Yosemite Forum

On our last trip to Sequoia/Kings Canyon (SEKI) we visited a few lakes that get a little more traffic than is usual in the backcountry. Every area deals with this in a different way, since that additional traffic has three major impacts on the wilderness experience. One of those is the toilet facilities. Too many backpackers can have a very ugly impact on a heavily used campsite area. So in a few places in the backcountry, you'll find a vault toilet. It's not exactly our idea of wilderness, but we understand the problem, and we don't have a better solution.

We were particularly taken with this toilet at Twin Lakes in SEKI. It was certainly not your traditional vault toilet, and M was quite sure she we never find it easy to use...but still; nice effort. And a lovely view from the throne.




It's good being the king!

I remember the same exact toilet from my first backpack in the early 1970s. It was at Pear Lake, also in Sequoia National Park. It was new at the time (fresh wood), so my guess is this toilet was built about the same time, so would be about 40 years old.

I found it kind of lacking in privacy for #2 . Especially in Pear Lake where the toiler was in the middle of a boulder field slightly above the lake.

Pear Lake has since replaced the simple "open" toilet with a complex of 2-4 "Clivus Multrum"(sp) composting toilets (I guess is Pear Lake receives a lot more use now).