THINGS WERE NOT always this organized. Back in the early 1950s, when the business of Grand Canyon river trips was just getting started, the system was simpler, but not necessarily in a good way. "Our motto was ‘Go high and far, and don't forget to take a match,' " recalls 91-year-old Martin Litton, the founder of Grand Canyon Dories. "You'd go off behind a cactus or some rocks to do your business, then you'd pile a few twigs on top and burn it all up. That took care of everything."

Well, yes and no. "Often, the toilet paper would fail to burn and you'd be left with a real mess," says one of Litton's early boatmen, who prefers to remain anonymous. "Other times, you'd light those twigs and, before you realized exactly what was happening, the flames would get out of hand—at which point you'd have to start jumping up and down with your pants around your ankles, stamping out the fire and, of course, tromping all over your own poop. It became quite evident that something had to be done."

The answer was a compact toilet designed for small sailboats, which was introduced to the canyon in the early 1970s. This "marine potty" featured a detachable tank containing a chemical known as Blue Goo, which is still used in RV parks to aid in fecal decomposition. "Every morning you'd dig a hole on the beach and you'd empty out the tank," says John Blaustein, a veteran doryman. "It was grim business. The Blue Goo, which smelled like bubble gum, would splash everywhere, so afterwards you'd have to fling yourself in the river for a full-on bath. But then you'd fill the hole back up with sand, and that seemed to solve the issue. At least for a while."

The problem was volume. As river-running caught on, the number of people floating through the canyon exploded from just 205 in 1960 to 9,935 in 1970. By 1971, 21 companies had licenses to guide passengers, and almost all these outfits were burying their toilet tanks' contents on the camping beaches, the most popular of which were occupied nightly from May through September.

"With all that usage, the Goo started leaching up to the surface, so when you pulled into camp, you'd see these blue-green stains in the sand, and the first thing you'd be hit with was the smell of feces," says Brad Dimock, another veteran doryman. "There was also toilet paper all over the place, and the flies were everywhere. It was fucking hideous."

That's when Steve Carothers stepped in. A Flagstaff-based biologist, Carothers completed his first canyon trip for the Arizona Academy of Sciences in the spring of 1971. He was so horrified by what he saw that he set out to devise a better way. He quickly realized that a WWII rocket box, which could be purchased at any army surplus store for $10 to $15, offered an ideal container system. The trick was figuring out how to control the methane, a by-product of anaerobic decomposition, to prevent overheated boxes from detonating. (After cooking in direct sunlight, the expanding miasma of methane is capable of blowing the lid off the groover and enveloping an unsuspecting boatman in a blast of superheated crap. It's happened before; boatmen tremblingly refer to this phenomenon as a "pooplosion.")

Carothers performed rudimentary tests involving glass jars, pipettes, and methane-generating contributions from his office co-workers. (Don't ask.) He discovered that an ounce of formaldehyde was "extremely effective at retarding the gas production." In the fall of 1976, he published an article in Downriver Magazine called "It's Time for Change, Let's Haul It All Out!" which featured detailed instructions on the rocket-box system. In 1978, the Park Service made his technique mandatory—and, with only minor modifications, the system is still used today.

"What a tremendous difference it's made," says Carothers. "This is probably the most significant contribution I've made to science and wilderness in the last 31 years."

Carothers also discerns a philosophical dimension to his work. "In America, most of us are taught not to think much about our feces, and we're certainly taught not to talk about them," he says. "But as human beings, we all produce about a pound of poo a day, and dealing with our shit responsibly is one way for us to face our humanity. Intellectually, that's very satisfying to me. I suppose it's kind of a metaphor for life. Don't you agree?"