There’s a pooping problem on Colorado’s 14ers. Here’s what’s being done to help flush it away.

John Meyer

7 - 9 minutes

A crusade to combat the proliferation of poop in Colorado’s backcountry entered a new frontier this week with the creation of a “Clean 14” initiative focusing on the state’s iconic 14,000-foot peaks.

A kiosk opened Tuesday at the north trailhead to Mount Elbert, the state’s highest peak at 14,437 feet, where hikers can pick up free bags designed to pack out human waste. Bags used on the trail can be left in a receptacle contained in the kiosk, 4,400 feet below the summit. The Clean 14 effort is a partnership involving the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics and Pact Outdoors, a Gunnison company that produces the pack-out bags.

Last year, Pact Outdoors participated in a program called Doo Colorado Right involving another of its products, Pact Lite, a tool designed to reduce human waste in the backcountry by burying it with a substance that accelerates decomposition. Through a grant from the Colorado Tourism Office, in association with the Tourism and Prosperity Partnership of Gunnison and Crested Butte, Pact Outdoors distributed thousands of free Pact Lite kits at ranger stations, Colorado visitor centers and trailheads. Doo Colorado Right is back again this year with new distribution partners, including the Steamboat Chamber of Commerce, the Aspen Resort Chamber, the Telluride Tourism Board and the Town of Vail.

Kits like those don’t eliminate all the problems presented by poop, though. In the harsh high-alpine environment above timberline on fourteeners, there is little or no soil. Digging holes is hard, if not impossible, and poop won’t decompose even with an accelerating agent.

Mount Elbert tops out at 3,000 feet above timberline. Fourteeners, as Pact Outdoors co-founder Jake Thomas puts it, “are really piles of rocks.” Thus the focus on fourteeners. Last year PACT Outdoors debuted a product for burying human waste in the backcountry with a substance that accelerates decomposition. This year the Gunnison based company is bringing out a new product to bag human waste and pack it out for use in the high alpine environment, where conditions do not support the decomposition of buried human waste. (Provided by Jake Thomas/PACT Outdoors)

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Last year Pact Outdoors debuted a product for burying human waste in the backcountry with a substance that accelerates decomposition. This year the Gunnison-based company is bringing out a new product (above) to bag human waste and pack it out for use in the high alpine environment, where conditions do not support the decomposition of buried human waste. (Provided by Jake Thomas/Pact Outdoors)

“Because there’s not as much of a soil base, you lack the microbial activity and retained moisture that is necessary for decomposition,” Thomas said. “Above timberline, temperatures are getting below freezing the vast majority of days throughout all seasons of the year, and because of their exposed nature, things dry out very quickly. Those key conditions – temperature and moisture that support decomposition – are not really present in the alpine. That makes it a particularly sensitive ecosystem.”

According to the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, an estimated 20-25,000 people hiked Mount Elbert in 2022, the most recent year for which it has figures. On fourteeners statewide, CFI put the number that year at 279,000.

Pact Outdoors is not the first company to market pack-out bags for human waste, sometimes called WAG bags. The acronym was derived from “waste alleviation and gelling” by Cleanwaste, the company that developed the first WAG bags. Like Frisbee and Kleenex, WAG bag is a registered copyright but has come into common usage as the generic term typically used for products of its type. As the Cleanwaste website explains it, “Each bag is filled with ‘poo powder’ that gels and solidifies waste, as well as acting as a decay catalyst, using natural enzymes to break down waste and neutralize bacteria and odor.”

Burying human waste is still acceptable for backpackers at lower elevations. As part of last year’s Doo Colorado Right campaign, Pact Lite kits were distributed at trailheads to the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness, where the accumulation of human waste and other resource damage had already moved the forest service to impose quotas and require permits for backcountry camping.

“We will take absolutely all the help we can get in any way with managing human waste in all of our wilderness areas, and especially in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness,” said Kevin Warner, head ranger for the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District. “Any product that works with the concept of burying your human waste is a great product when you can actually get a six-inch hole dug and then adequately cover your waste in that hole. In situations where there’s not enough soil, packing out human waste in most instances is the better sustainable practice.”

One of the prime attractions in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness is the famous Four Pass Loop, a 26-mile trek that crosses four 12,000-foot passes. It typically takes hikers three to four days to complete.

“I started my career as a wilderness ranger working for the forest service, and it was always amazing to me how many individuals I would contact that didn’t have a plan for how to deal with their need to poop while being out for multiple days in the backcountry,” Warner said. “Outside of water and food, it’s probably one of the most important things that a person can do for the longevity of the land in these high-use areas.”

There are other challenges causing public land managers to impose restrictions, including the sheer number of visitors overwhelming sensitive ecosystems, but Thomas believes the problem of human waste can be solved through public awareness and acceptance of the need to handle it responsibly.

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Pact Lite bathroom kits include scoops to dig 6-inch-deep holes for burying human waste, mycelium tablets that hasten the decomposition of human waste and small white pucks of a compressed material that expand when dampened with water to become nine-inch squares of bathroom tissue that are biodegradable. (Provided by Pact Outdoors) Pact Lite bathroom kits include scoops to dig 6-inch-deep holes for burying human waste, mycelium tablets that hasten the decomposition of human waste and small white pucks of a compressed material that expand when dampened with water to become nine-inch squares of bathroom tissue that are biodegradable. (Provided by Pact Outdoors)

“Land managers are forced to respond by increasing regulations,” Thomas said. “We convert dispersed camping into fee-based, we reduce the number of backcountry permits we’re giving out. All of these changes that are being made actually make access to the outdoors more difficult. We support land managers all the way — they don’t make these decisions lightly — but our stance is that human poop should never be a reason we have to limit access.”

At the Mount Elbert kiosk, Clean 14 will be conducting a study to see if that kind of approach encourages hikers to adopt proper backcountry poop etiquette.

“Our test is, if we build it, will people use it?” Thomas said. “We have a researcher from Penn State at the base of Mount Elbert for the next three weeks. This person will be collecting survey data from users as they come down the trail. That data will be aimed at understanding, did you use a WAG bag, did you have to go, what were your barriers to usage? It will determine if physical infrastructure like this helps users to learn and follow better practices when they are on fourteeners or (elsewhere) in the alpine environment.”

Originally Published: July 29, 2024 at 7:27 a.m.

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