Date: 2006-01-22
To: facts and figures
Miles today: 0.0

In todays entry I will deal with an issue that's usually not openly discussed in hiking circles: Human digestion and the outcome. But please be warned. The following reflections could contain some really unsavory details. Continuous reading may cause serious nausea and provoke fits of disgust. If you are overly sensitive please be advised that reading below the red box is carried out solely at your own risk. My lawyer advised me to include some sort of disclaimer just in case someone can't overcome the temptation to sue me for injuring his or her physical inviolability. Disclaimer:The user (i.e. you) assumes the entire risk related to its use of this data. Nuts is providing this data "as is," and Nuts disclaims any and all warranties, whether expressed or implied, including (without limitation) any implied warranties of physical/mental health or fitness for a particular purpose. In no event will Nuts be liable to you or to any third party for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special or exemplary damages or lost profit resulting from any use or misuse of this data. By marking the following checkbox you declare knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you (in fact you have no rights at all).Yes, I want to read on.Ok, now as we are done with the necessary preliminaries let's directly jump on the matter. One of the really unpleasant restrictions while hiking is the absence of one of the greatest inventions of mankind since sliced bread: The water closet. I really have no problem with hiking in rain, sleet and wind even if this means wading through ankle high mud for hours. But there is one moment every day I'm regularly afraid of. Usually it happens after having my indispensable cup of coffee in the morning, but sometimes it takes a while to show it's effect and I'm already on my way. But it's only a matter of time, as exercise has an almost unfailing impact on activating my digestive tract. Trying to delay the inevitable only strengthens the need and at the end I find myself looking for the right spot, desperately hoping to avoid one of those embarrasing incidents that always happen if you fail to exercise proper caution in relieving yourself ( in this context the phrase "shit happens" gains an entirely new meaning). I know there are a lot of privies on the trail, but with privies it's the same as with cabs. If you really need them there is none. I certainly will take every chance to make use of them if I came accross one, but I know as luck would have it I will either not feel the need to go, or having settled my bussiness 500 yards before I reach one, not knowing I easily could have reached it if I had pulled myself together. I have earnestly thought about compiling a list of privies on the trail and, like others measure their daily mileage from shelter to shelter, to count the miles from privy to privy. But this is not the reason for this entry. Other people do have the same aversion against squatting in the woods and maybe after two or three weeks I even get adapted to this inconvenience. What really bothers me are the mere figures:According to the Appalachian Trail Concervancy it's estimated that up to 4 million visitors hike at least a portion of the Appalachian Trail each year. Let's assume 3.5 million of them are only day hikers. 500.000 are section hikers who spent an average of 5 days on the trail. Then there's the group of us want-to-be thruhikers. Roughly 1000 of us make it only to Fontana Dam, which means around 16 Days. 600 will hike to Harpers Ferry and spend on average 90 days to arrive. And there are the few who will make it the whole way to Maine in 6 months or 180 days on average. Now as the stage is set let's play around with the figures.As not every day hiker will feel the need, let's say only 1/3 of them will have to respond to natures call. Half of them will use a privy which leaves around 500.000 HWU's a year (Altough my German origin would be a perfect excuse for beeing rude and barbaric - we are world-famous for this - most of you will find it tasteless to use the term "turd". That's why I created the term "Human Waste Unit" as a new measurement. To exercise thoughtfullness is certainly a good practice preparing for the trail if I don't want to be known as the "rude dude" or anything else in this vein.)The 500.000 section hikers will leave at least 1.000.000 HWU's a year as they are out for an average of 5 days. Finaly we have to count thruhikers as follows: (1000 x 16 + 600 x 90 + 400 x 180)/2 = 71.000 HWU's which I will round up to 100.000 as some of them will feel the need more than once in a given day. To illustrate these figures I created the following table:HWU's per yearday hikers500.000section hikers1.000.000long distance hikers100.000Total burden1.600.000As we now know the numbers we can easily compute what this means in terms of mass. Assume the average HWU to weigh in at 200 g or 7 oz this would point to 100.000 kilogram or 220.462 lbs DHW (which means "day hiker waste"), 200.000 kg / 440.924 lbs SHW and 40.000 kg / 88.184 lbs LDHW (you will notice that i doubled the numbers for long distance hikers simply due to the fact they are consuming more calories once the hiker hunger sets in. So it's highly likely their HWU's are a lot bigger than average. )And here's the table:Weights per year kglbsday hikers100.000220.462section hikers200.000440.924long distance hikers40.00088.184Total burden340.000749.570Conclusion:Just to compare the weight: This equals to 1500 black bears (500 lbs per bear. I don't know if there are that many bears on the trail), 136 Mercedes CL 600 (5512 lbs) or almost 8 T-72 tanks like the ones they used in Irak (44,5 metric tons per tank)The average HWU spread out one inch high covers an area of 50 square inches which accumulates to 590.000 square feet or 13.5 acres (that's more than 10 football fields including the end zone).If you string all 1.6 million HWU's together they cover a distance of nearly 190 miles (1 inch high and 7 inch wide). That's almost the distance between Springer Mountain and Clingmans Dome!As one HWU has a volume of 50 ci it would need 20.000 packs of 4.000 ci to carry them. Piled on a floor space of 10 x 10 feet this would result in a total height of 462 feet (although I admit this construction would be fairly unstable.)As they say it's 5.5 million steps from Springer to Kathadin. Spreading out all HWU's equally on the trail would mean having the chance to step into one with every 4th step.Let's say that 20% of the food you eat reaches the other side of your digestive tract. This means that nearly 4.000.000 lbs of food have been consumed over the course of a year. At a very conservative rate of 50 cents per lbs this means from the 2.000.000 dollar spent on food 400.000 dollar are converted into HWU's. If someone would find a way to convert them back into dollars the saying "the streets are paved with gold" would lit(t)erally become true. What does this mean for me and my hike? Well, I must admit I'm a little scared. I actually planned to tent a lot, but looking at those figures I will have to carefully examine every step if I leave the trail to pitch my tent. And here's my advice:Consider some of the high use areas on the trail to be as dangerous as a minefield. Watch every step you take very carefully otherwise the chance for hitting one of these booby-traps is fairly high. You don't believe me? Just look at the figures! Nuts