With all the hazards lurking amid the beauty of the Rockies -- altitude sickness, lightning, black bears, ticks, giardia, even bubonic plague -- the one thing you wouldn't expect to worry about is swine flu.
After all, the H1N1 pandemic has been declared over and, anyway, flu seems most transmissible in crowded, indoor places.
Nonetheless, we just spotted a poster warning of the dangers of swine flu and the benefits of hand washing on the wall of a primitive privy deep in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Jane Viste, a spokeswoman for the Larimer County Health Department, said she created the posters over a year ago, and gave them to a network of "public information communicators" in the county.
Then they "put it where they felt it would best get attention," which presumably includes the outdoor sanitation facilities. One, she said was "at altitude," over 12,000 feet.
She noted that even though H1N1 is no longer such a threat, it’s "always good" to remind people to wash their hands.
There was no running water for hand washing or even a flush toilet where we saw the poster. So in this case, a hand sanitizer dispenser had to do.
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