The Great Denali Poo Glacier

[glacier]

'ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) -- Mountaineers who ascend North America's loftiest peak are often brought down to earth by "virus-laden poo" left behind by previous climbers, a medical report says.'

 

Mr. Hanky on Denali

[Alex]

I bet the trouble with the runs is more related to eating unusual amounts of dehydrated food than getting strange foreign illnesses from piles of frozen turds ...

[dkemp]

Well you're prolly right about the freeze dried. But when I visited the Kahiltna we learned quickly to watch out where we were setting up camp. We set up at about 10k to climb a nearby peak. We destroyed a, uh, bad latrine nearby. A few days later some guys arrived in a storm - as they were digging their tent platform was started creeping close to the pile. We hurried over and advised them not to expand their platform any further that direction.

 

I dunno man - everybody is peeing everywhere, everybody is pooing everywhere - ya gotta be careful in that neighborhood.

 

[ryland_moore]

Yeah, we heard about this before heading up there, so we just put little bottles of hand sanitizer around. In the butt tape bag, in the pots bag, in my bowl and spoon bag, and it seemed to work. It's not like you could ever really wash your hands while you are up there, so the study does make sense. We also didn't eat that much freeze-dried stuff though, until we went above 14k. We also went earlier in the season when there were not as many climbers on the mountain, so that may also have had an effect on our results...

[forrest_m]

i also suspect that a lot of expedition illness is unfairly blamed on the environment when in reality, it stems from climbers who don't wash their hands with soap after they do their business, and then return to the tent to cook.

 

the quality of dishwashing in the alpine is often poor, also.