Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Wag Bags and permits

If you just intended to offer an observation, I am not sure your email will come off as intended. Are you, someone from the scouting community, suggesting that people don't need to follow the rules because there aren't enough rangers to enforce the rules?

No people should follow the rules. My boys did follow the rules.
Here are the points to take from my post:
1. People don't like to poop in a bag and will do whatever they can to avoid it.
2. Only 2 out of 13 gave in to the need to use the bag, so it is no wonder there are a lot of empty bags.
3. There is no way the park service can enforce some draconian measures to make sure that everyone does poop in a bag. They don't have the staff to do it. They don't even have the staff to consistently check permits.
4. No matter what the rules are someone will break them. Even the threat of death isn't enough of a deterrent for some.
5. Every year this gets debated on this board at least once. Every time it comes up people make the same suggestions. Nothing ever changes. The toilets are gone and not coming back, the bags are here to stay, not everyone will use them, and there will be poop under every rock at Trail Camp. That is why I wont camp there.

Hmmmm, no, I don't think "Death" has been suggested before, but I'm all for it. We should have a vote. How many think death should be an option for someone whose morals can be bought for the price of a wag bag.

Okay, about rangers. Wow, you must not go at the right times. I've been checked on all but one hike, including my last hike up the MR at Upper Boy Scout. That ranger was walking up to every person on the trail and up around the Lake. He told me he stays up there for 4 days walking up and down the MR checking everyone for permits. Then, he is replaced by another ranger that does the same thing.

On my last summit in July, Gary, family and I ran into three rangers heading up the trail. I thought one was training, since I didn't see a reason for all three, but he said no, just heading up the trail. We all really enjoyed our visit with them. We probably spend 20 minutes or more talking with them. They were extremely personable and gave us great suggestions for future hikes (and of course some great gossip.)

Gary and I suggested to them that the Park Service may want to consider placing several, possibly three large trash containers on the Main Trail so hikers could throw their bags away in those instead of having to carry the stinky things up and back. At least that way, since the lowlifes that think rangers are their personal "potty cleaners", the rangers would only have to deal with three containers instead of several wag bags scattered on and away from the trail. (YES....the rangers check off trail for wag bags too)

When we were at Trail Camp, someone had thrown two LARGE black trash bags full of garbage and wag bags under a boulder just outside of camp. When we informed the rangers, they told us it took a "special" type of person to do that.

Maybe the punishment (fine) should be having to pick up wag bags for two days along the trail. Of course the offender would have to show up to the trail to serve his punishment. That way, when the offender never comes back to do his clean up, we never see his sorry ass on the mountain again.

As far as posts.... I love Shitney!
As far as posters, GreeneMachine has my vote because he is absolutely right.
p.s. Akichow is also right on.
As far as people who don't respect other people and think the rangers are their personal butt wipes, wow, sorry, but Oldbob, you have my vote and I'm very disappointed. I've read your posts before and didn't know you were such a putz. IF YOU'RE GOING TO SCHITTAROOSKI ON "OUR" MOUNTAIN....STAY OFF IT.

Hi all,
Having read the whole trail of this most interesting subject I feel compelled to profer an alternative suggestion.

Let's look at the issue from a business perspective. We have people we need to motivate to do something they might not otherwise be bothered to do. Humans, in general are motivated by reward, often a financial reward.

So how about this....
When you pick up your pass and wag bag you pay a $5 deposit on the wag bag. This deposit has several purposes as you will read later.

The rule will be, return a full wag bag and you get all of your $5 back, return it empty and you get $1 back.

So now, the hiker has to evaluate the value of their poo.
This will obviously not motivate all, however it may motivate some.

There would be several bonus aspects of this proposal.
1) The fact that a good majority would lose at least $4 of their $5 funds the scheme.
2) You could offer a bonus for a really full wag bag motivating some to do their business more than once.
3) I'm sure some kids could earn pocket money by going up the mountain collecting bags and bring them back to claim the $5 a bag.
4) You would not need Rangers to go on collection duty.

Obviously there are some aspects of this proposal that require clarification such as how do you monitor the contents of the wag bag to ensure it isn't just soil, well a different soil.

Just some food for thought....
Happy Hiking

It's an interesting idea, but $5 isn't nearly enough to motivate most people. Maybe $25?

I can see the Huffington Post Headline:

"Forest Service Rewards Hikers for Bowel Movements."

Or maybe just: "Poo for Pay."

Put the permit number on each bag during issue of permits.
If they are found, filled and abandoned, return them to the address on record of the permitted.
Charge the above mentioned "permitted individual" postage.
you bet I'd be watching my group for poo violations.

I am curious how they solve the same problem in Europe.
I was told that there are more hikers in Alps than in Sierra.

In Europe they don't have the same concept of "wilderness area" meaning a region with boundaries and allowed operations as designated by the US Congress.

Even here, there would be a far greater range of management options if the east side of the Whitney crest were national forest without wilderness status, national park, or private lands.

"Wilderness" protection "protects" wilderness from a great variety of options

Dale B. Dalrymple

Yes, in Europe they have regulated uses in areas we would designate as wilderness. In this country we have a problem with going to extremes in a variety of realms, but as to wilderness or "wild" areas, the Europeans think it's sensible to have facilities and amenities scattered around the mountains so people can hike around the mountains gaining beneficial exercise and enjoying the views without it being a Spartan death march. Having access to facilities to relieve himself in, The European hiker has less need to worry about choosing between being an envirokrim or suffering the indignity of squatting on a mountainside, pants around his ankles while trying to defecate into the equivalent of a sandwich bag...

