Aconcagua - Feb 2010 - Waste Disposal

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Aconcagua - Feb 2010 - Waste Disposal

In The Hitchhikers´Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams wrote of a planet so badly affected by environmental pollution and depletion of its resources, that visitors were required to be weighed before entering or leaving the planet. Any net imbalance in their body mass (when adjusted for food intake and excretions) was forcibly extracted from their system. It was therefore vital to keep receipts for all restaurant and toilet visits.

While this situation may seem absurd, it is now common for many National Parks to impose rigorous hygeine requirements on visitors in order to preserve both the purity of the water supplies and the aesthetic appeal of the area.

Aconcagua is no exception. Signs at the permit centre in Mendoza and at the park entrance in the Horcones Valley remind visitors that all rubbish or ´residuos´must be placed in bags, carried for the duration of the trip, and returned to the park authorities on departure. Bags are provided for this purpose and fines are imposed on anyone who does not return one on their departure. ´Residuos´includes not only packaging waste, general litter and toilet paper, but also solid human waste.

Travelling to Aconcagua as part of an organised expedition exempted me and others of the party from complying so rigorously with these requirements. The responsibility for waste management was delegated to the expedition organisers, so some small concessions could be obtained.

Walking for the first two days along the Varas Valley, we were fortunate to be provided with regulation toilet facilities at the two camp sites as Puente de Lenas and Casa de Piedra - even if these were fairy rudimentary cabins with the obligatory giant plastic bucket placed under the whole in the floor. I met an American climber at the second of these establishments who stated that after a couple of days hiking "it was all about the pee and the poop!" Certainly the process became more complicated the further you advanced from civilisation, and with the onset of altitude pressures, it also became one of the few faculties that the body did not chose to shut down.

In order to offset altitude sickness and the dehydrating effects that it can cause, it is necessary to drink between 3 and 5 litres per day. For the well adjusted, this requires a substantial amount of stopping by the trail at regular intervals to "restore equilibrium to the system". It is important, however, that this should not be done in such a way as to pollute nearby water sources. So no stopping near rivers or streams, or on glaciars, snow melt areas or ice formations such as penitentes. Any attempt to do this was met by loud shouts from the guides, who were turn round to the entire group and shout "Look at that! So and so is pissing in the river! This is not allowed!"

Another way in which altitude climbers attempt to avoid altitude sickness is to take the drug Diamox. Although this can help to regulate the body´s liquids, it is also a strong diuretic, so excessive consumption also furthers the desire to urinate. I was drinking around 6 to 8 litres of water for the first few days of the trip, and therefore needed to stop more than most by the side of the trail. As a result, I was asked on several occasions by the guides whether I was taking Diamox. They were concerned as they did not recommed the use of the drug, and were suspicious of any self medication. They were only satisifed that I was not prescribing it to myself when I showed them the several empty water bottles.

Sleeping in a tent for up to two weeks also causes its own share of toilet difficulties. At low altitudes, it is irritating at best to have to climb out of the tent in the middle of the night, wander round in the dark half blindly by the light of a head torch amongst the rocks, tent ropes, mule dung and crevasses in order to locate a suitable place to relieve oneself. At higher altitudes it is impossible bordering upon the dangerous - due to the loss of body temperature when leaving the sleeping bags at up to minus 25 degrees C, as well as the possibility of not making it back to the tent in the high winds.

There is also the awkwardness involved of waking up your fellow climber in the tent. While the resolutely altruistic may valiantly try to hold everything in until morning in order to avoid disturbing the other person in the tent, this is generally not to be recommended. Apart from the resulting loss of sleep, the energy required to perform such a feat can significantly deplete the body´s resources and deprive it of vital heat during the sub zero night time temperatures.

For this reason, our compulsory kit list for the expedition included "One pee bottle (clearly marked)" - to make sure that it was possible to take subtle and unobtrusive comfort breaks in the tent without disturbing others or needing to venture outside. Much humour was derived from those who managed to entirely fill these bottles during the course of one night -especially someone who had a 2 litre water bottle adapted for the purpose. While there were strong restrictions in place regarding urinating in camp (and at the main base camp there were guards on duty who would fine you for doing so), there seemed to be no problem in emptying these bottles at will.

Biology being what it is, it is somewhat easier for males to use pee bottles than females. For this purpose, several climbing and mountaineering resource companies have developed the female pee funnel - a rather pornographic sounding contraption which is marketed with unique selling point that it can be fixed to the body and "allows you to pee like a man". The French woman who shared my tent owned one of these pee funnels - though I had neither the opportunity or the desire to see such a device in action.

At the higher camps on the mountain above base camp, facilities for the performance of bodily necessities are almost non existent. At Camp 1, great care had to be taken when venturing through one particular area, for the evidence of excessive toilet paper meant that the various rocks may not have been as they first appeared. The expedition team erected a small blue tent (with a striking view of the valley beneath outside the front door) when it was possible to go in private. This was not a long drop or cat hole however. It was necessary to place newspapers, bubble wrap or whatever came to hand on the ground, use this to wrap up any deposit and place it into a large plastic bag outside the tent when done.

At Camp 2, the tent was dispensed with - on the basis that the high winds usually blew it away, leaving any occupant with the potentially awkward situation of finding his backside literally hanging in the wind. Instead, all pretense of privacy was done away with, and a large throne made of rocks and stones had been placed on the side of the mountain, to ensure that here was at least a sense of dignity and grandeur bestowed upon proceedings.

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