Hiker Alert

Deadline August 31

The National Park Service is writing a new Wilderness Plan for Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks. Your comments urgently needed by August 31.

Background: Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (SEKI) are the crown jewels of the High Sierra. These two vast, contiguous parks (managed by the Park Service as a single unit) include more than 800,000 acres of designated wilderness, including Giant Sequoia groves, sublime alpine lake basins, and the highest peaks in John Muir’s "Range of Light."

SEKI’s existing "Backcountry Management Plan" and "Stock Use Plan" are nearly thirty years old, they were written before these areas were designated as wilderness, and they are woefully outdated and inadequate. For example, the existing plans allow unlimited commercial services in the SEKI wilderness, and they place no ceiling on the number of stock animals allowed to graze, trample, and pollute SEKI’s fragile alpine meadows and lakeshores.

In sum, the existing plans fail miserably at protecting SEKI’s magnificent and fragile wilderness from high-impact uses. The Park Service has promised several times over the past twenty years to update these plans to place adequate limits and controls on stock use and commercial businesses—which continue to exploit SEKI for private gain—but the agency has never delivered on its promises.

Current Status: The Park Service has announced that it will now update the two existing plans, and combine them into a single "Wilderness Stewardship Plan." Everything is on the table—limits on commercial enterprises, limits on maximum group sizes, whether grazing will be allowed at all, and how stock use will be limited and controlled to protect meadows, water quality, wildlife, and the experience of wilderness visitors.

The first step in the planning process is called "scoping," whereby the Park Service is asking the public to identify the issues, and to weigh in on how the issues should be addressed. The agency is accepting comments now through August 31.

What You Can Do: Concerned hikers should submit a personal letter or use the Park Service’s website to submit comments electronically. (The website asks for your responses to eight questions, and includes additional space for any other comments you may have.) Letters must be postmarked by August 31. The deadline for electronic comments is 11:59 pm Mountain Time (10:59 Pacific Time) on Wednesday August 31.

It doesn’t really matter whether you submit comments electronically, or send a letter via U.S. Mail, but to be most effective, please describe your own personal experiences at SEKI, and/or explain in your own words why the protection of the SEKI wilderness is important to you. It’s also crucial to list the specific issues that concern you, and explain how you’d like the Park Service to address them.

As always, we encourage all hikers to convey their own personal views. But to assist you in thinking about the relevant issues, below are some of the things that the High Sierra Hikers Association will be advocating. (Note: Please do not simply cut-and-paste these points directly into your comments. It is much more effective to personalize your comments to state your views in your own words, and to use examples from your own experiences.)

• Begin your letter by saying that you are commenting on SEKI’s Wilderness Stewardship Plan.

• No grazing should be allowed anywhere within SEKI. Or, at the very minimum, grazing should be prohibited above 9,700 ft. elevation, as recommended long ago by SEKI’s own scientists. Stock users should be required to keep their animals tied up when not in use and to supply packed-in "feed," as is required by many other national parks. This would not only protect meadows; it would also prevent stock animals from stomping through hiker camps at night, preclude the need for annoying bells, reduce the littering of campsites and pollution of water sources (PDF) by animal wastes, minimize the spread of invasive weeds, and reduce conflicts with wildlife such as the endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep.

• A network of "foot-travel-only" trails should be established so that hikers who so desire may enjoy a wilderness experience free of the dust, flies, and manure that invariably litter and pollute trails used by stock animals. There is no valid reason why stock animals should be allowed to trample and pollute every single trail within SEKI.

• To minimize the size and impact of commercial groups, commercial packstock services should be strictly limited to serving only those persons who are truly unable to hike or carry a backpack, and commercial packing outfits should be prohibited from hauling unnecessary or excessive gear and/or luxury items. The Park Service has long ignored the Wilderness Act’s legal mandate to limit commercial services to the "extent necessary." While courts have ruled that items such as camp furniture, boats, radios, ice chests, excessive food/beverages, and other luxury items are unnecessary for the enjoyment of a wilderness experience (and often damaging to the experience of other wilderness visitors), SEKI continues to allow commercial outfits to cater to anyone and to haul anything that their clients may desire. In short, despite the law, SEKI currently places no limits on commercial services, and anything goes. You can help by describing your own observations and encounters, and saying in your own words how encounters with such groups has affected your wilderness experience.

• All visitors to the SEKI wilderness should compete for wilderness permits on a level playing field. And where the general public is limited by trailhead quotas or other restrictions, commercial uses should be strictly limited or eliminated. It’s simply not fair that the clients of high-impact commercial stock outfits are guaranteed access when private (non-outfitted) hikers are being turned away by trailhead quotas or other limits. Put simply, clients of the commercial outfits should not be allowed to "buy" access when others are being turned away. Tell the Park Service that all users should compete for wilderness permits via a single system, and then—only after obtaining a permit—should visitors be allowed to employ commercial services as needed to facilitate their trip.

• Commercial stock outfits (and/or their clients) should be required to pay fees sufficient to defray the Park Service’s costs of repairing trail damage, monitoring stock impacts, controlling weeds, and enforcing regulations. Heavy use by commercial stock outfits pulverizes and destroys trails, and the Park Service spends huge sums of taxpayers’ money to fix trails, monitor meadows, track stock use, and control weeds. But the outfits pay paltry fees—usually only a couple hundred dollars per year—even as they rake in hefty profits. The commercial outfits get (literally) a free ride at the expense of taxpayers and park resources.

