Here is my two cents on this issue. Whether you like it or not horses are our heritage. All trails where started by livestock, horses and mules. For example highway 15 in Cajon Pass was only a horse trail at first. The same goes for all our trails in the Sierras. It is significant that John Muir the granddaddy of all protectors of wild lands rode to the mountains on horseback. The horse helped scout, open, build and maintain trails from the beginning and it would be a sad day when horses are banned from using the trails. It is already happening on the Mt Whitney trail. It is impossible to do trail work in the back country without horse and mule packing support. The anti-horse lobby is hurting all users with their stand. I would like to be more forceful but it is not appropriate for this forum. I hope the young generation will understand what it takes to keep the trails open. Trails do not grow open for the city folks to use. It has and does take a lot of work from a lot of people to keep them open. At present this back country volunteer effort is led by equestrians. It is an insidious start to ban horses. Because ultimately people will be banned by luck of access on neglected and disappearing trails. This neglect and closure is already happening. The individual forests publish maps every 10 years. If you look at the successive maps you will notice how old trails are omitted from the newer maps. On the ground time, weather and neglect have done their work and the trail is effectively closed. Example Cold Creek trail near Jordan Hot Springs. And the best example of this insidious process it the fabulous California Riding and Hiking Trail. It is possible that it has to get a lot worse before it gets better. Is it possible that some of the "excluding" groups have a hidden agenda of closing the back country to all users. Scary! My hope is that the noisy extremists will be marginalized by the common sense younger generation. How to educate users on these issues? The Wilderness Act is short please read it. It is a wonderful idea. Preserving "traditional/historic access" to wild lands is a uniquely American idea to which we all owe. That traditional includes horses. Please do not pick on the USFS. They do the best they can with what they have and it is not much. Some of the south land USFS districts used to have pack strings to support all summer long trail crews and now have only one employee dedicated to hundreds of miles of trails. Groups dedicated to excluding horses and mules from public lands are short sighted, divisive and misguided. I suggest that users synergize efforts to benefit user access at a time of limited public funding for our trails
Last edited by lucky; 03/29/12 08:58 PM.
