Wilderness for All

Winter usually is a quiet time in the California wilderness, with the snow-covered mountain trails trekked by only a few. But in the crowded summer months, ugly conflicts often arise. In response to that discord, meetings were started last winter in the Eastern Sierra town of Bishop, a development that could signal a new model for heading off disputes that have injected angry voices into the wilderness calm.

Our national parks and forests are victims of their own success. The heavy use of some narrow trails threatens to destroy the serenity and beauty that draw visitors in the first place. Too many hikers and horses damage trails, trample vegetation and pollute streams. In recent years the budget-strapped national Forest Service has been unable to perform adequate trail maintenance; sometimes its rangers have had to resort to banning camping or severely limiting access. So many visitors now want to climb the daunting Mt. Whitney Trail that the Forest Service requires them to get permits.

Pressures on the fragile mountain environments predictably have pitted hikers and horse pack tour operators. Each group has blamed the other for environmental damage, and each has sought severe limits on the other’s activities. There also have been shouting matches between hikers and climbers at Joshua Tree National Park and quarrels among ranchers, developers and outdoor enthusiasts in the new Mojave National Preserve.

But outrage is no solution, and the prospect of Forest Service limits on recreational activities--limits opposed by hikers and the horse packers alike--spurred some common cause. Early last year, two dozen hikers, environmentalists and packers began to talk over coffee in Bishop about how they might coexist on the trail. Meetings of the Whiskey Creek Stakeholders Group, named for the restaurant in which they met, were often tense and emotional. But the group persisted through last spring and summer and submitted to Forest Service officials a 10-page document that outlines areas of agreement, mutual concessions and issues that remain unresolved. Forest Service officials should include its major points of agreement as they work out their draft management plan for the region.

That the Whiskey Creek Group came together on its own is especially heartening. The Forest Service--along with all those who seek the solace of the mountains--should benefit from its consensus, and the group is not unique, nor is the government standing aside awaiting grass-roots solutions. When it created the Mojave National Preserve in 1994, Congress also established a local advisory commission to help the Park Service develop a management plan. That commission, including business owners, environmentalists, ranchers and others, was polarized when it first started meeting in 1995. Now consensus has emerged around keeping the Mojave a primitive experience and locating visitor services in nearby communities rather than in the park. This is a constructive approach. Polarization is not the inevitable outcome of saving our wilderness.