The High Sierra Hikers Association is at it again. The HSHA seems to have a real problem with mules and horses in the backcountry. Here is the link to their current lawsuit:
http://www.highsierrahikers.org/resources_index.htmlThis morning's Inyo Register has a long article about this latest effort to ban our four-legged creatures from the mountains, and I will post the complete article as soon as it appears on the newspaper's website.
The HSHA wants the courts to further curtail permits (this was done a couple of years ago) for commercial stock operators in Sequoia-Kings National Park, alleging that the General Master Plan for Sequoia Kings Canyon violated the National Environmental Act by "not conducting the proper environmental assessment of the impact of stock use." The HSHA wants the courts to "throw out the illegal Master Plan and require the Park Service to consider a broader range of reasonable alternatives..."
The great irony in all this is that it is through the use of pack animals that the Sierra Nevada trail system is maintained, as it has been since the first trails were built by commercial pack operators.
Since the restrictions on commercial trips began a few years ago the pack station operators have adjusted their business operations to include so-called "spot trips," during which heavy packs and other camping equipment is carried into the mountains for those who do not wish to, or are unable to, hump heavy packs. Customers of this kind of service includes families with small children, the elderly...and (believe it or not) the Sierra Club, Yellow-Legged frog research groups, and various non-profit organizations (including the Pack Service and the Forest Service). The Sierra Club itself still offers wilderness trips using pack stock.
Craig London, the operator of the Rock Creek and Mt. Whitney Pack Trains is quoted in the Inyo Register as saying, "The Wilderness was established to allow people to go into the wilderness, to maintain the sense of wildness before civilization came West. These groups are trying to change the intent of the Wilderness Act. The people who realized the need to protect the wilderness got to that wilderness on pack trips."
I'v never understand the rational of people who hate to see pack stock in the mountains. Is it the smell of horse poop on the trails? The dust from a passing pack outfit? The supposed heavy environmental impact of pack animals? What about the impact of backpackers who drop their own human waste in otherwise nice campsites, leave broken glass, food wrappers and other artifacts of their visit on the ground, (messes which pack operators often clean up and carry out on their own)? Of course, I'm sure that members of the HSHA never dispoil the wilderness...
Come on HSHA's, tell us what exactly is it you want. Do you want the wilderness reserved for only a select few...like yourselves? Will your organization do all the trail work? Do you want the existing trail system to go back to nature? Speak up.
