Fin Dome in the Rae Lakes area/Rick Cain via NPS

Wilderness travelers are weighing in on the draft Wilderness Management Plan crafted for Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, and the varied desires likely will prove tough for park staff to accommodate to anyone's satisfaction.

Guided climbing services are worried about losing access, hikers want fewer, or even no, stock access to the park's wilderness areas, and there's concern about shutting down some backcountry cabins used by researchers. 

More than 250 comments, spanning more than 400 pages, were received by the parks on the draft plan. Staff now is working with those comments to produce the final Wilderness Management Plan, which they hope will be ready to release in the spring. 

The wide range of comments demonstrates the different meanings "wilderness" has for different user groups, and how they want to experience wilderness areas in the Sierra. Many of the comments wrangled over the future of horse pack trips into the wilderness areas.

"This WSP/DEIS is a fraudulent document. It's a fraud on the American people," wrote Peter Browning, president of the High Sierra Hikers Association. "It ought to be rescinded. Begin anew with a clean slate. But you won't find 'clean slate' on the Web. A clean slate is also a mind set."

It was the Hikers Association that forced the National Park Service's hand to produce a Wilderness Management Plan. The group, upset with how backcountry horse trips were being managed, had sued to both get the National Park Service to meet the provisions of The Wilderness Act and to protect the sensitive environmental landscape of wilderness in Sequoia and Kings Canyon.

The case arose in September 2009 when the Hikers Association pointed out that when Sequoia officials adopted a master plan for the two parks in 1971, they specifically announced their intent to both phase-out stock use from higher elevation areas of the two parks that are particularly sensitive to impacts and to eliminate grazing in all areas of the parks. In reaching that decision, park officials at the time cited "the damage resulting from livestock foraging for food and resultant trampling of soils, possible pollution of water, and conflict with foot travelers..." the association's filing noted.

But when the Park Service adopted a General Management Plan for the two parks in 1997, it did not reiterate the desire to phase out stock use, but instead decided to allow stock use "up to current levels."

A federal judge in 2012 ruled that Sequoia and Kings Canyon officials failed to conduct the requisite studies into the commercial need for pack trips in the two parks. Specifically, the judge noted, the Park Service must examine how commercial backcountry uses impact the landscape and "balance ... their potential consequences with the effects of preexisting levels of commercial activity."

The draft Wilderness Management Plan tries to resolve those issues.

Though the Hikers Association early on had said it wasn't looking in banning stock use in the parks' wilderness areas, Mr. Brown's comments would seem to indicate such a desire.

"There are several sharply defined differences between management policies of national parks and of national forests. The forests allow mining, timbering, and hunting, activities that I would  categorize as 'resource extraction.' All of those are forbidden in national parks. Allowing non-native domestic animals to consume the grasses and sedges in NPS meadows is also resource extraction," he wrote. "The mandate of the NPS is to protect the parks. It is obvious, it is axiomatic, that it is quite literally impossible to protect the meadows and simultaneously exploit them. If stock use is to continue, there is only one solution for the protection of meadows-ban all grazing by all stock in any category. If the commercial interests howl and protest that they can't operate if they have to carry feed for their animals on long, continuous, full-service trips, then the proper response is that they can't operate trips of that sort. They've been exploiting the Commons for a long time at no expense to themselves but at great cost to the public."

In urging the Park Service to continue allowing pack trips into the wilderness areas, Kevin R. Garden of The Garden Law Firm, P.C., wrote that Congress "...very clearly directed that no one person or group should be given 'exclusive privilege[s]' over the use of any parts or trails in Sequoia National Park," and so "(I)f stock use were prohibited from any area, hikers and backpackers would effectively have an 'exclusive privilege' in that area. Therefore, when hikers/backpackers express a personal distaste for sharing trails with stock and seek to ban stock use for that reason, they are essentially seeking exclusive use of the trail, which is contrary to law."

Later in his comments Mr. Garden, representing the National Forest Recreation Association Recreational Groups, noted that horse pack trips have so long been a part of experiencing the parks that it would be "improper" to ban them from wilderness.

"NPS agrees that the use of pack and saddle stock is still recognized as a traditional, historically and culturally significant, and legitimate activity that will continues in the backcountry of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Therefore, the historic stock activity in the backcountry of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is protected by the Wilderness Act, the specific statutes establishing both the John Krebs Wilderness and the Sequoia-Kings Canyon Wilderness areas and the (National Historic Preservation Act) as well," he wrote. "Because of this determination by Congress, NPS's consideration of alternatives in the DEIS that ban the use of stock in these areas is improper.

