RUBICON TRAIL SPIDER LAKE AREA TEMPORARILY CLOSED

Sanitation problems cited as the reason

The rocky Rubicon Trail is one of the most famous off-road trails in the country for 4x4 and ATV riders.

        On July 15, 2004 Eldorado National Forest Supervisor John Berry signed a temporary order closing the Spider Lake area, adjacent to the Rubicon four-wheel drive trail, to public use for 120 days due to a public health hazard. The order closes the National Forest land around Spider Lake and works in conjunction with El Dorado County’s emergency resolution closing the private land in the area. The Rubicon 4WD trail is open for through traffic.
                                        NO SANITATION (YET)

        This closure was the result of human waste/sanitation issues around the high Sierra Nevada Spider Lake. The Rubicon Trail has no sanitation facilities and uninformed users were leaving human waste dangerously close to water sources. Friends of the Rubicon (FOTR) has been working with governing agencies for three years to get sanitation methods in place on the trail, but as of yet, no good solution has been found.
                               STANDARD METHODS NOT PRACTICAL
       The Rubicon Trail runs through solid granite areas, with very shallow soil profiles. The shallow depth of the soils, combined with the solid granite prevalent throughout the area, make standard toilet options impractical. Further, because of the serious nature of four-wheeling required to traverse the trail, standard pumping trucks and extraction methods are not practical either.
                                  USE RISES DRAMATICALLY
       FOTR, as well as other clubs, have been cleaning up the trail and removing the human waste for years. But this year the trail use increased dramatically and the human waste disposal became a real significant issue. There are no designated camping spots around Spider Lake, it is a dispersed camping area. So campers were spreading out over a wide area, and camping too close to the lake.
                   FRIENDS OF THE RUBICON HELPING THE PROCESS
         FOTR has launched a major effort to help both the County and the USDA Forest Service in the management of this increased use of the Rubicon Trail. It is hoped that the closure can be lifted sooner than the November 10 date. But for now, the Spider Lake area closed to all access of any kind. The Little Sluice Box and remainder of the Rubicon Trail are open as always.
See the Rubicon Trail Master Plan
Visit the Rubicon Trail Home Page for updates: www.delalbright.com/Rubicon/rubicon.htm

       

MORE ON TRAIL SANITATION

        Trail sanitation is one of the biggest issues we face today on many trails, including the famous Rubicon. We have to start thinking of sanitation like we think of trash -- we cannot leave it behind.
        When a trail like the Rubicon (near Lake Tahoe, California) has no sanitation facilities (yet), the answer is pack it out! To give you an example of the magnitude of this problem, we counted the users and the use of the Rubicon during the summer of 2001. 35,000 users ventured over the trail during one three month period in 2001. They generated 70,000 pounds of human waste!
        This was calculated by a back country sanitation engineer. It's an average figure for the Rubicon during peak season. It's hard to imagine. Think of it as pile of 18 jeeps stacked on top of each other. That's a lot.

                                     WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?
        Because the Rubicon has no installed toilets, this waste is either left behind or hauled out by us, the users. But you ask, why can't we just bury it along the trail? Well, if you've been out there during busy summer seasons, you know a couple things; 1) we can't always find ground soft enough to dig a hole (where there's no granite); and 2) not everyone carries a shovel even if they could dig; and 3) most importantly, the Rubicon resides in a very sensitive area (with drainages that flow to Lake Tahoe and the America River), and waste products can make their way to water tables through rain and runoff.
                                WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

         We cannot afford to let this close our trail. The anti-access crowd would be happy to include this as a reason to close our trail someday. We can prevent this. WE can pack it out. You can carry the best answer: a Pett toilet system with privacy tent. You can use an Outback Pack, cardboard toilet, and combine this with Wag Bags from the Pett system as this makes the results landfill and dumpster safe. You can dig a small hole and use the Pett Wag Bag in it (with the landfill safe results).You can use the plastic bucket (the Rubi-can?!). But whatever you do, PACK IT OUT starting now, this trip.
       
 

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