Outhouse - Controversies, Trends and Records

Controversies, Trends and Records

Outhouse design, placement and maintenance has long been recognized as being important to the public health. See posters created by the Works Projects Administration.

The growing popularity of paddling, hiking and climbing has created special waste disposal issues throughout the world. It is a dominant topic for outdoor organizations and their members. A grass roots organization -- Hikers Against Doo-Doo, also known as HADD—exists dedicated to providing information, insight and strategies for addressing the problem of waste disposal. The response to the growing problem has varied around the world.

• On August 29, 2007, the highest outhouse (actually, not a building at all, but a pit toilet surrounded by a low rock wall) in the continental United States — which sat atop Mount Whitney at about 4,418 meters (14,494 feet) above sea level, offering a magnificent panorama to the user — was removed. Two other outhouses, in the Inyo National Forest, were closed due to the expense and danger involved in transporting out large sewage drums via helicopter. The annual 19,000 or so hikers of the Mount Whitney Trail, who must pick up National Forest Service permits, are now given Wagbags (a double-sealed sanitation kit) and told how to use them. "Pack it in; pack it out" is the new watchword. Solar powered toilets did not sufficiently compact the excrement, and the systems were judged failures at that location. Additionally, by relieving park rangers of latrine duty, they were better able to concentrate on primary ranger duties, e.g., talking to hikers. The use of Wagbags and the removal of outhouses is part of a larger trend in U.S. parks.
• In 2007, Europe's highest outhouses (two) were helicoptered to the top of France's Mont Blanc at a height of 4,260 meters (13,976 feet). The dunny-cans are emptied by helicopter. The facilities will service 30,000 skiers and hikers annually; thus helping to alleviate the deposit of urine and feces that spread down the mountain face with the spring thaw, and turned it into 'Mont Noir'. More technically, the 2002 book Le versant noir du mont Blanc (The black hillside of Mont Blanc) exposes problems in conserving the site. * However, atop the 5,642 meters (18,510-feet) Mount Elbrus -- Russia's highest peak, the highest mountain in all of Europe and (at least) topographically dividing Europe from Asia -- sits the world's "nastiest outhouse" at 4,206 meters (13,800 feet). It is in the Caucasus Mountains, near the frontier between Georgia and Russia and a 'stone's throw' from troubled Chechnya. As one writer opined, ". . . it does not much feel like Europe when you're there. It feels more like Central Asia or the Middle East" (Per Outside Magazine 1993 search and article). The outhouse is surrounded by and covered in ice, perched off the end of a rock, and with a pipe pouring effluvia onto the mountain. It consistently receives low marks for sanitation and convenience, but is considered to be a unique experience.
• Australia's highest "dunny" -- located at Rawson's Pass in the Main Range in Kosciuszko National Park, which each year receives more than 100,000 walkers outside of winter and has a serious human waste management issue, was completed in 2008.
• A stone outhouse in Colca Canyon Peru has been claimed to be "the world's highest."
• Many reports document the use of Dunny cans (complete with pictures) for the removal of excrement, which must be packed in and packed out on Mount Everest. Also known as "expedition barrels" or "bog barrels," the cans are weighed to make sure that groups do not dump them along the way. "Toilet tents" are erected. This would seem to be an improvement over the prior practices, including the so-called "McKinley system"; there has been an increasing awareness that the mountain needs to be kept clean, for the health of the climbers at least.