A “Hawks and Hiking Day” crowd, many of whom helped carry new outhouse components to the summit of Peters Mountain, takes in the view at Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory in late September.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Thanks to an army of volunteers, the mountaintop privy said to provide users with the state’s “best view from an outhouse” according to Jeanne Mozier’s guidebook “Way Out in West Virginia” has been replaced with a larger and more durable model.
The old comfort station at Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory, a former fire tower atop Peters Mountain in the Jefferson National Forest in Monroe County, offered those seated inside the makeshift booth a panoramic view of the Sweet Springs Valley, if its shower curtain door was parted wide enough to peer out. A small sheet of corrugated plastic atop the outdoor commode kept users mostly dry in times of inclement weather.
“The old one had been there 15 years and really needed replaced,” said Brian Hirt, one of many volunteer birders who gather at Hanging Rock each year to tally the annual fall migration of hawks, eagles, falcons, ospreys and other birds of prey. “The Forest Service had asked us a long time ago to do something about it, but they had no money to help us build a new one.”
Despite its remote location, the privy has seated thousands of visitors over the years…