This just in from a person on High Sierra Topix who had talked to someone at HSHA:
"...The Court has not yet issued any injunction against packing this summer at Sequoia-Kings. The NPS read the Court's preliminary (January) ruling on the merits of the case, and instead of waiting to see what the Court would order as remedy, NPS knee-jerked and sent letters to all the SEKI packers saying that their permits are invalid. FYI, we consistently have pushed for the earliest possible court date in hopes that the matter could be settled before the summer season - it is NPS that has repeatedly acted to delay the proceedings of this case. After numerous delays, the court has set a hearing date of May 23 (nearly three years after we filed our suit). Meantime, NPS has thrown more gasoline on the fire by sending vague and bureaucratic letters to packers (and to Rep. Nunes) saying that no commercial packing is authorized in SEKI until further notice - even though NPS knows full well that we have all along told the court that we don't want to shut down the packers; we simply want reasonable limits. (Prior to the recent letters, NPS had no limits at all on the number of commercial packers, no limits on the number of commercial pack trips, no limits on the total number of clients served, no limits on the total number of commercial stock used or grazed each year in the Sequoia-Kings Wilderness. All a packer needed to do was pay a $200 permit fee, and s/he could run as many trips at they wanted. They don't pay anything toward trail maintenance, they don't reimburse any NPS costs for meadow monitoring, and they are almost never fined when they break the rules. This free-for-all by commercial outfits has gone on for decades while wilderness permits for non-commercial visitors are tightly controlled and trailhead quotas for hikers are strictly enforced..."
So there is some current information, at least from one side, and you heard it first on Topix...
Sarah
