Room with a view

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 like the one on Mt. Whitney: http://www.worldisround.com/articles/131247/photo3.html

At the other end of the scale :

that is the view from inside the toilet block (two toilets) along the Great Ocean Walk (Victoria ,Australia).
They are all the same , a raised wooden structure ,each toilet has a large perspex window overlooking the coast.

A few more years on those old floor boards and the view will be all sky for some lucky sitter!

Used to be there... not anymore!!!

Darn.

Likewise (i.e., gone) the one at Helen Lake on Mt. Shasta - my very favorite ever, with a huge panoramic view. Talk about feeling like the empress of the universe on my throne! Unfortunately can't find the old pictures I took of that throne...

I used that in November, in the middle of the night.

Talk about *waking up.* Cold breeze wafting up from below. Crikey.

*shiver*

But it is a good view!

My favorite is the one at Sahale Glacier in North Cascades NP. Wow!!!
I'd share a photo of it except I don't know how to get a photo out of my computer photo file to this forum. Why the heck does it seem so hard to share photos here? Do I have to get Flickr, or one of those sites? I know I'm pretty inept at computer technology, but this forum seems unusually difficult for me for things like this, whereas I email my photos or share them on Facebook all the time.

Photobucket work. Upload to photobucket.com and copy a IMG code and paste here. Least that's how I do it.

The most spectacular "potty" view I've seen was 25 years ago (so it may have been moved) at the horse camp ("Lady Camp") a couple of miles east of Image Lake in Washington's Glacier Peak Wilderness. It was situated at the edge of a steep dropoff into the Suiattle River valley. Directly across the valley, only a few miles by air, was Glacier Peak, front and center!

Unfortunately that was the trip on which, in desperation at my pack weight (50 lbs. ) I decided to leave my camera home to save weight. I therefore have no pictures. Never again!

Basically the same view of the mountain as this but without the lake and with the potty at the edge of the dropoff on the other side of the lake.

If I can, I'd love to do this trip again!

Be it ever so humble, there's no throne like the one at home.

Boulder Pass in Glacier NP:



Sunset view from there: