RRC Archives

anticlmber wrote:i have buried every shit i have ever taken and the majority have been dug with a stick i find en route. the ground around the gorge is soft and sandy, shovels aren't needed to dig, get people to realize that first.

Lander wrote: since nobody's brought it up, has anybody else noticed that more and more often you'll encounter unburied poo under rock houses? who are the morons that do this? i also don't understand why people would want to go anywhere near where other people have been going.

The trade-offs in environmental protections are between security and decomposition. The ideal spot for rapid decomposition (rapid is completely relative here; under the best conditions, human shit can take more than a year to vanish) is dry to somewhat moist, but not excessively moist, with abundant humus and bacteria.

The next and most thankful thing to learn about diggings is that you're not required to dig to China. Quite the contrary: the most effective enzymes for breaking down excrement live within the top eight inches of the soil. It's generally recommended that you dig down six to eight inches...

Stirring is a brilliant new technique that we all need to learn and employ. It is that "mixing" of the item we've deposited on our one-sit hole with lose dirt scraped from the sides fo the hole before covering it over, all to the purpose of enhancing the decomposition rate by way of bringing soil bacteria in contact with a greater portion of the turd. Use a small stick for this purpose, something you can drop into the hole, not a tool you will be returning to your belt-sheath or backpack. Think ahead. Pick up a downed stick along the way to your mission site, and when first digging the hole, loosen some dirt from the sides. Where there are no sticks, be creative. Use a stone. Carry a few Popsicle sticks you don't mind parting with. Be aware that "no sticks" may mean a high use area, an area with no bacteria in the soil, or an area with no soil - situations, once again, where packing-it-out is environmentally preferable to burying it.

The merits of stirring come to us as far back as 1982 in a study conducted in Mondana's Bridger Range... Fecal matter inoculated with bacterial pathogens E. coli and salmonella was buriedin cat holes. Samonella proved a hardy survivor at all sites over the winter; E. coli persisted at some. Researchers theorized that fecal matter may actually insulate bacteria from the breakdown action of soil and propsed that mixing soil and feces might speed up die-off. Noe one could imagine bacountry recreationists employing such a practice. Now here we are... stirring!

the lurkist wrote:I read Rick's post about the challenges of pit toilets, but how about a pit toilet on around on the south slope, down the old logging road (logging- get it?) as you go up the hill to the undertow wall. The old road peels off to the right shortly after the trail tops out on the approach to the Undertow. The squatter could be built a bit just down this old two track. A platform would be built over a deep hole (to accomodate quite a bit of poo. ) You poop, drop in a handful of organic matter and let microbes, metabolic heat, and oxygen doo the rest. It would need to be resupplied occ with organic matter to mix. Wood chips, or just leaves (in which case no resupply needed). Yes, it would fill evetually. It would need to be moved at some point. But being built on the south sun exposed slope with good drainage it would basically take care of it self. It would be far enough up hill from any water that all infectious disease risk (Hep A, typhoid, e coli, giardia, etc) would be degraded in the drainage field (the long hillside down to the creek.)

Clearly I have been thinking of poo at the lode (huh..) for a long time.
A good friend (Danita Dolores- yes that one) is a chemical engineer/ ground water specialist. She always said that open pit toilet with organic matter is the best waste treatment system. The one limiting factor is how much poo would be deposited. If the pit toilet was used too frequently it would fill faster than degradation could occur. How many defacation occurances are there at the lode per day/week. I would think that they would be some what finite.