Time to $hit or get off the pot

In today's Gazette is the story I've been expecting for a few weeks. I've watched the number of people camping alongside Monument and Fountain creeks increasing almost daily, and being me, I have been wondering... where has all their human waste (i.e. urine and feces, i.e. crap,) been going? Into the waterways, of course.

Sanitation amongst poverty is a problem that is often ignored until it becomes a major issue because it is doubly distasteful to deal with -- not only are you acknowledging 1) economic and social deficiencies within your own backyard, but also having to deal with 2) nasty conditions brought on by 1 -- in this case, that the small area of land surrounding these camps is not sufficient to process the amount of waste being deposited there. And that stinks. Literally.

But what is the solution? It sounds like some people are trying to maintain sanitary conditions (and perhaps their basic dignity) by creating makeshift latrines and honeybuckets, and some are just relieving themselves directly onto the ground or into the creek. Both pose many immediate problems, such as outbreaks of e.coli (or worse, think cholera). It also, however, has a long-term effect, especially regarding the latrines. Without exposure to sunlight and UV rays, the waste will not biodegrade, despite being buried. Underground decomposers may take months to process just one single human deposit, so think of the time required to process an entire latrine used by many people.

This area is at the crux of the two main waterways in Colorado Springs, with a public trail bisecting most of the camps. This waste is directly affecting everyone downstream, and has the potential to affect anyone passing through that area, even long after the camps themselves are cleaned up. Trail users with pets should be especially careful around there for the next few years, as dogs are great about finding mess (just ask my dogs).

So we all agree it's gross... what is the solution? Leaving port-o-lets down there might help, or they may just be destroyed. Let's hope that they aren't, and that the generous citizens who donated them are getting a good return on their investment, if you will. However, if that doesn't work, then what? Burying this amount of waste is a huge overburden to a confined land area and the waste simply will not degrade. The small, shallow creek does not have the flow to dilute such heavy waste. Packing it out is unrealistic, as it's hard to get die-hard outdoors people to carry their crap around in bags, not to mention a camp of diverse and down-on-their-luck people who really have enough to deal with as it is.

A possible solution may be smaller chemical toilets for those who are willing to maintain them. These bucket toilets, using the same kind of chemicals used in RVs and safe for septic dumping, given to those among the campers who are trying to maintain clean conditions (and it sounds like there are several), won't solve the problem, but it might help. A better situation would be installing a vault toilet (think forest service campgrounds). It would cost a few thousand to install and the location is not ideal for a long-term bathroom, but right now it may be the best way to prevent waste from ending up in public parks and waterways, not to mention private land and eventually, Pueblo. Also, it's possible that local septic pumping services might be willing to keep it pumped at free or reduced rates, in light of the situation.

Of course, the real solution is to get these people jobs, get them in a better frame of mind about their lives and their prospects, and to get them out of these tents and into a place of their own that they can take pride in and work to maintain. It will take a better economy, of course, but it also needs Colorado Springs, as a community, to stop bickering and work towards a common goal -- our own sense of place and the drive to take care of it. No more westside vs. eastside, no more liberal CC types vs. Briargate New Lifers, no more Doug Bruce vs. TOPS vs. Walmart vs. arts community vs. military. For God's sake, if a bunch of random people can live in tents in the winter and crap in a tree trunk next to the freeway and still find the drive to survive, we should be able to get it together as a city and priortize our immediate, and long-term goals for the place we call home. Especially since we're lucky enough to have one.

Read the story and tell me what you think.

The 7 Ps

The first principle of Leave No Trace is "Plan Ahead and Prepare". This is, of course, the most important principle, because it seems as though all of our impacts stem from a simple truth: we didn't take the time to think the situation through. If everyone became conscious of their abilities, skills and limitations, and then adjusted them for whatever environment they planned to enter, the opportunity to create impacts would simply not arise as often.

For example: your friends want to hike a 14er, but you're too out of shape to do it on their schedule. You refuse to share your reduced ability level out of pride, and find yourself slowing the group to the point that a campsite has to be created complete with fire ring in a less than ideal place. The impact may seem reasonable to you at that time, but once your group leaves, your story goes with it and all that is left is what seems like another unsightly, poorly-planned mark on the land.

The more time you spend in the wilderness, the more you understand that there is no rescuing warm-bosomed Earth Mother who will save you from the rushing river or the cracking lightning. The land is what it is; it does not love or hate you, it simply is. You have only yourself to rely on, and this challenge, when properly understood, is its own reward.

