Out with an Outhouse, In with Wilderness

“This has been ongoing for years,” Wilderness Field Coordinator Jillian McKenna explains. “Every time a wilderness ranger, our trails foreman, or our program manager would go through that area they would pack a couple of boards out on their pack.”

She’s talking about the removal of a retired outhouse from Hole in the Wall Campground, a popular wilderness campground in the northwest corner of Glacier National Park. The recently completed removal is just one of multiple Conservancy-funded projects focused on restoring Glacier’s wilderness character.

What is wilderness character? 

The term “wilderness character” was first used in the 1964 Wilderness Act, which established federally designated wilderness areas across the U.S., and charged federal land management agencies, including the National Park Service, with preserving and protecting these special areas.

“Wilderness character is a holistic concept that combines the biophysical environment with personal experiences and symbolic meanings,” McKenna explains. “Essentially it’s the combination of the natural environment and a person’s experience in that world.”

This means that when Glacier’s wilderness rangers work to preserve and restore wilderness character, they are not only ensuring the existence of healthy, intact ecosystems, they’re also protecting visitors’ abilities to find inspiration, solitude, adventure and connection with nature. 

At the core of this work is thoughtfulness and intention about how to best coexist with the natural environment. One of the biggest challenges facing the park system is how to keep up with human waste management with an ever-increasing number of visitors. 

This year, visitors spent nearly 35,000 nights in Glacier’s backcountry. That amounts to a lot of human waste in some of the most fragile ecosystems in the park. In the best conditions, human waste can take over a year to decompose, so finding solutions to dealing with this waste is an imperative part of protecting wilderness character.

Preservation and restoration in practice

One of the ways that Glacier has tackled this problem is with newer, more environmentally friendly toilets like the one at Hole in the Wall campground. 

The toilets work as a sort of “poopscalator,” where waste piles on a conveyor belt and is then sorted when visitors press a foot lever. The liquid waste is funneled away and treated naturally by the soil, leaving solid waste in a more easily managed state.

But what happens to the old toilets after the new ones are installed? That’s where the wilderness rangers come in.

“Through projects that the Conservancy has supported we did a lot of monitoring for wilderness character and found some areas where we could improve,” McKenna says. “Hole in the Wall campground is one of those places where we found an area that was degraded and actually completed a project to improve and restore wilderness character.”

Wilderness rangers hiked into the campground from the Bowman Lake Trail and Goat Haunt ranger station, where they were joined by law enforcement rangers and Glacier’s Deputy Superintendent Pete Webster. 

Using only traditional, non-motorized hand tools, the team broke down the remnants of the retired toilet into pieces that could be packed into or strapped onto the outside of their packs. With each ranger carrying around 40 pounds on their backs, the team hiked two separate trips to Brown Pass where trail crews were able to pack out the remnants using stock animals. Then the rangers covered the original toilet site with brush, helping to facilitate its natural restoration. 

Making connections in the field

Projects like this one do more than just restore the wilderness character of an area, they bring together people with a passion for protecting Glacier’s one-of-a-kind landscape. 

From wilderness and law enforcement rangers, to the off-duty Forest Service employees who didn’t hesitate to load their own packs when they encountered the team on the hike to Brown Pass, every person involved in these projects is connected by their commitment to Glacier.

“Projects out in the field can really help build relationships,” McKenna says. “They connect you with people you wouldn’t necessarily connect with under normal circumstances.”

These connections extend beyond the rangers in the field. Projects like these wouldn’t be possible without the critical support of Glacier Conservancy Donors.