[pct-l] Dogs in National Parks/horses/mules/llamas

[Gary Wright]

On Dec 15, 2011, at 3:47 PM, Brick Robbins wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 12:29 PM, Charles Williams
> <charlesnolie at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> And this too, I'd just asoon that horses did less damage to the trail too.  Some people think that horsemen, by virtue of the fact that they ride and lead horses and mules, care less about our wildlands than hikers do.<
> 
> IMHO, the amount of damage done by individual horsemen is negligible.
> 
> HOWEVER I have a beef with the damage done by the pack trains run by
> the commercial pack outfits. I object to over use of public lands,
> especially wilderness areas, by commercial concerns.
> 
> There is nothing wrong with stock on the trails. There IS something
> wrong with overuse of the trails by commercial enterprises using
> stock.


Not sure if I understand the 'commercial' part of the concern.  If there
was a non-profit group doing this (e.g. taking dis-advantaged youth out
into the wilderness via pack train) would the damage to the trail be any less?

Of course 'non-profit group' could simply be a group of private
people that choose to get together and travel the wilderness on their
horses.

Maybe there is a 'problem' with commercial activities but that seems like
an entirely different issue than whether pack trains or thru-hikers or
Mt. Whitney crowds create unsustainable patterns of trail traffic.

Radar