As my Dad always says, follow the 7 Ps: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

I came across a great blog today that fully illustrates my point. At Hiker Hell, stories of things gone awry can be funny or tragic, but all share one common thread -- they could have been avoided by a little more thought and a little less wishful thinking. Have fun.

Prairie: home companion.

Having recently left the mountains for the first time in a long time to live in eastern Colorado Springs (love makes a girl do crazy things), I realize I had forgotten what richness is the plains. My family lived on the mixed-grass prairie when I was younger, and as a teenager I loved how the sun turned everything to pure gold in the late afternoon, just before it sank behind the peak.

However, things have changed. Places I used to think were uncross-ably vast and desolate are now hidden under street after street of new homes and shopping centers. The name of the dry arroyo where my horse threw me once is lost, renamed something more generically elegant with a better resale value. Not a neighborhood, but a community.

Even ancient Sand Creek, historically temperamental, always unreliable, and frustratingly needed seems to be bogged down with new drainages, culverts, runoff and other "enterprises".

Still, between the new driveways, Wheatgrass, needle-and-thread and bluestem refuse to let go of the sandy soil. In a few square waterlogged feet between the alley and a sidewalk just down from my house, cattails and rushes thrive. A man-made flood control zone across the street has become a veritable marshland refuge for red-winged blackbirds. A fox hides in the cottonwoods, eyeing the neighbor's cat. Coyotes take advantage of the concrete trail system, gibbering like maniacs well into the morning. Grama grass pushes up through the unkempt sod of my lawn.

Rediscovering these grasslands now, I am impressed with their resiliency.

Driving home at sunset, even the streetlights and the new hospital on the hill can't change the scope of the plains, their undeniable bigness. The prairie must be described in terms of fabric... swathes of golden green grass, rolling and folding in on themselves in the ever-present wind. The sky like a brilliant blue curtain, cascading down to meet the still earth; cotton clouds arcing across the horizon and becoming towers of silver thunderheads in the afternoon heat. It seems like the best-laid plans to make a mark on this place will be laughable in such a landscape.

A Pronghorn won't jump a fence, but she will squeeze through it. I thought that all might have been lost for this place that I used to call home and now will make my home once again, but I was wrong. The fence is just big enough, and I have hope.

Home is Where the Heart Is

I think the hardest question to answer when teaching Leave No Trace is simply, "why?". Why does anyone need to be reminded of simple, common sense steps in the backcountry? Why should I be concerned with the small impact of one person when the Earth is such a dynamic series of systems? Surely it can absorb my footprints, as it has the millions of footprints that have come before me? Why does the responsibility of lessening a global impact fall on my shoulders?

These are all completely legit, and while perhaps not verbatim, commonly expressed questions. And often, they leave me tongue-tied.

In a nutshell, the answer is easy -- because not everyone cares about the natural world and it's processes, so somebody has to pick up the slack, or the people who do care won't have anything left to care about. Sounds an awful lot like getting shafted, I know.

As a teacher, I often struggle to find more eloquent ways to ornament this bleak answer. I use images of alpine valleys and fragile deserts to evoke protective emotions; I tell stories of lone bears making a last stand and elusive fish forever swimming icy streams to drum up feelings of respect and fear. I demonstrate alternative methods and equipment to pique curiosity and I lead people out into our natural lands in hopes that their surroundings will give them the motivation and energy to go the extra mile.

But still, all this talking never really gets at the real, complex, constantly-evolving answer to "why": because the natural world is our home, and that is truly where my heart is. None of us -- no matter our immediate environment, decor, location, or mindset -- are outside of nature. We all rely on the planet's cyclical generosity for our lives, literally the very air we breathe, and this is all happening right now, right this very second.

My goal with this blog is to explore the often overwhelming emotions I have for this natural world, and eventually translate them into a better tool for teaching the principles of Leave No Trace in the Pikes Peak Region.

I also invite other LNT Master Educators, Trainers, or students to submit your own thoughts, photos, poems, teaching concepts, recipes, gear reviews, meteorological predictions, soap-box rants, baby pictures, what-have-you, to kristen@pikespeakleavenotrace.org . I hope that we can create a compendium of LNT-ish thoughts and ideas that we can all use to further the conversation.

Looking forward to it...

Kristen