There has been quite a bit of talk about the outhouses. When we met with the BLM last month, we asked them if it would be possible to add more outhouses (idea suggested by NWRA members) and they said that would not be possible. They did say that some of the outhouses will actually be permanently closing because they are nearly full and there are no more places to dig holes.

• The outhouses at Lower Horseshoe and Tyee will likely close in the 2009 season
• The outhouses at Doe and Missouri Bar will likely close in the 2010 season

The outhouse at Missouri Bar will be the most missed. The BLM put sensors in the door mats and recorded that the Missouri bar outhouse was used an average of 56 times per day in the summer months.

In a comment on the last post, Mike Babcock raises some issues about the scat machine not being open year-round. I’m not sure why they close it in the winter but my guess is to avoid vandalism. His comments reminded me of some interesting statistics about the Scat machine.

• The Forest Service collected $486 from the Scat Machine in 2008
• It costs $1 to use the Scat Machine (so it was used 486 times)
• There were 1201 private trips in 2008
• There were 483 commercial trips in 2008
• That’s a total of 1684 trips!

So at least 1684 “groovers” went down the Rogue last year and only 486 were cleaned in the Scat Machine. It’s pretty obvious that we (both commercial and private) are dependent on the outhouses. Maybe the loss of 4 “key” outhouses will force more people to use their groovers.

I’ve heard that part of the problem is that many private boaters don’t want to buy expensive “groovers” like the Jon-ny Partner (about $500). Maybe a simple solution to getting small groups to camp at adequately sized camps is for the BLM to rent them. Any thoughts?

Everyone seems to be thinking about different ideas right now and a hybrid of Option A and Option B seems to be gaining steam. This would require a certain number of people to be in certain camps to claim them. The camps would be labeled with a marker denoting the name of the camp and the group size.

I’m sure we’ll have more discussion after the various private boating groups meet and talk about the various ideas. In the meantime, I thought I’d post this video.

watch?v=xeoF4-27y3E