Cat Hole Question

[Kimberly Wersal]

I love my little Montbell trowel–been using it for more than 15 years. An elegant little piece of gear.

[AK Granola]

What is the point of digging two catholes? Just put the wiping rock in the same hole. No I don’t use hands to clean myself, not needed. The bidet does the job far better than TP. Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water, into hole. Cover hole, mark with a stick or several. I also have a Montbell trowel, which seems to cut into turf pretty well. I avoid going right next to a tree, due to the roots.

I saw no  TP last summer on the Tahoe Rim Trail, at least that I recall right now. Almost no litter at all. And never found anyone’s cathole, even in Desolation.

[Axel J]

Do critters actually dig up poop? I was thinking this might be one of those hiker myths but maybe not. Ive done a lot of miles and have yet to witness a field of unearthed poop caused by curious critters.

[Tim (Slowhike) Garner]

Axel J, good question.

[Jerry Adams]

“I saw no  TP last summer on the Tahoe Rim Trail, at least that I recall right now. Almost no litter at all”

That’s my experience on almost all trips

I have seen a case where a racoon dug up the poop and toilet paper at a campsite.  On the Olympic Peninsula coast, Strawberry Point.  Maybe the “exception that proves the rule”.  A lot of people use the exact same spot, not necessarily good technique, burying in sand which is easy for racoon.  Lots of racoons there.

[Paul Wagner]

“I saw no  TP last summer on the Tahoe Rim Trail, at least that I recall right now. Almost no litter at all. And never found anyone’s cathole, even in Desolation.”

Well, I’m guessing you didn’t pass through Lake Aloha, particularly at the junction of the PCT with the Lake of the Woods trail.  I must have cleaned up fifty little paper butterflies right there, all just out and blowing in the wind.  And  many more at the campsites nearby.  Those of us who do trail clean up have a different perspective on this…

[AK Granola]

I did indeed pass by Aloha and stopped there for a snack break. Maybe you’re doing a great job and cleaned up right before I arrived! Thank you!

[MJ H]

It’s like they say on the radio after announcing a contest: Void where Prohibited.

[AK Granola]

With places like Lake Aloha, and some on the JMT, as well as other very popular and well-used places, I really don’t get why mgmt authorities don’t just build privies. As the saying goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” You can preach LNT all you want, and here at BPL you’re likely preaching to the choir. With places the general public (i.e., non-backpackers) can walk to, putting in a privy is a no-brainer; people don’t even know what to do or why, or don’t care because to them, it looks like there’s no one out there.  In some places heavily used by backpackers, a privy also makes sense, even in a “wilderness,” which is a fantasy fiction anyway. Save yourself the agony of repetitive cleanup, if that is what is happening.

On a very popular trail here in Alaska, a privy was put in recently and it has made a huge difference. It’s a trail that I hiked in the early 1990s, and a part of me is mournful that it is no longer as wild as it was. But things have changed and this solution mitigates the problem well.

[Daryl and Daryl]

I ordered several of the Culaclean bidets.

Maybe I can use them as water-piks and eye-washes as well as bidets?

Ordered all in black.  May wish that I had ordered different colors.

 

[Jeff McWilliams]

With places like Lake Aloha, and some on the JMT, as well as other very popular and well-used places, I really don’t get why mgmt authorities don’t just build privies.

My understanding is that there used to be a privy somewhere on Whitney, but it was taken out because it was decided it goes against the rules set forth for designated Wilderness areas.

About a decode ago, a friend who resides in Jackson, WY said an outhouse was destroyed when a hiker dumped uneaten food into a vault toilet.  The food attracted a bear which subsequently destroyed the toilet trying to get at the food smell.  I can’t find any reference to it via Google.  Maybe it’s an “urban myth” but I really can’t say.  But people have been known to dispose of unwanted food in precisely that way.    Heck, you can’t keep people from tossing empty bottles and cans into some vault toilets in state parks around here.

Installing a privy in the back country implies you have some personnel available to maintain it, and the means to do that.   I climbed Longs Peak via the Keyhole Route about 8 years ago.  They have a set of privies in the boulder field below the keyhole.  They are NASTY, but also necessary due to the high amount of traffic that Long’s gets.  That’s on National Park land, though, not designated Wilderness.

 

[Mart]

“Installing a privy in the back country implies you have some personnel available to maintain it, and the means to do that.”

Since the vast majority of wilderness is on either National Forest or BLM land, I think Jeff’s comment is exactly right. Those agencies are so cash strapped that backcountry privies are out of the question. I did a quick Google search–NOT exhaustingly thorough–of the Wilderness Act and found that one prohibition is the erecting of “human infrastructure.”

[jscott]

The soil around Lake Aloha is particularly thin and rocky. Hard to dig a proper cat hole there.

[Dustin V]

RMNP has privies in some of the designated sites. You can tell that there was consideration to the view to and from them. Most have three-sided shelter walls with the open side pointed toward a beautiful vista.

We actually ran into one of the folks maintaining one that was at the terminus of a very high trail. His kit included a snow shovel.

[Dan]

Absurdly, RMNP is actually designated wilderness. This makes no sense to me and never has, since there are tons of roads and infrastructure. I suppose the pieces of land between the roads and infrastructure are the wilderness area. Politics.

https://wilderness.net/visit-wilderness/?ID=745

[Paul Wagner]

 

 

 

“The soil around Lake Aloha is particularly thin and rocky. Hard to dig a proper cat hole there.”

