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[pct-l] From today's LA Times
- Subject: [pct-l] From today's LA Times
- From: Kevin Corcoran <kevin@hughes.net>
- Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 22:14:32 -0800
I don't intend to reignite an old list issue, just an FYI of a news item of
interest......
Kevin
Tuesday, January 5, 1999
Feud Over Mountain Trails Heats Up
Recreation: The U.S. Forest Service has had to step in to
mediate an
escalating dispute over usage between hikers and commercial
horse-packers.
By JOHN M. GLIONNA, Times Staff Writer
BISHOP, Calif.--Hiker Brad Garner pauses in the failing
afternoon light as he traverses a switch-backing
Eastern
Sierra trail near here, and speaks his mind about the
lumbering
commercial packhorse trains with which he competes for
back-country breathing room:
He's tired of them.
He's weary of wading through messy horse manure
on the trail
and of seeing his favorite mountain routes damaged by
the constant
pounding of heavy horse hooves. Most of all, he's
weary of sharing
a dwindling wilderness with the people packed in on those
horses--the big-city tourists he says wouldn't know a
pristine
mountain trail from a crowded L.A. freeway.
"They've turned life on the trail into a decadent
experience," said
the 43-year-old veteran backwoodsman. "Out here,
hikers carry all
their meager belongings on their back. Then they camp
next to these
commercial circuses where people pull out lawn chairs
and loudly
talk about how many glasses of wine they're going to
want with
dinner."
Commercial horse-packer Mike Morgan can only
laugh at that.
"Sounds like he's jealous he doesn't have a
comfortable chair to sit
in at camp," says the owner of Bishop Pack Outfitters.
"If he had
the money, he'd probably be one of our customers."
These days, there's tension on the trails that
wind through this
pristine mountain range. A long-simmering feud pitting
packers
against hikers and environmentalists recently boiled
to the surface as
the federal government considers new ways of managing
access to
more than 1 million acres of California's best-known
wilderness
areas.
Last year, the U.S. Forest Service released a
draft of a
management plan to carry four popular Sierra
wilderness areas into
the next century: the John Muir near Mt. Whitney, the
Ansel
Adams, Monarch and the Dinkey Lakes.
In California, a state beset by multiple-use
controversies--including face-offs between
snowmobilers and
cross-country skiers, canoeists and power-boaters as
well as
bicyclists and in-line skaters, this one has deeply
set roots, involving
a horse-packing tradition that is a major part of the
state's history.
Commercial packers say horses hauling fur traders
and gold
miners into the High Sierra were responsible for
blazing the same
trails now used by hikers. Now, though, after
generations in the
back country, they say horses and their riders are
suddenly being
portrayed as the bad guys.
Each year, an estimated 75,000 people hike into
the Inyo and
Sierra national forests, located about 300 miles
northeast of Los
Angeles. Commercial pack trains carry in 30,000 or more.
The forest service's initial draft plan, which
set new restrictions
on both packers and hikers, was so controversial that
officials
extended a three-month public comment period to an
entire year.
Overall, more than 2,000 suggestions were made before
the period
ended in November.
Forest officials will review suggestions and
release a new draft
this year. Following what could be another lengthy
public review, a
final version of the management plan could be ready by
2000, they
say.
At this point, both camps are critical of the
forest service draft.
Packers say that proposed new restrictions on
off-trail use and
client limits would force them to raise rates or go
out of business.
Hikers say the proposed restrictions on packers do not
go far
enough.
Hikers have to compete for a limited number of
overnight
passes, while horse-packers can choose when and where
they go,
and for how long.
"There are quotas on the numbers of hikers that
can be in the
back country at any time and on how long they can
stay," said hiker
Jeff Cook. "But the perception is that packers issue
their own
permits and can stay as long as they want, go wherever
they
please."
For many, the clash signals the differing
back-country
philosophies between the area's dozen commercial
packers, many
of whom are the third or fourth generation to run
their family-owned
businesses, and the increasingly vocal environmentalists.