• Stock animals should be required to stay on designated, maintained trails (i.e., no off-trail or "cross-country" travel by stock animals should be allowed). Scientists have repeatedly documented the many impacts of stock use, and recommended that stock animals be required to stay on designated trails.

• SEKI’s limit on the number of stock animals per group should be reduced from the current 20 animals/party to 10 or fewer animals/group. Because parties using stock are known to cause more than TEN TIMES the impact of foot travelers, stock users should be required to minimize the number of animals, and to leave unnecessary and luxury items at home. This can be effectively accomplished in part via smaller group size limits. Large groups are also known to have substantial adverse effects on the experience of other wilderness visitors. (You can help by describing in your own words how encounters with large stock parties affects your experience.)

• All stock animals should be required to wear "manure catchers" (i.e., diapers) to reduce water contamination from livestock manure. (Manure catchers are now widely available, and manure should be either packed out or disposed far from surface water sources.)

• Bells should be prohibited and all fences should be removed. "Cowbells" placed on stock animals shatter the natural quiet and make sleep difficult for many backcountry campers. Fences ruin the scenery, giving the SEKI wilderness the look and feel of someone’s private ranch. The many "drift fences" that currently exist throughout the SEKI backcountry were constructed primarily for the convenience of stock users. Hikers (the vast majority of users) and wildlife are substantially inconvenienced (and injured) by clumsy gates and rusty wire, for the sole benefit of a small handful of stock users. Some stock users and Park Service personnel claim that the fences are needed for "resource protection." This is a ruse. Other methods (such as tie & feed, hobbles, and/or portable solar-electric fences) can be used to restrain animals, and stock users should be responsible for their own animals rather than the Park Service constructing ugly, permanent fences across the landscape.

• SEKI should REQUIRE strict prevention measures to minimize the introduction and spread of invasive weeds. It is well documented (PDF) that stock animals are responsible for introducing and spreading invasive weeds, both from viable seeds in their manure, and from seeds imported on their hooves and coats. SEKI has for many years been quietly using chemical herbicides to control weed outbreaks—even deep in the SEKI backcountry—but it has given little more than lip service to prevention measures. SEKI should: 1) prohibit open grazing of park lands and require the use of weed-free feed by all stock users; 2) require that all animals be provided weed-free feed for at least two weeks before entering the parks (to allow time for the animals to excrete weed seeds before entering the parks); and 3) require all stock animal hooves & coats to be thoroughly cleaned before entering the parks (and require that all animals be inspected by qualified rangers to ensure that this is done. Stock users should be charged a fee to pay for the inspections). Without a robust and mandatory weed prevention program, SEKI will be increasingly stuck in a reactionary mode, relying on expensive, intrusive, and chemical-intensive weed control efforts that often fail.

• The commercial Bearpaw "High Sierra Camp" should be closed, removed, and the site restored. This ugly and polluting commercial enterprise, located deep in the SEKI wilderness, exists solely to pamper its clients with soft beds, hot showers, flush toilets, and fancy chef-prepared meals. Weekly mule trains are needed to continually supply the camp with fresh food, beverages, linens, and other luxury items. Congress directed the Park Service in 1984 to monitor and annually report on impacts caused by the camp, but the NPS has never done so. Congress also authorized the NPS to remove the camp, and authorized the Secretary of Interior to formally designate the camp, and the area surrounding the camp, as wilderness once the camp is removed. (Currently, the camp and surrounding area are formally classified as a "potential wilderness addition.") Tell SEKI that the Bearpaw camp is elitist, ugly, and polluting. If people want soft beds, fine dining, hot showers, flush toilets, and other comforts, they can and should stay in town (i.e., Lodgepole or Grant Grove). It is an affront to the SEKI wilderness to allow a commercial enterprise to provide luxury accommodations deep in the wilderness. For more info about the Bearpaw camp, see our 2004 comments (PDF) on SEKI's General Management Plan (at p. 13), and our 2007 comments (PDF) on the Merced River Plan (at pp. 1-4).

• The former commercial pack station buildings at Mineral King should be removed, and NOT replaced. The long-defunct commercial pack station at Mineral King is an eyesore that should be removed, and the site naturalized. The NPS should NOT relocate or reopen the pack station, as some commercial and pro-stock interests are now advocating. The areas accessed via Mineral King Valley are too high in elevation, too wet, and too fragile to support commercial packstock activities without causing substantial harm to natural resources and the experience of park visitors. And, if any for-profit commercial enterprise wants to operate "day rides" to squeeze money out of tourists, they should open a stables on private lands, not within Sequoia National Park.

Relationship to other SEKI Plans: Our lawsuit against SEKI’s over-arching General Management Plan is still working its way through the courts. (Legal briefing is underway, with a hearing scheduled for December.) This new Wilderness Stewardship Plan is a completely separate process, so please be sure to submit your comments (as discussed above) by August 31. For more background on our ongoing lawsuit, and/or more ideas to inform your comments on this new planning process, see the lead article in our Autumn 2009 Newsletter (PDF).

Send your comments, postmarked by August 31, via Internet, mail, or fax, to:

Karen Taylor-Goodrich, Superintendent
Attn: Wilderness Stewardship Plan
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
47050 Generals Highway
Three Rivers, California 93271
Fax: (559) 565-4202

Together, we can make a difference !!!

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