RRGCC Toilet Input Needed

[Josephine]

We've got some big plans for 2016. Help us make some decisions on pursuing a grant to put in toilets! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/D58CDL8

[clif]

i'm happy to see that the rrgcc no longer emphasizes that input should be offered at the annual meetings. i'm still a little baffled why after some 15 years of negotiating with the forest service for access that founding principle has been abandoned. on the bright side, i'm glad that Muir Valley has been declared the "Crown Jewel" of the Red.

[chandler]

"i'm still a little baffled why after some 15 years of negotiating with the forest service for access that founding principle has been abandoned."

For the past few years, the RRGCC has been involved in discussions with Forest Service officials to secure additional climbing access within DBNF. By “discussions,” I mean local FS officials recently signed off on a draft memorandum. I understand the memorandum currently is in the review process at a FS regional office. By “additional climbing access,” I mean a future process for allowing limited new bolting on federal land.

[GaryO]

Thanks for you work, folks. Poop has to be dealt with sooner or later. The Gorge, both private and public, is our playground, our backyard, and I certainly don't want poop spread all over my backyard.

[Shannon]

I would like to offer another view regarding toilets in the parking lots on RRGCC land. Many years ago I read and was deeply impressed by an argument regarding altering handholds on climbing routes, also known as manufacturing or chipping. The argument against the practice was that for humans to accept the rock and route as is and to bring their climbing abilities up instead of bringing the route down to their level.

Humans are clever animals and as such have altered the world dramatically, mostly for our safety, our use, our pleasure, and our convenience. And yet we still seek large areas on the planet where we do not completely dominate the terrain. We have found we prefer to have a wide range of options from completely dominated, i.e, cities, to unaltered, i.e., wildernesses. We purposely set aside areas where we challenge ourselves, more or less, (making concession to have roads and parking areas for the vehicles that brought us to these places) to accept the environment as we find it and bring ourselves up to its level so we can have these less altered places to visit.

I live in a city. I like parks. I climb in gyms. I have the great, good fortunate to climb in the Red River Gorge several days a week, nearly every week for over the last 20 years. I am not special, only very fortunate. And I have carried and used in all my years of climbing a simple trowel on my pack to bury my waste because I am outdoors purposefully away from bathrooms.

Couldn’t the RRGCC invest in trowels and provide for free, instead of bathrooms? Wouldn’t providing trowels reinforce following the recommended outdoor method of handling human waste and help city folk/newcomers/gym climbers new to going to the bathroom outside, more cost efficiently? Wouldn’t this approach “bring us up” to learning about the environment and accepting the outdoors as the outdoors and not treating or expecting it to be a gym, or a park, or a playground, or our backyard (no offense GaryO)? Wouldn’t the simple solution of trowels go towards encouraging climbers to think about being a steward of the land instead of dumbing it down and throwing away a perfect opportunity to educate?

I am very happy that there is a wide range of options for climbers to choose from here at the Red, the National Forest, private land, Muir Valley and the RRGCC’s land, each has something wonderfully different to offer. We all get to decide for ourselves which we prefer, and accept, as is…including the challenge of how to handle human waste when where is no bathroom…and when there are multiple bathrooms conveniently provided.

[Nick]

Is this not why humans invented black coffee? It allows you to accurately, consistently, and strategically plan your next "grumpy". Wake up, make an extra strong pot, and by the time you get off at the Slade exit you'll be ready to kick in a stall door at the rest stop cause you're prairie doggin' so hard...plus you'll be ready to go 5-hang your proj after. I should mention they do a pretty great job of keeping it clean.

[Bruisebrother]

I'm with Shannon on this. The RRGCC lands are not Muir Valley! Forest Service quality pit toilets are expensive to build, maintain and protect! The Southern Region and Miller Fork are a wilderness experience, Liken to the original crags of the Red in the National Forest. Imagine what would happen to these proposed toilets when the Locals destroy even a simple informational Kiosk we put up. Once again it goes back to the Gyms, the Coalition and all of Us to educate climbers who haven't a cue how to act in the woods! Climb-Safe, Mike.

[milspecmark]

Im not sure a toilet in the parking lot would ruin my wilderness experience. Hell, they have them at all the major trailheads that I go to to experience "The wilderness". I am also pretty sure most people wont use the trowel, but I could be wrong.

[GaryO]

Shannon, thank you for your work, first of all!

Trowels are useful and responsible pooping is important. Personally, I carry a wag bag in addition to a trowel for when a suitable digging site is not convenient. Sure, with proper education the gorge could sustain burying waste for a long time. However, people will only walk so far, dig so deep, and pull leaves for so long. I've camped and climbed at places where the woods become poop minefields. I don't want the gorge to become that. Nothing spoils a wilderness day like a poorly dug hole or lingering TP. That is why I would support consolidating waste disposal to strategically placed toilets (along with further LNT education). Of course, managing those toilets will be a challenge in itself, and a management plan will be vital lest they turn into tool sheds.

Managing our natural resources is difficult, and I have few, if any, answers. I know I have to give up some aspect of full wilderness to maintain access to any wilderness at all. That's a tough balancing act at which we as a community can probably do a better job. I appreciate the discussion.

[DrRockso]

Nothing worse than hiking far back in the woods and finding a great spot to cower down and unleash the beast, you forgot your trowel back at camp so you notice a great rock to conceal your dirty deed and keep people's annoying crag dogs from getting poop mouth and sharing it via their irresistible puppy kisses. You start to prairie dog as the enormous double ham and cheese koops sandwich makes its way through your pathetic quivering bowels, you brace yourself against the nearest rhododendron trunk to get just the right angle as to not get feces on your brand new prana zip off pants, it peaks its head out of your brown eye just to say hello then retreats back to its rightly home. Just before you are about to let loose you move the rock from which you wish to lay your food baby down to rest only to find you weren't as original a thinker as you thought first thought. You shimmy to the side to avoid laying the deuce directly on top of the previous chuffers master peice, but wait.. Oh no.. your grip on the rhodo.. It loosens (probably weakened from your recent link-up of 27 years of climbing and brief history) you begin to slip, your fingers straighten, you grab the air as you fall but to no avail, oh the humanity... what hath god wrought.