All the more reason to pack it out!  For what it’s worth, I think a lot of the TP in that area came from dayhikers who reached that point as a lunch and rest break.

[Jerry Adams]

there are privies in Olympic National Park (national park wilderness) and in the Enchantments (which is National Forest Wilderness)

the wilderness act is a little vague.  It says no human development except if needed to provide for things like humans being able to recreate.  Trails are an example.

I think they haul out the Enchantments privies.  I think there were also portable privies in the Grand Valley in the Olympics.

[Jeff McWilliams]

That’s very interesting about RMNP being designated Wilderness.   I wasn’t aware of that.

I found another page about it, that includes a map of the designated Wilderness areas:

https://www.nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/wilderness.htm

It appears that most of the roads and developed “front country” areas are outside the Wilderness designation.  Like, they just drew some borders around anything already developed.

It seems almost laughable to see the corridor from Bear Lake to Emerald Lake shown as Wilderness.  We hiked that trail back in 2015 and even then it was practically a paved highway leading most of the way to Emerald Lake.  I can’t imagine what it’s like now, since the explosion in hikers and backpacker numbers coincident with Covid.  It’s certainly nothing like a designed Wilderness area “untrammeled by man”.

Which also brings me back to the privies in the boulder field at Longs.   Apparently the privies on Longs were replaced in 2018 and you can find info about them here.

I feel like Whitney and Longs sit at opposite ends of how land managers interpret and implement the Wilderness designation within their boundaries.  At Whitney they pulled the privies and hand out WAG bags.  At Longs they designed and built new privies that try to blend into the landscape as much as possible.

It’s unclear to me which approach has actually had the least impact on the natural resource.  I haven’t been up Whitney, let along from the Whitney Portal side, so it’s unclear to me how successfully the WAG bag policy is working there.  A quick Google search reveals that WAG bag success on Whitney is mixed at best.  For example: https://sierramtnguides.com/talkin-sht-about-mount-whitney-can-you-handle-it/

 

 

 

[Adrian Griffin]

What is the point of digging two catholes?

I do my stick-and-stone wipe while still squatted. It’s easier to drop the sticks in a small cathole to the front of me than to reach behind me and drop them there.

[Adrian Griffin]

I saw no  TP last summer on the Tahoe Rim Trail….

I’ll second Paul’s comments. I’ve picked up plenty of TP around Twin, Maude and Lois lakes on the west side of Desolation. Most of it has been away from the trails, so someone just hiking through wouldn’t have seen it.

[Dan]

Like, they just drew some borders around anything already developed.

Exactly, it’s such a cynical interpretation of Wilderness. You could play that game with virtually any piece of land if you have enough political clout. I don’t really see a downside to it, except for maybe establishing a dangerous precedent.

Ken Salazar had been pushing for it for years as Senator, and he finally rammed it through when he was serving as Secretary of the Interior. I don’t recall the details, but the wilderness designation carries some sort of advantage for RMNP.

Of course, we have somewhat similar things elsewhere in Colorado, but not quite as blatant. Like there is a road running right between the north and south parts of the Sangre de Cristos, and what would otherwise be a single wilderness is sometimes divided into two, to allow a road to pass through (e.g. Powderhorn/La Garita and Indian Peaks/James Peak and West Elk/Raggeds). But I don’t think anyone would argue that those aren’t legit wilderness areas, they’re primitive.

[DWR D]

The wag bag issue is along the Whitney Trail that goes up from Whitney Portal. That is Inyo National Forest. There was indeed an outhouse up at high camp many decades ago. One of the reasons it was taken out is that it was designed to leach. But there is hardly any soil to leach into, so it malfunctioned. The wag bag system is not working. If you walk that trail you will see dozens of full wag bags left beside the trail. People just don’t want to put wag bags in their packs. So I guess the rangers or volunteer groups end up picking them up. Personally, I think they should put in a few open air outhouses like on Mt. Rainier where the park service empties them periodically. But it could be a budget problem with the Inyo National Forest… though I would not mind paying a disposal fee to get away from the wag bags as it just is not working…

[AK Granola]

Resurrecting this thread only because I was doing more searching for trowels.  I have to say, the privies in Glacier National Park were superb! After digging holes through the Bob, getting to Glacier was a delight, with easy bear hanging poles, privies, and nice “kitchen” areas with logs to sit on and stumps to cook on. Not that I didn’t also love the “wilderness” experience in the Bob, but it sure felt like a luxury to get to Glacier.

[Paul McLaughlin]

Re the Whitney privies: there used to be one right on the summit, with a rock wall around it at about shoulder height when you were in a seated position. No roof, because what you were sitting above was a 55 gallon drum that was helicoptered in and out. That was the best view from a toilet that I’ve ever had. But I guess I’m glad that it’s gone, as the cost, both environmental and monetary, of maintaining the thing was too much – and would be much worse with the numbers that visit Whitney now.

[AK Granola]

I’ve ordered a Bogler trowel. I’ll keep you posted on its success, compared with my old Montbell one.

Top of Whitney huh? I’m not a very spiritual person, but that seems a bit sacrilegious to have a toilet on the top of our tallest lower 48 mountain. Not that there isn’t plenty of crap on top of Denali too. Pooping is what we humans excel at, and spreading it everywhere. Darned apes!

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