Great Toilets of the World Part 2: Cowboy Camp

Living it up in the luxury of a house sized RV was getting too much. We needed a weekend off to get back to basics and reconnect with nature, so we threw the tent and an esky in the back of a hired jeep and made a break for the backcountry.
I found the toilet above at Cowboy Camp, just outside Canyonlands NP. We saw real cowboys nearby, with chaps and lassoos. One demonstrated his mastery of the equestrian arts by munching his way through a jumbo sized bag of Lays crisps without dismounting.
The toilet appealed to me as a study in minimalism, an exercise in adequacy. Both door and roof have been deemed unnecessarily luxurious and dispensed with, walls alone being enough to protect the decency of the occupant. The toilet paper was, however, permitted the shelter of a small roof, like that on a bird table, to protect it from occasional desert storms.
The Bureau of Land Management, who administer this and many other similar installations around Moab, do as fine job of keeping stray toleys in check as the cowboys do for steers. Before issuing permits for campsites without doorless dunnies like that discussed above they ensure that campers are packing their own sanitaryware. Paddlers on the Colorado and Green Rivers are obliged to accommodate their turds in their boats, like brown stowaways, for the duration of their trip. Perhaps they have to present them to the rangers at the end as evidence of their compliance in a smelly, twisted kit inspection, laying them out on a sheet as a fisherman would his catch at a village market on the Mekong. A shit inspection even.
Such bountiful provision of outdoor crapperies meant that I was deprived of the opportunity to practise the little known excrement disposal method of smearing, despite finding myself in precisely the unpeopled, arid desert environment for which its use is endorsed. I read of this method in a handbook of alpinism; one simply smears one's output onto a rock in as thin a layer as possible. The sun then dessicates the jobby into thousands of feacal flakes, very much like goldfish food, which are dispersed to the four winds, leaving the rock clean enough, in principle at least, to eat your dinner off of.

Great Toilets of the World Part 1: Is this Scotland's only squat toilet?

A preference for a hole in the ground style toilet is regarded by most British people as backward and downright uncivilised. I don't subscribe to this school of lavatorial snobbery however, having recognised the benefits of the squat toilet while travelling in Asia some years ago. It was during this time that I practised and perfected the art of the relaxed squat. It is a sad reflection on the health of our nation that many of us are simply incapable of squatting. This is the first benefit of the hole in the ground toilet; regular squatting promotes hip flexibility, and flexibility is a Good Thing. The second benefit is to the act of stool passage itself. I expect that an appropriate anatomical drawing would highlight the improved alignment of one's colon with the anus that squatting confers. Try for yourself, your output will slide out smoothly and continuously like a well-oiled piston. I have read that back pain was practically unknown in Thailand until the European chair was introduced. Perhaps a similar tale could be told about haemorroids and western toilets?
Despite my enthusiasm for the squat toilet I do have a regular unit installed in my own home. I have been quite tempted by the hybrid units that one can buy; effectively a standard western toilet but with footplates that permit squatting at seat level. A nasty injury could result were such an elevated squat to be attempted after a few refreshments, so I am inclined against such a compromise.
I occupied myself on saturday with a stroll up Glen Feshie in the Cairngorms and was surprised and delighted in equal measure to find a functional squat toilet in an outbuilding adjacent to the Ruigh-aiteachan bothy. To the best of my knowledge this is the only example in Scotland. As illustrated by the photo above, the simple hole has been complicated unnecessarily by the addition of a seat-less chair and a wooden toilet seat, no doubt to accommodate the inflexibility of the average user. The eagle-eyed amongst you may also have noticed that a misalignment between seat and hole has resulted in some nasty smearage.
It is the inevitability of this type of ad hoc customisation by houseguests and the attendant risk of smearage that puts me off discarding my white porcelain throne. Perhaps a hybrid is the way forward after all.

Bananas and Brown Dogs on Ben Nevis

The summit plateau may be infested with banana peel, but an even greater hazard plagues the area surrounding the Ben Nevis North Face car park at Torlundy and the approach up the Allt a'Mhuillin; they are practically paved with excrement.

Ben Nevis reflected in the calm waters of Loch Eil (February 2007)

The John Muir Trust announced this week that as many as 1,000 banana skins may be found on the summit plateau of Ben Nevis. The trust are not concerned that hillgoers may slip and tumble to their deaths; they are more worried about the environmental impact, claiming that the peel may take up to two years to degrade.

The specific issue of banana skins has been debated hotly on winterhighland.info.  Ukclimbing.com also has a more general thread about the issue of littering on Ben Nevis. Both have touched on the related topic of inconsiderate defecation in the hills in general and on Ben Nevis in particular.

Ben Nevis north face. Northeast Buttress (February 2006)

As Scotland's highest mountain, Ben Nevis has some of the most reliable winter climbing conditions and as such it attracts more climbers than any other. Most weekends between December and April will see literally hundreds arrive early at Torlundy to set out for a day's sport. It is this early start combined with caffeine, pre-climb nerves and a complete absence of toilet facilities that lead so many to indulge in inconsiderate al fresco bowel evacuations.

Ben Nevis north face ice climbing. Comb Gully (March 2007)

I am keen to see a waterless composting toilet installed at Torlundy, having had the pleasure of using such toilets while walking Tasmania's Overland Track. Recently I spotted what I took to be a similar facility in Scotland at Abriachan (I took a photo of Abriachan, but not the actual toilet). These toilets are engineering marvels and deserve to be more popular. A solar powered fan draws air down the pan to aid the composting process and this also results in a significant reduction in olfactory impact.

Composting toilet in Tasmania's Cradle Mountain National Park (2002)

Sadly, the provision of a composting toilet would not rein in the behaviour those who willfully seek to contaminate the outdoors. I don't think that many people would deliberately allow the brown dog to scratch and gnaw at the door until they had carried their foul cargo into the countryside, however, it would not surprise me if, having been caught unawares, some people try to exhibit, rather than conceal, their output. I am sure that we have all seen the results of this type of behaviour in public toilets - shit on the floor beside the pan or smeared up the walls. The perverted minority reponsible for such depraved acts are sure to be represented among hillgoers - for example there was a thread some time back on ukclimbing.com about a jobby right in the middle of the Ben Nevis path and I have seen one in the Glencoe carpark with my own eyes.

Now I enjoy an outdoor dump every bit as much as an indoor one, often more. I keep one of those military-style folding shovels in my van so I can ensure that any unexpected brown visitors are given a decent burial.