An Ode To The Commode

Most of the campgrounds that I’ve been staying at lately have had only vault/pit toilets, which is basically a glorified hole in the ground that you poop in, with no running water involved. The interesting thing is that every vault toilet I’ve used from the Black Hills on west has been of a very similar design. It doesn’t matter if the campground is National Forest, National Park, Wildlife Management, or Bureau of Land Management, they must all use the same toilet designer.

What makes that very exciting is that the toilet designer did an excellent job. In the Midwest and East, a pit toilet often means a ramshackle wooden structure filled with flies that smells really bad. In the North Woods I even had one that was just a wooden box with a hole in the top of it, right out in plain view!

In contrast, these are concrete-walled structures with solid, locking steel doors. They’re painted white inside for visibility, have a lot of room (they’re usually ADA-compliant), and they all even have a nice hook on which to hang your jacket. The toilet seat is comfortable, and the lids are used as the signs direct. They have no odor at all, except for perhaps the nice smell of an air-freshener placed inside. The last couple I’ve used have even been dual-units, with a central hall between them that shines electric light through internal windows. They have a curious built-in sign that reads “PLEASE… DO NOT put trash in toilets. It is extremely difficult to remove. THANK YOU”. “Difficult” is probably not the exact word I would have used to describe it, but hey, if it keeps people from throwing trash in there, then that’s super. As perfectly as everything else is designed, I’m sure they researched that sign very carefully to determine the most effective deterrent.

On the last couple of windy days, I’ve noticed one unexpected surprise of the vault toilet: a good breeze will blow into the external vent stack and give your bottom some nice air-conditioning from below. For free!

[Editor’s Note: The main text was written several days ago, but the poem was only composed when inspiration struck, which was yesterday, during the 2000-foot climb up to Ochoco Divide]

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 12:32 pm and is filed under bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.