Feud Over Mountain Trails Heats Up

Hiker Brad Garner pauses in the failing afternoon light as he traverses a switch-backing Eastern Sierra trail near here, and speaks his mind about the lumbering commercial packhorse trains with which he competes for back-country breathing room:

He’s tired of them.

He’s weary of wading through messy horse manure on the trail and of seeing his favorite mountain routes damaged by the constant pounding of heavy horse hooves. Most of all, he’s weary of sharing a dwindling wilderness with the people packed in on those horses--the big-city tourists he says wouldn’t know a pristine mountain trail from a crowded L.A. freeway.

“They’ve turned life on the trail into a decadent experience,” said the 43-year-old veteran backwoodsman. “Out here, hikers carry all their meager belongings on their back. Then they camp next to these commercial circuses where people pull out lawn chairs and loudly talk about how many glasses of wine they’re going to want with dinner.”

Commercial horse-packer Mike Morgan can only laugh at that. “Sounds like he’s jealous he doesn’t have a comfortable chair to sit in at camp,” says the owner of Bishop Pack Outfitters. “If he had the money, he’d probably be one of our customers.”

These days, there’s tension on the trails that wind through this pristine mountain range. A long-simmering feud pitting packers against hikers and environmentalists recently boiled to the surface as the federal government considers new ways of managing access to more than 1 million acres of California’s best-known wilderness areas.

Last year, the U.S. Forest Service released a draft of a management plan to carry four popular Sierra wilderness areas into the next century: the John Muir near Mt. Whitney, the Ansel Adams, Monarch and the Dinkey Lakes.

In California, a state beset by multiple-use controversies--including face-offs between snowmobilers and cross-country skiers, canoeists and power-boaters as well as bicyclists and in-line skaters, this one has deeply set roots, involving a horse-packing tradition that is a major part of the state’s history.

Commercial packers say horses hauling fur traders and gold miners into the High Sierra were responsible for blazing the same trails now used by hikers. Now, though, after generations in the back country, they say horses and their riders are suddenly being portrayed as the bad guys.

Each year, an estimated 75,000 people hike into the Inyo and Sierra national forests, located about 300 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Commercial pack trains carry in 30,000 or more.

The forest service’s initial draft plan, which set new restrictions on both packers and hikers, was so controversial that officials extended a three-month public comment period to an entire year. Overall, more than 2,000 suggestions were made before the period ended in November.

Forest officials will review suggestions and release a new draft this year. Following what could be another lengthy public review, a final version of the management plan could be ready by 2000, they say.

At this point, both camps are critical of the forest service draft. Packers say that proposed new restrictions on off-trail use and client limits would force them to raise rates or go out of business. Hikers say the proposed restrictions on packers do not go far enough.

Hikers have to compete for a limited number of overnight passes, while horse-packers can choose when and where they go, and for how long.

“There are quotas on the numbers of hikers that can be in the back country at any time and on how long they can stay,” said hiker Jeff Cook. “But the perception is that packers issue their own permits and can stay as long as they want, go wherever they please.”

For many, the clash signals the differing back-country philosophies between the area’s dozen commercial packers, many of whom are the third or fourth generation to run their family-owned businesses, and the increasingly vocal environmentalists.

A Widening Chasm

Many packers see hikers and environmentalists as finger-pointing radicals from the big city with little sense of how the back country works. Hikers see packers as the area’s spoiled old guard, well-entrenched businessmen used to getting their way with forest service officials. The tourists they carry, say hikers, are part of the problem as well, because they know so little about the back country.

Hikers say the packhorses ruin trails--that the metal shoes of the 1,000-pound animals wear away dirt, leaving only jagged rock behind. They claim the horses overgraze the high country and often wander off trails too early in the year, turning pristine back-country meadows into mud. Each spring, packers dig up the woods to spread dirt across snow-laden trails.

But they say people have more impact on the wilderness than animals ever will. While horse manure on the trails will eventually dry up and blow away, they say, toilet paper left behind by hikers is not so quick to disappear.

Environmental concerns aside, commercial packers say they would be fools to ruin a back country that is so integrally tied to their livelihood.

“Hey, we’re not a bunch of thoughtless millionaires out here raping and pillaging the land,” said packer Morgan. “We don’t make that much money doing this. It’s more of a tradition, a way of life for us.”

Morgan said that not all packing trips are luxury ventures with chefs along for the ride. Often pack trains will carry in gear for hikers. Other times, they bring in large groups such as Boy Scouts or even organized outings of the Sierra Club.

Most importantly, he said, they open up a back country to physically handicapped and older people--known as “Geritols” by packers--who wouldn’t otherwise have access to the wilderness.

Tensions between the two groups date to the 1970s when backpacking surged in California and elsewhere and young hikers began converging on the Sierra’s eastern slopes. Even though the pack season is over for the year and the highest trails are buried in snow, talk continues.

Now, along with the recent debate over the forest service plan has come new confrontation on the trails. This year, packers say, emboldened hikers began harassing them, throwing rocks at their horses and mules, untying animals in the back country and in one case stretching barbed wire across a high-country trail.

“What kind of crazy person would stretch barbed wire across a trail?” asked Bill Draves, owner of Rainbow Pack Station near Bishop, who said one of his best pack mules was injured by the wire.

Last summer, hikers placed fliers on cars parked at trail heads, encouraging trail-walkers to get involved in the forest service’s comment process. The fliers, which included a cartoon showing horse manure on the trails, angered packers, who went car to car destroying the handouts.

Packers say the fliers were the prank of a local hiking group.

“I don’t think the public in general has any complaint against packers and livestock on the trails here,” Draves said. “It’s totally the work of a small group of hikers that have found a niche and are creating a crisis to buy a following.”

Still, Draves has put his business up for sale, saying that the job he has done professionally for two decades is no longer fun in the present environment. “For me, it’s just not worth it anymore,” he said.

Morgan has also seen increased incidents involving hikers. At least a half-dozen times a season, he said, some hiker will shake a fist or refuse to move aside on the trail to let his animals pass.

“I always ask them ‘What’s your problem with us? Someday, you might need a pack train. You might have kids or throw out your knee. So don’t be so fast to run us out of here.’ ”

Sitting Down at the Table

Out of the controversy has risen a new attempt at understanding.

Last year, a group of two dozen hikers, environmentalists and packers began holding meetings to hammer out a way they could all contribute to the forest service plan without alienating one another.

Meetings of the Whiskey Creek Group--named after the restaurant where the gatherings were held--started out stiffly. One time, a woman hiker left the room in tears. There was shouting and long, uncomfortable silences.

“Still, we broke new ground,” said local hiker and activist Allan Pietrasanta. “We had packers at those meetings who didn’t think they could sit in the same room with environmentalists, much less talk to them. Slowly, though, people began to talk. And listen.”

The group submitted a 10-page document to forest service officials they hope will be instrumental in the new draft plan.

“Packers aren’t the bad guys. To single out any group--that’s the old way of doing things,” Pietrasanta said. “In the eastern Sierra, the new way is to check your spurs, saddle, granola bars and forest service badge at the door and then sit down and talk about issues.”