Greenmachine doesn't appear to think of the odds that for someone with his averred classification of attitudes held by the 2 groups of people he interacts with, there are always other categories of people who have possibly other intentions towards him than the 2 he mentions, but that's another discussion...

I'm pretty sure they don't "solve" the problem. For the most part, I've found European mountains to be trashed. In France especially, I didn't even sense any effort to be made to clean anything up. Even cars pushed off the road were left to rot in the ravines forever.

Example Corsica, off trail and high in the mountains within their the "Parque National du Haute Corse" in 1983:



many popular locations in Europe have shelters with services along very heavily traveled routes, even half way up the Matterhorn. Those places may be an eye sore, but a lot of the pollution is controlled by keeping it concentrated around these facilities. Basically, it's like having another portal store with toilets up at Trail Camp. Not really an option on Whitney unless Starbucks wants to invest heavily and gets political backing in high places (cut that government spending...)

well, let's not get the wrong idea out about how large they are. I used it in 50mph winds in winter and had no issues with the targeting the several square feet of bag while standing on two of its corners to keep it from blowing down to Lone Pine.

Mulling this over, over the weekend, I just wanted to say the following:

Notwithstanding the occasional snarky comment, including mine, it is clear that a lot of the posting comes from frustration at not having better a solution to the seemingly impossible problem, given the constrains of legal, financial, societal, volume, and physical limitations.

I'm apparently one of the few that has actually met and discussed the issues with the managers from the Forest Service in person, multiple times, and I assure everyone that what we have is not for lack of caring, creativity, research, reading, site visits, talking to other managers of other localities, or wanting something that works better. *THEY* pick up the wag bags. Whatever level of frustration we experience, it is NOWHERE near what they experience. For them, it is very personal. I'd imagine the closest thing would be if you came out and found a Wag Bag on your lawn each day. (and people are suggesting you need to put in a solar toilet!)

ValentiaBrit, interesting, although I'm not sure about the logistics.

Do you imply that a decision to remove the toilets was authorized by the US Congress?
Is it up to the US Congress to approve Mt.Whitney permit fees?

Ken..... you are dead on, absolutely correct on this issue. It is my belief and I think the majority of hikers that love Mt Whitney, that crapping on the mountain and leaving your dirty wag bags (and of course the frickin idiots that don't use wag bags)....that they are DISRESPECTING not only others who hike Mt Whitney, but the forest service rangers who are there to help you and guide you when you need their service.

How dare you (and you people know who you are) to think you are better than other people. Again, the best solution, if you can't follow the rules that are there to protect our health and the Mt Whitney environment....Stay off the mountain. Geeez, just refer to Bulldogs post. If you can't figure it out after reading that one, do what a ranger talked to me about. Take the average weight of one poop, multiply it by the times of days and average hiker is on the mountain, multiply by the number of people on the mountain and then multiply again for the number of average hiking days per year on Mt Whitney. It comes to an awful lot of poop. Poop that will be scattered around by hikers, wildlife, birds, rainstorms, etc. Poop we will all be drinking when we use the streams. Poop that will hurt wildlife, including threatened wildlife like the Pika.
If you really need to poop on a mountain.... Google how many mountains there are in California that don't have the wag bag regulation.
This subject's starting to piss me off.......ah, but that's another subject.

The requirements that local agencies of the federal government must interpret, implement and enforce, are passed by the US Congress.

Since you are capable of posting here, you should be capable of using the internet to learn about the issues. (Google is your friend.) The following are just a few of the resources available for you to learn about the issues involved in wilderness management. They should provide you with enough background and vocabulary to research to your heart's content.

What is Wilderness? (One viewpoint example among many)
http://www.mtmultipleuse.org/wilderness/wilderness_regs.htm

The Wilderness Act of 1964
http://wildlifelaw.unm.edu/fedbook/wildact.html

National Wilderness Preservation System
http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/boundaries/a_nwps.html

The Act itself
http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=NWPS&sec=legisAct

And because it isn't just the wilderness act
http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=NWPS&sec=legisoverview

Forest Service Manual 2300; Wilderness Management
www.fs.fed.us/im/directives/fsm/2300/2320.doc

Read, explore, evaluate and draw your own conclusions.

Dale B. Dalrymple

to ValenciaBrit - The unintended consequence of your suggestion is that someone that did not have the need to poo, would find an abandoned bag and transfer the contents into their own to get a full refund, the unanswered question is, what would they do with the emptied bag? My guess is you could get odds on it being left behind as it was intended. Yes, some would do anything for $4.

Way to expensive to implement, but who knows...one day maybe.

http://www.wpbf.com/news/28393482/detail.html

John

sigh...

Until then - when in the Whitney area. I will poop in a wag bag (one of the BEST wag bags we've found on this coast) Seriously, you think these are bad. Travel elsewhere & experience their "Wag"

I will haul my nasties in the aforementioned wagbag double captured in an REI odor free bag down to the dumping ground at trailhead. (not at the Store)

And because of this, I will get to enjoy one of my favorite wilderness areas guilt and semi-poo free.

This keeps our wilderness somewhat clean and it is the rule. So I'll suck it up & poo in a bag.
Grow up, you have to do it on other big mountains too.

You nailed that one; I pick up other people's dog $hit off of my lawn everyday (live near park)and the things that I imagine doing to the owners are not printable.