Mouldering Privies...

A privy is a modern kind of outhouse, and a mouldering privy, is a high tech version of an old outhouse.

In an old outhouse, you would dig a hole, do your business and eventually fill it back in and cover it up. But a mouldering privy is designed to have your business eaten by worms and decompose with enough oxygen turning itself into a mulch-like material.

The way it works is, you step up to the 'box', do your business and grab some leaves or other organic material and throw it down into the privy afterwards. There, the material disolves and mixes with the 'stuff' to make food for the red worms, (yummy). The bucket often put inside a privy with leaves is called a "duff bucket" just in case you were interested. A mouldering privy can last as long as two and a half years before it needs to be moved, I am told.

Privies are becoming more and more common along the trail as hikers are refusing to "shit in the woods" properly, by digging holes to bury their waste and so this is a last resort for trail maintainers.

Alas, they are a welcome sign to hikers when arriving at a shelter site. Just check around the set first, as black widow spiders and others like to hide around the seat and occasionally sting hikers on the butt.