A new study from PACT Outdoors shows that climbers just need the right equipment to perform responsibly in the alpine.
The research team stands near their Mount Albert trailhead kiosk.
Updated June 26, 2026 02:01 pm
Would you be willing to pay to carry your poop down a mountain? New research shows that most pedestrians will indeed do this – and that’s great news for the environment.
in 2024Researchers set up an experiment on Colorado’s Mount Elbert. Funded by PACT Outdoors, a maker of outdoor bathroom kits, they installed free human waste PACT pack-out bag kiosks at the fourteener trailhead, and hikers weren’t shy about using them. Over 19 days, 410 hikers were surveyed, and 92 percent of those who used a poop bag on the mountain obtained it from a PACT kiosk.
“This suggests that although visitors are largely unprepared when it comes to bringing bags, they are willing to use them when they are readily available,” the study said.
What’s more, the majority of hikers surveyed said they would consider using PACT bags again – especially if there were similar kiosks at other trailheads, and even if they had to pay for them.
The study, titled “Human Waste Management in Parks and Protected Areas: Integrating Visitor Perspectives and Management Approaches,” was part of a broader doctoral dissertation about human waste management by Pennsylvania State University (PSU) researcher Jack Adelson. He filed his dissertation with PSU in 2026, and backpacker Received a copy. Here are the highlights.
Popular routes present sewage problems.
Congested roads put pressure on the environment. In Mount Albert, which receives 15,000 to 20,000 hikers annually, human waste can become a problem. There is a bathroom at the northern trailhead, but people don’t have much of a choice on the mountain. As the study indicates, “11% of hikers defecated on or off Mount Elbert, with 70% of those at bathroom stops on the mountain.”
According to Adelson’s math, there are approximately 1,100 bowel movements each year on Mount Elbert.
“Given the cost of maintaining vault toilets, it indicates that we are missing out on the majority of bathroom opportunities by not having a strategy in place for people,” said Jake Thomas, co-founder of PACT Outdoors. backpacker.
Among the hikers surveyed, the most common method of disposal was digging trenches and burying the waste. However, above the tree line in alpine environments, this is a less viable option, leading to shallow burials and “surface deposits” that take a very long time to decompose. This could present long-term environmental impacts among fragile alpine ecosystems. It can also pose a threat to human health. Because the waste takes so long to decompose, it can transfer pathogens into snowmelt as it washes through alpine scree and talus in the spring.
By providing free poop bags to hikers at the trailhead, the purpose of the study was to see if they would adopt the bags as a solution themselves. Thomas said the results were surprising for PACT on many levels.
Hikers will pay to pack it.
According to the research, only 37.9 percent of pedestrians surveyed said they had used poop bags before. However, 87 percent said they would consider using it on future trips, and 80 percent said trying the free bag made them more likely to do so again in the future.
Additionally, Thomas reported, “30 percent of the people in the study packed out their feces (using the provided bags). The other 30 percent dug up the catholes. Therefore, immediate packing used an equivalent amount of catholes.”
Perhaps most interestingly, the study found that 77.2 percent of hikers surveyed said they would also pay for pack-out bags at the trailhead if a kiosk installed by PACT was present. If the bags were free, the study estimated the PACT bag adoption rate to be 89.3 percent.
“Willingness-to-pay analysis indicated that respondents were willing to pay $3.00 to receive a bag at a trailhead dispenser, suggesting that the market will bear this price,” the study writes.
This description is highly relevant to land managers and management organizations looking for solutions to human waste problems on popular routes. Hikers are willing to pay to have their excrement packed away – they just need a convenient location to purchase a bag before setting out on a trip.
“People are willing to pack their poop out. They just don’t have the equipment to do it,” Thomas said. “Give them the equipment, and they’ll use it. And, they’re more likely to bring it with them on future trips. And, they’re also willing to pay for the convenience of getting a bag at the trailhead.”