A Widening Chasm
Many packers see hikers and environmentalists as
finger-pointing radicals from the big city with little
sense of how the
back country works. Hikers see packers as the area's
spoiled old
guard, well-entrenched businessmen used to getting
their way with
forest service officials. The tourists they carry, say
hikers, are part
of the problem as well, because they know so little
about the back
country.
Hikers say the packhorses ruin trails--that the
metal shoes of the
1,000-pound animals wear away dirt, leaving only
jagged rock
behind. They claim the horses overgraze the high
country and often
wander off trails too early in the year, turning
pristine back-country
meadows into mud. Each spring, packers dig up the woods to
spread dirt across snow-laden trails.
But they say people have more impact on the
wilderness than
animals ever will. While horse manure on the trails
will eventually
dry up and blow away, they say, toilet paper left
behind by hikers is
not so quick to disappear.
Environmental concerns aside, commercial packers
say they
would be fools to ruin a back country that is so
integrally tied to
their livelihood.
"Hey, we're not a bunch of thoughtless
millionaires out here
raping and pillaging the land," said packer Morgan.
"We don't make
that much money doing this. It's more of a tradition,
a way of life for
us."
Morgan said that not all packing trips are luxury
ventures with
chefs along for the ride. Often pack trains will carry
in gear for
hikers. Other times, they bring in large groups such
as Boy Scouts
or even organized outings of the Sierra Club.
Most importantly, he said, they open up a back
country to
physically handicapped and older people--known as
"Geritols" by
packers--who wouldn't otherwise have access to the
wilderness.
Tensions between the two groups date to the 1970s
when
backpacking surged in California and elsewhere and
young hikers
began converging on the Sierra's eastern slopes. Even
though the
pack season is over for the year and the highest
trails are buried in
snow, talk continues.
Now, along with the recent debate over the forest
service plan
has come new confrontation on the trails. This year,
packers say,
emboldened hikers began harassing them, throwing rocks
at their
horses and mules, untying animals in the back country
and in one
case stretching barbed wire across a high-country trail.
"What kind of crazy person would stretch barbed
wire across a
trail?" asked Bill Draves, owner of Rainbow Pack
Station near
Bishop, who said one of his best pack mules was
injured by the
wire.
Last summer, hikers placed fliers on cars parked
at trail heads,
encouraging trail-walkers to get involved in the
forest service's
comment process. The fliers, which included a cartoon
showing
horse manure on the trails, angered packers, who went
car to car
destroying the handouts.
Packers say the fliers were the prank of a local
hiking group.
"I don't think the public in general has any
complaint against
packers and livestock on the trails here," Draves
said. "It's totally
the work of a small group of hikers that have found a
niche and are
creating a crisis to buy a following."
Still, Draves has put his business up for sale,
saying that the job
he has done professionally for two decades is no
longer fun in the
present environment. "For me, it's just not worth it
anymore," he
said.
Morgan has also seen increased incidents
involving hikers. At
least a half-dozen times a season, he said, some hiker
will shake a
fist or refuse to move aside on the trail to let his
animals pass.
"I always ask them 'What's your problem with us?
Someday,
you might need a pack train. You might have kids or
throw out your
knee. So don't be so fast to run us out of here.' "
Sitting Down at the Table
Out of the controversy has risen a new attempt at
understanding.
Last year, a group of two dozen hikers,
environmentalists and
packers began holding meetings to hammer out a way
they could all
contribute to the forest service plan without
alienating one another.
Meetings of the Whiskey Creek Group--named after the
restaurant where the gatherings were held--started out
stiffly. One
time, a woman hiker left the room in tears. There was
shouting and
long, uncomfortable silences.
"Still, we broke new ground," said local hiker
and activist Allan
Pietrasanta. "We had packers at those meetings who
didn't think
they could sit in the same room with
environmentalists, much less
talk to them. Slowly, though, people began to talk.
And listen."
The group submitted a 10-page document to forest
service
officials they hope will be instrumental in the new
draft plan.
"Packers aren't the bad guys. To single out any
group--that's the
old way of doing things," Pietrasanta said. "In the
eastern Sierra, the
new way is to check your spurs, saddle, granola bars
and forest
service badge at the door and then sit down and talk
about issues."
Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
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