Oh Poop! Hikers Have to Pack it Out on Whitney

Outhouses dismantled, climbers supplied with sanitary kits
By Colleen Barry,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 5, 2007 4:07 AM CDT
Oh Poop! Hikers Have to Pack it Out on Whitney
Hiker atop Mount Whitney.   ((c) wetwebwork)

If you you brought it with you—even internally—you've got to pack it back down. That's the new policy on Mt. Whitney where officials have to deal with excrement left by thousands who take to the heights every year.  Air lifting bags of human waste from high-altitude outhouses has been deemed too risky, the New York Times reports.

So hikers are now supplied with sanitary waste kits and instructions on how to use them. "It's one thing to take a risk to fly up there to pick up an injured person, but to do it to fly out a bag of poop is another," said a ranger. Hikers aren't wild about the new policy, said another, "but people understand." (More Mount Whitney stories.)

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