"Furthermore, pack stations on the eastern and western portions of the Sierra Nevada Range are eligible for listing on the National Register. These stations and trails they use for their historic operations comprise a historic district/landscape. In addition to the pack stations, portions of these areas that include the trails used by packers are eligible for being an historic district/landscape and are within the area covered by the DEIS. As such, the entirety of these areas will be impacted by the decisions made in the (Draft Environmental Protection Act)."

But another comment pointed to the mess pack trips leave in their wake and the environmental impact it creates.

View from the High Sierra Trail/Rick Cain via NPS

"One of my specific concerns is the harmful impact of domestic stock animals (i.e., horses and mules) on the environment and on the experience of wilderness visitors. These steel-shod, half-ton, non-native animals graze and trample sensitive meadows, harm wildlife habitat, and degrade the experience of countless wilderness visitors," wrote the unidentified individual. "For example, each stock animal produces approximately 33 pounds of manure and 18 gallons of urine each day. This means that a single group of 20 stock animals on a one week trip produces more than two tons of manure and more than 300 gallons of urine that are indiscriminately left behind in the wilderness to contaminate streams, lakes, and wetlands.

"The NPS should stand up to the commercial packstock enterprises who continue to profit handsomely by catering luxury trips in (the parks') wilderness. These businesses operate large packtrains of horses and mules that routinely haul unnecessary luxuries into the wilderness," the comment went on. "They pay nothing toward trail maintenance or monitoring, and are rarely fined when caught breaking the rules. Your plan should at least strictly regulate these businesses to ensure that they are providing only 'necessary' services (as required by the Wilderness Act)."

Several versions of this comment were submitted to the Park Service on the draft plan.

Among other comments was one from The Access Fund, a climbers' organization, that wanted the parks to rewrite a section pertaining to "fixed anchors" used in some climbing situations. While the draft management plan read that the use of fixed anchors is "rarely appropriate," the organization wanted the final plan to do away with "appropriate" and to provide more leeway for the use of fixed anchors.

"The Access Fund believes that fixed anchors, and bolts specifically, should be placed as a last resort in wilderness. It is a great privilege to climb in the wilderness and every fixed anchor necessitates thoughtful consideration prior to placement. Although fixed anchors should be rare in wilderness, the placement of fixed anchors should always be appropriate and in accordance with (Sequoia/Kings Canyon) guidelines," wrote the group.

Further, the group said, "... we recommend changing 'fixed anchors will not be placed merely for convenience or to make an otherwise un-climbable route climbable' to 'fixed anchors will not be placed merely for convenience or to establish bolt-intensive face climbs that attract high levels of use and impact.'"

The Park Service also was urged not to remove a cabin built in Redwood Canyon area near Lilburn Cave due to its use by cave researchers.

"Over the years, research related to the cave has been presented at international and national conferences and has widened understanding of the karst, bedrock structure, cave cartography, the ebb-and-flow resurgence spring, and other aspects. The spring is one of few if not the only one that can be studied from both ends of the resurgence," read the comment from the Cave Research Fund, National Speleological Society. "Without the use of the cabin little of the above research would have been possible. The presence of the cabin was an important consideration for the world-class researchers in deciding to work in Redwood Canyon. Loss of the ability to store research equipment or other needs currently covered by use of the cabin, by CRF researchers or others, would greatly impede the ability to attract future researchers and consequently loss of new knowledge.

"Lilburn Cave is a relatively cold, and wet cave. Hypothermia is always a concern. If an accident should occur, the ability to safely rescue someone is greatly improved by the communication and rescue equipment currently stored in the cabin. Knowing that food, shelter, medical supplies, and rescue gear are available nearby allows teams to work longer and at greater distances within the cave."

Also commenting on the plan as American Whitewater, which urged the parks not to ban white-water boating on the South Fork of the Kings River.

"Contrary to meeting the needs of all park users, banning one activity outright denies the needs of certain park users. Neither the compendium nor the GMP describe how banning boating on the South Fork of the Kings River helps to meet the needs of all park users, or conversely, how allowing boating on other rivers in the Parks intrudes on the needs of other Park users," read the comment. "We disagree with the premise that the needs of those wishing to see undisturbed sections of a free flowing river justify banning boating. This policy appears to be more about personal preference than protecting the river, and we believe that allowing boating can occur while also meeting everyones needs and preferences. If boating is allowed, those who do not like to see boats on rivers will still have their opportunity to see the river undisturbed after the boaters pass. We also take issue with the asymmetrical nature of this argument, which infers at least that a hiker, angler, swimmer, or photographer are somehow less intrusive in the Wilderness than a paddler."

This small window into the comments shows the juggling the Park Service will have to do in arriving at a final Wilderness Management Plan.