The Poop Geyser

[jmickow]

So we were on the road on an 18 day trip from California up to the Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier and multiple points along the way, with a combination of national park campgrounds and "wild" camping in national forest land. We had just left Glacier a few days earlier and had heard that the Snake River and specifically Hells Canyon area just over the border in Oregon was beautiful and worth a visit, so we were heading there. I had done some research on Campendium and freecampsites.net to see where we might boondock in the area, and decided to try the Pittsburg campground, based on little knowledge other than some good reviews by other users. It was an hour long drive on a very rough and windy dirt road to get to the campground, and when we arrived we found an open, unshaded campground surrounded by tall, dry grass, a pit toilet and some metal shade structures, and not a soul around. We pulled into a site that had decent views and decided to do a walk-around before deciding whether to set up camp. The campground did overlook the river and there was a boat launch site nearby that seemed to be used by jet boat river tours, but the whole place had an abandoned, ghost town kind of feel, and we made the not-so-difficult decision to find another, more pleasant location to stay. On our quick walk around we did see that there was a dump station, and we had already been out for three or four days and so I decided to take advantage of that to empty our tanks, thus getting at least some benefit from the long dusty trip here.

I pulled in, set up the stinky slinky, and proceeded to connect the business end to the in-ground waste pipe, but noticed that the configuration of the dump station was somewhat unusual. There was the standard open pipe with the brass flip cover, but behind that, there was about a 12” square stainless steel plate with a hinge and handle that covered an in-ground square porcelain “sink” with an open pipe in the bottom. Not knowing what that was, I choose to connect to the standard in-ground fitting, proceeded to open the black tank valve and then stepped back to wait while the tank emptied. The hose was gurgling and pulsing as the tank emptied, until all of a sudden there erupted a brown geyser that seemed to be like 2 or 3’ tall, shooting up from around the in-ground fitting. Fortunately I was standing back away from the connection and was able to quickly shut my tank valve to stem the flow and shut down the geyser, but when I turned back I saw that the ground all around the dump station pipe was evenly covered with smelly brown goo with floating white bits of partially dissolved toilet paper. Oh sh*t! The first thought was just to clean up and get out of there. I reached for the nearby non-potable flush hose and went to turn on the water. Nothing. Completely dry. Ok, there was a fresh water hose a little further up, but again, nothing. Completely dry. Great, no running water, and a huge, stinky mess. We had three options: leave it as is and get out, but our waste hose was covered with poop so that was not a reasonable option; walk down to the river and get a bucket of water, but it would have taken multiple buckets and it was a long walk; or use our precious water supply to hose down the area, which is what we ended up doing. I washed the waste into the in-ground “sink”, which did seem to be working, and so we ended up cleaning up the area, emptying the rest of our black and grey tanks into the “sink” drain, and finally making the long trek back out to the main road.

It was such a mess that we just wanted to cry at the time, and it took a couple of days before we were able to think back and laugh about the whole unpleasant experience. We thought that it was funny enough to want to share with others that probably have had similar experiences.

[stevejones]

What an awful experience! Not the same, but similar to our very first dump experience at Mt. Gilead state park in Ohio. We had just gotten our trailer from Hadocy in Columbus and camped for a few days at Mt. Gilead state park in a lovely site. On the way out of the park, stopped at the dump station for my first dump experience. I hooked up the stinky slinky (which had never been used) and pulled the throttle on the black water tank. Dumped OK. I thought, "this isn't so bad". Then after closing the black tank valve opened the gray. After a few seconds the gray water shot up a least a foot in the air because the dump station was full... Now what shot up was actually a mixture of black and gray since coming from the dump but what a mess! I shut the valve and at least had a working water hose to clean up with, leaving a nasty puddle in the bottom of the dump station since it would not drain. Great experience for my very first dump!

Thanks for sharing your story!

Steve

[jcanavera]

Was at a private campground up in Wisconsin and had spent the week there. It was a full hookup site and we left the grey water valve open the entire trip. No issues or problems. We washed dishes took showers etc. On the day we were departing I made sure the black tank was full, closed off the grey water valve and filled the grey water tank to provide a nice flush once I dumped the black. I pull the lever on the black valve and after about 20 seconds the water starts surging out around where the drain hose connected to the sewer. I immediately slammed the valve closed and spent the next hour nursing the valve open and closed to get the black tank empty, and then doing the same with the grey valve. Thankfully I caught this without making a mess. Once we were set up to leave I reported the problem to the office and they matter of fact told me, yeah we know that site is slow due to the problem that the drain line was installed with not enough angle on it. We are going to rerun it over the winter!

Fast forward 4 years later I was in that campground again and they assigned me the same site. When I realized that when I checked in I quickly said did you guys fix that slow sewer line? They looked at me grinning and said yes we did!

Jack

[moosetags]

That's a great story. It makes me feel better about some of my Airstream misadventures.

Brian

[Rich W]

Originally Posted by jcanavera

Fast forward 4 years later I was in that campground again and they assigned me the same site. When I realized that when I checked in I quickly said did you guys fix that slow sewer line? They looked at me grinning and said yes we did!

Jack

We keep a "ship's log" book of all of our stays for this and other reasons. Our first dump was at a Federal campground. We went shortly after they opened for the season, figuring there would be few people there in early April. There was only the electrical hookup so we got to use the fresh water tank, toilet, sinks, etc. It was a great 3 days to read the owners manual and figure out everything. I was ready for the first dump.

There were 4 actual dump stations, pull through the first to get to the second one, which I did, didn't want to be in the way if others came along. I put the slinky in the hole, put a brick on the hose and pulled the black lever. As the tank was emptying I could hear the telltale sound of water backing up into the pipe. I pushed the lever in just in time to avoid the fountain effect but still had a mess. I waited a few minutes and tried again; same problem. I cleaned up the mess and moved the slinky over to a different station. Then I pulled the AS around and continued with the dump without any issues.

We stopped at the Ranger station on the way out and let them know that #2 dump station (no pun intended, but appropriate) was backing up. The host said "Yeah, we've had problems with that one for a couple of years now". I ordered the log book from Amazon and have been faithful about recording any and all issues along with the campsite number, local grocery, liquor stores, laundromat and anything else should we come that way again.