As I had written in previous post, a lot of people ask how you go to the bathroom on a big mountain such as Mt Denali. The answer: very very carefully

First, for us guys, we have a much easier experience for half the time. We can take a pee most anywhere (if we can find it, think “shrinkage” from Seinfeld in sub zero temperatures). The biggest challenge comes in two places. One is when you have several layers of clothing on plus your climbing harness which cuts across your waist plus two leg loops, this requires some acrobatics to pull it out of the of the pants at the top, not through any normal zipper area. We try to use the same pee area in camp (usually marked with wands or a big yellow gash in the snow). On the trail, its a matter of timing on breaks.

The second area is during tent time. We used pee bottles, which were some nalgenes different than drinking water bottles (they had yellow caps for easy marking) The problem is managing to get in position in the sleeping bag to aim properly and contain in the bottle. The other issue is when the one liter bottle fills up during the night (which is normal) - so you can either dump it just outside the tent or wait or fill it to the rim and not spill anything. All of which is just plain unpleasant.

The other fun area is that other people are judging the color of your pee. On the mountain, you should be drinking at least one liter of water a day for every 1000 meters (so 5 liters for 5000 meters or about 16000 feet for instance). If you don’t drink enough, your urine becomes various shades of dark orange and others can see your colors at the pee hole you just left or the pee bottle in your shared tent, or when you go to empty it in public. If you can get to “clear and copious” it means you’re hydrating well.

Now, try to picture all of this and being a woman. They have to rely on this so called pee-funnel which like the name indicates is some sort of either anatomically correct oval shaped area connected to what looks like the end of a oil-funnel. They then (I think) have to manage to get this in place and collect urine and make sure none comes out the sides and out the other end. Oh, and all of this in a mixed gender environment where modesty has no meaning, and TP is still required.

All of our women on the trip did great, though they all complained of spillage in tent and sleeping bags. The funniest story (hope this is ok to share) came from Alex. We had a previous issue where Skittles got into our GORP bags so you would be happily crunching through nuts, raisins and chocolate when you bite something immovable to try to break your teeth - what fun. Alex told the story that she was really managing her pee-funnel well and one time she was urinating and the oval end started filling up and overflowing for no apparent reason. Except the reason turned out to be a Skittle candy stuck in the funnel end (it’s about the same diameter!) Hah!

One other personal note, many women get bladder infections from this whole process, between cleanliness, wiping funnels etc, so taking anti-biotics like Cipro becomes part of the regimen.

I don’t know how much I want to write about poop, but here goes cause it’s all - disgusting!

This was not a CMC. This is the “deluxe” can with a real seat at 17,200 - ok, it’s really near the tents as you can see

On Denali, at the National Park Service HQ before leaving, they showed us CMC’s (Clean Mountain Cans) - someone’s idea to manage defecation on the mountain and not pollute everything. They look like round office trash cans with a screw on top that holds a plastic bag. The idea is to plant your rump on this and poop and close the top and then someone comes and poops on top of yours etc. Then the bag is dumped in specified crevasses (that go who knows where). One time, Joey criticized one of us about “separate realities”. This being the concept that you should pee in a place separately before you poop because, well you can figure it out in a small plastic bag in a can.

This area was part of the bathroom area at 11,200′, and this little ledge is where people stowed their “bags” before transportation.

Advanced Base Camp at 14,400 was a real luxury though. They had a real toilet seat surrounded by a Very Low Wall of Plywood that had a small pit underneath. You could go to the bathroom and look out at The Headwall and the Mountain. But, but the time we came back down to ABC, it was so late in the season, they had taken it down and most of the rangers had moved off of camp. So, and this is really disgusting, we were reduced to - well - aiming into a plastic bag that you had to hold up to your arse. By this time, we were low on everything, but I still had one - one gallon bag left. Someone else, to remain nameless, had only a quart size bag, but were still successful!

At lower camps, we had built up (or had some existing) snow walls around the “bathroom” area that provided some privacy. But no matter what, if it’s sub-zero and you have tons of layers on, and have managed to get down to the bare areas, you still only have seconds to have a successful visit, it’s not like you can leisurely sit there and hope things work out - the pressure is always on and most people know where you have gone. The question usually is, “how was it?”. There were several answers: “disappointing”, “great” or “just ok”.

This is the deluxe bathroom at 14,400′. Unfortunately this was the best of the three weeks!

One key cleanliness note: everyone is religious about having hand sanitizer in their TP bag on their person and uses it after most every bathroom visit, especially #2. Since group gear and food is handled by multiple people, this is a most common source of GI issues and every trip I’ve been on, people take this really seriously both for themselves and for their fellow climbers.

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