Photo: zzvision (Getty)
It seems that mountain climbing isn’t as cool as Sylvester Stallone made it look on Cliffhanger. In fact it’s a tad more gross. The reason we say that is because Denali, which is also known my its former name Mt. McKinley, has a poop problem.
The Alaskan mountain, the highest peak in North America, apparently makes a lot of people poop, this according to Michael Loso, a glacier geologist. Loso says that between 1951 and 2012, 36,000 mountaineers dumped 215,000 pounds of solid human waste onto the Kahiltna Glacier, the most popular route to the summit.
Even though the National Park Service set a new rule in 2007 that required all climbers to put their poop in biodegradable bags and toss it into crevasses in the glacier, Loso says that it doesn’t help as poop never fully degrades and could reappear again downstream. Wow, it’s true what they say: you learn something everyday.
“It’s the same thing as when your dog poops in the yard all winter,” Loso told Montana Untamed. “And I may not scientifically think it has all gone away, but, nonetheless, I’m always surprised in the spring when the poop is still there.”
Here is the new proposed rule about pooping on the mountain:
Under the proposed rule changes that were open to public comment, mountaineers on the West Buttress below Camp 4 (14,200 feet) will be required to cache their poop in biodegradable bags, haul it back to base camp on their descent and fly it back to Talkeetna. Higher on the mountain, they’ll still be allowed to dispose of feces in a crevasse. The Park Service will mark a crevasse near Camp 4 that will be used for human waste disposal on the upper mountain.
That sure is a lot of work for a pile of poop, but it makes sense. Let’s just try and keep that mountain looking nice and poop-less.
h/t Deadspin
