Denali ranger gets NOLS award

TALKEETNA -- National Park Service mountaineering ranger Roger Robinson has been named winner of National Outdoor Leadership School's Stewardship Award.

He and his wife, Pam, will attend an awards ceremony Saturday at NOLS' headquarters in Lander, Wyo. Robinson, a Denali ranger since 1980, was cited for his no-trace climbing ethic and innovative efforts to deal with the problem of human waste on Mount McKinley.

"It's a big honor," Robinson said. "It's something I had not anticipated. I've always been concerned with anything left in the mountains. Garbage is an easy one to remedy. Just make sure all the garbage is brought out. If people leave trash behind, you get after them. But human waste is a whole other world."

In the past, rangers have advised climbers to put human waste into crevasses or use pit latrines where provided, such as at the McKinley base camp on Kahiltna Glacier. However, it's not that easy at higher altitudes.

"We had some places that were really bad," Robinson said, "such as high camp at 17,000 feet on the West Buttress and a similar place on the West Rib."

Besides the frequent lack of crevasses at high camps, snow cover is only three or four feet deep with an impenetrable ice sheet below, ruling out a latrine.

"Whatever you put there doesn't go away," Robinson said. "It doesn't break down. It's a huge problem."

He helped attack the situation for 25 years by going on clean-up climbs with other people. They'd haul as much frozen waste off the mountain as possible. But those efforts did nothing to attack the source, especially with increasing numbers of mountaineers climbing Denali year after year.

In 2000, he and a few other rangers experimented with ammunition boxes. They lugged the heavy containers with them on a three-week mountain trip, putting all human waste inside and carrying it back down at the conclusion of the trip. It worked in a sense, but Robinson knew modifications were needed to make the idea practical for average climbers.

"I felt if we could do that with those big ammo boxes, it was feasible," he said. "I thought, 'OK, it's possible, but these containers aren't going to make it.'"

He got together with a former NOLS employee who makes boxes for river rafters. They talked about making a strong but lightweight container for mountain use, and the first "clean mountain can" was constructed in 2001.

"I couldn't convince anyone but the American Alpine Club that this would be any good," Robinson said. "They financed me for 50 of these cans. They were so strong you could drive a truck over them."

Twenty-one climbing teams used the cans in 2001. With some minor tweaking, the redesigned cans weigh less than 2 pounds. Four hundred cans are now available and more than 1,000 climbers used them during the most recent climbing season from April through June. That includes most who went to high camp. Robinson said 147 climbers brought all their waste back to base camp last season.

Next year, the cans will be required at McKinley's high camp, Robinson said.

NOLS spokeswoman Jennifer Lamb of Lander said the organization is happy to honor the Talkeetna ranger for tackling a problem that plagues high mountains around the world.

"We're excited to give him the award," she said.

Don Ford of Palmer, NOLS' Alaska director, also complimented the long-time Talkeetna ranger.

"Roger has done a masterful job of involving guide services, educational institutions, individual climbers, climbing organizations and other in implementing a workable solution for properly disposing of human waste on Denali," Ford said.