A new ethic is popping up around the U.S. as more and more Forest Services are getting rid of their higher elevation sanitation crews in favor of other options.  High-elevation camping areas and hiking trails that previously had outhouses stationed in the area are being left without them.  The Forest Services haven’t lost focus of the important of sanitation. Rather the effort and danger of dispensing the waste has significantly increased. 

Helicopters must make regular visits up steep-walled canyons with dangerous winds while rangers in hazmat suits wait below to tie 250-pound bags or barrels of waste onto a long line dangling below the aircraft. Forest services can justify the expense when it comes to saving lives or finding hikers. Removing waste that can be easily removed by trail users is a bit harder to justify.

So what are parks doing to help hikers and campers remove waste in an easy manner? They are giving them “WagBags.”  A WagBag is a Waste Alleviation and Gelling Bag that hikers carry with them and return at the end of their excursion.  Parks and trails like those near Mt. Whitney, the Grand Canyon and Mt. Rainer provide hikers and campers with WagBags and show them how to use them.  

This year, more than 4,500 pounds of waste in Wagbags has been deposited in receptacles at the Whitney Portal trail head alone. The Forest Service sends the bags to landfills where the bags are designed to biodegrade over six to nine months.

What this means for hikers and campers is that when planning your trip, you can no longer rely on having outhouses or more modern bathrooms awaiting you. Plan ahead and purchase WagBags ahead of time or talk to your park services department about picking them up on your way up the trail or mountain. 

I personally, think it’s an okay thing. Yeah, it’s not great to add one more thing to your pack and having to think about carrying this stuff out isn’t so pleasant. But saving the parks service some money so they can put it towards more or better trails seems like a great trade-off.

You can read the full news story at www.nytimes.com.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 7th, 2007 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Camping Tips, Outdoor Tips, Hiking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.