovel crap in their leisure time. Paid caretakers can be hired although it still takes a dedicated person. Many of the composting systems also require woodchips and other products to be hauled in. So it comes down to there needs to be some source of revenue and an infrastructure in place to support dealing with the volume of waste. Given the level of complaints that thruhikers make about the whites, I don't expect that the thru hiking community would support 8 bucks a night to camp to pay for a caretaker to handle their waste. Dispersed camping that some folks advocate is extremely difficult to manage as people will tend to camp at some locations and avoid others. So the choice is concentrate the use in one place and manage it or try to disperse and inevitably end up with areas of high use with degradation for overuse.

    Therefore human waste can be managed even in high volume sites

  16. #16

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    Here's another article regarding backcountry waste management. Not bad, if I do say so...
    http://appalachiantrials.com/works-happens-poop-woods/

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by peakbagger View Post
    The AMC has very high volume of campers at several of their campsites. Particularly Liberty Springs campground gets hammered with high thruhiker, weekender and dayhiker traffic. Guyot campground also gets very high usage. Both are in very thin spoils. Their solution is to charge campers $8 (may have gone up) a night for a caretaker. The typical interface with a camper is meet and greet, but during the day time their pimary job is to open up the hatch on the back of the outhouse, haul it over to a composting station and then work with crap for a couple of hours a day. They also have the unpleasant task of digging out trash and sanitary products from the crap. The composting raises the temperature of the waste to the point where any pathogens are killed. The compost is then spread in the woods and used for revegetation. They have been doing it for years and the process works. RMC in the whites used large composting privies that require less hands on but still require a caretaker. MATC uses the double composting privy where the privy is elevated and can be slid over to the side to double the capacity, this system requires less caretaking but still requires some and can only deal with smaller volume of waste.

    Thus human waste can be and has been successfully managed at backcountry locations but it requires human intervention and few folks would care to volunteer to shovel crap in their leisure time. Paid caretakers can be hired although it still takes a dedicated person. Many of the composting systems also require woodchips and other products to be hauled in. So it comes down to there needs to be some source of revenue and an infrastructure in place to support dealing with the volume of waste. Given the level of complaints that thruhikers make about the whites, I don't expect that the thru hiking community would support 8 bucks a night to camp to pay for a caretaker to handle their waste. Dispersed camping that some folks advocate is extremely difficult to manage as people will tend to camp at some locations and avoid others. So the choice is concentrate the use in one place and manage it or try to disperse and inevitably end up with areas of high use with degradation for overuse.

    Therefore human waste can be managed even in high volume sites
    Here is a little part of Magellan's Blog about this made at Speck Pond in the Mahoosucs: https://feetinmyboots.wordpress.com/...ry-about-poop/

    The young lady in the photos was the caretaker at Speck Pond at the time.
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  18. #18
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    Yes it's a lot of crap. Gooch Mtn Shelter has been averaging more than 35 a night this whole month. Then most who stay at the Justus Creek tent pads usually stop at the shelter to crap. Do the math, that is one big pile. The maintainer of that section is one of the most dedicated on the entire trail. She is out nearly every week this time of year. It is just too much use this time of year and it is only going to get worse in April. It is time for the ATC to get serious about overcrowding.

  19. #19

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    How can the ATC can control crowds, given the number of easy trail access points along the route? Unless there is a permitting system for all campsites, which would only corral the thru and section hikers, there isn't an easy way to do that.

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    Quote Originally Posted by FatMan View Post
    Yes it's a lot of crap. Gooch Mtn Shelter has been averaging more than 35 a night this whole month. Then most who stay at the Justus Creek tent pads usually stop at the shelter to crap. Do the math, that is one big pile. The maintainer of that section is one of the most dedicated on the entire trail. She is out nearly every week this time of year. It is just too much use this time of year and it is only going to get worse in April. It is time for the ATC to get serious about overcrowding.
    next year will be a real zoo

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