As I sit on a beach somewhere at Lake Powell, I am filled with wonder as I gaze upon my surroundings. The blue water. The orange cliffs. The sun. The toilet paper. The sand. The dung heaps.
Ahhh.I have just one question as I sit here. Where do you flush this place? Where's the lever? Because either we flush it and start over or we give it a new name. How about Lake Eljer? Charmin Lake? Lavatory Lake?
Send the kids out of the room. Can we talk?
The beaches of Lake Powell are manure yards. Walk 20 or 30 feet away from the water on almost any beach these days, and you'll see wads of toilet paper scattered around the sand. You'll see some other goodies, too, that I won't even mention.
Somebody has TP'd Lake Powell.
As I bake in the sun, I am overcome by an alarming realization: I am sitting in a giant litter box. Or on an island in a large, recreational commode.
The problem is simple: There are 1,900 miles of shoreline at Lake Powell, but most of it is rock. That makes beaches a relatively rare and precious commodity for visitors looking for places to camp or park their houseboats. When you consider that there are nearly 4 million visitors a year to Lake Powell, you can see where there might be a problem. That's a lot of visits to the restroom.
Except there are no restrooms. There are only rocks and sand. At Lake Powell, it's strictly BYOS - Bring Your Own Shovel.
Unfortunately, many visitors to Lake Powell don't bother. They have the potty etiquette of cows. Their idea of a toilet is wherever they happen to be standing at the time. And many of them do a poor job of burying it.
National Park Service rules require that bathroom duties be performed 100 feet above the water line - the HIGH water line. This is an important distinction since the water level changes constantly at Powell. This year, for example, the water is at its highest level in years, which means last year's bathrooms are underwater.
This gives me something to ponder as I swim and ski in the lake. Call me fussy, but, while my dog may have no reservations about sticking his face into the toilet bowl, I do.
I wonder: When fishermen say they catch crappie at Powell, what, EXACTLY, does this mean?
Several beaches were closed in July because of the high bacterial count in the water - fecal coliform bacteria, scientists call it. The name alone is enough to keep me out of the water, and apparently I'm not alone. Park officials said that the number of visitors declined this summer, scared off by beach closures.
Supposedly, the lake has, ahem, flushed itself since then, right through Glen Canyon Dam, so the water has been judged to be safe to recreate in. But the sight of all that toilet paper does little to soothe my anxiety.
What this place really needs is one of those industrial-grade toilets that you find in public bathrooms - the kind that could flush a Land Rover, passengers and all - mounted on top of the dam.
Besides covering last year's waste, this year's high water also has reduced the size of the beaches and, therefore, the size of wilderness bathroom sites. After breakfast, if you're not careful you'll be run over by pedestrian traffic on the trail into the bushes.
My family and I camped on the south end (pardon the expression) of the lake, not far from Wahweap (English translation: "giant outhouse"). We set up our tent on the corner of a narrow stretch of beach - the House at Pooh Corner, as it were. The toilet paper trail began some 20 feet from our tent. We found similar conditions at other beaches we visited.
What to do. There has been talk of someday requiring all boats to carry toilets. But making people use them will be another matter. What next, potty police? Portable toilets have been placed at a couple of the more accessible, popular beaches, but park officials complain that people still don't use them.
In the end (pardon the pun again), there isn't a lot to do about this potty matter. Park officials have tried education. They urge visitors to bury their waste and to burn toilet paper. This summer, hundreds of volunteers flagged down boaters and other visitors to educate them about waste disposal.
But something tells me - possibly my nose - that many people aren't following these instructions.
My advice: Watch your step.