National Parks plan will increase preservation, limit the size of camping groups

Sitting on a back shelf to the Tulare County Library in Visalia — just behind the reading area for teens and a few feet to the right of the income tax tax forms — are the plans that will guide the future of Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.

Two thick, three-ring binders hold hundreds of pages detailing the National Park Service's recently-completed Wilderness Stewardship Plan/Final Environmental Impact Statement for the two parks. They detail how the service plans over the next 15 to 20 years to grant tourists, hikers, campers and livestock access to the park lands while protecting their ecology and natural beauty.

"I think it's pretty good," said Joe Fontaine, of Tehachapi, chairman of the Sierra Club's Sierra Nevada Team that works on environmental issues, which included offering input to the Park Service on what should be in the federal Stewardship Plan.

"If we were writing it, we would tweak it a little bit here and there. Overall, we think they did a pretty good job," he said.

And that was no easy task, "considering all the different parties that care about what goes on in Sequoia/Kings Canyon national parks. They hit a pretty good middle ground," added Fontaine, who also is a past national president of the Sierra Club.

"A wide array of management options has been explored and discussed in development," along with comments and suggestions from Park Service staff, various environmental experts and the public, Park Service officials state on their website.

Now that the plan is done, park officials will use it "to manage the parks' wilderness to meet the mandates of the [federal] Wilderness Act and other associated laws: To preserve wilderness character, to provide opportunities for and encourage public use and enjoyment of the wilderness and to improve conditions in areas where there may be unacceptable levels of impacts on wilderness character," the website continues.

The plan has been in the works for years, during which various drafts have undergone public reviews and comments. A final draft was approved on May 27.

Provisions of the more than 800-page plan will affect both visitors and businesses make use of the two national parks. Among those provisions:

•Overnight visitors still will need to get permits to camp overnight in wilderness areas from Park Service officers or from U.S. Forest Service offices.

•Climbers will need to obtain permits in order to use fixed anchors, including bolts that are driven into the rocks and remain after a climb is done.

Campfire restrictions in Kern River Drainage, in the central area of Sequoia park, are being extended to lower to the 10,000-foot elevation, 400 feet below the current elevation.

•Because many visitors use narrow portable food-storage units, 25 of the 86 metal food storage boxes in wilderness areas of the two parks will be removed. Thirteen more will be locked shut, so campers can't use them, while Park Service officials determine if they are needed or if they also should be removed.

•The number of people in backpacking parties camping in wilderness areas will be limited to 15 following on most trails, 12 for off-trail hikes and some trails will be limited to eight people in a group.





•Visitors traveling with stock and pack animals — horses, mules, burros and llamas — also will have their allowable group sizes reduced to a maximum of 15 people or 20 stock in groups using park trails, but the combined number can't total more than 28 humans and stock combined.

For groups with stock traveling off trails, the limits are 12 people or 12 animals, with a combination of the two numbering no more than 14, said Nancy Hendricks, environmental protection specialist for Sequoia and Kings Canyon.

Currently, the limit on groups traveling with stock is 20 humans and 20 animals.

"Numbers of 40 is pretty big," for a pack group in the wilderness, Hendricks said. "We heard from the public they don't like large numbers of stock parties up there."

And there have been similar complaints about large numbers of hikers traveling and camping in single groups through the wilderness areas, she said.

For example, large crowds hiking around Mount Langley on the eastern side of Sequoia park is resulting in hiking parties there being limited to just eight people under the new stewardship plan, Hendricks said.

Among the problems in that area is "social trailing" where so many people go off established trails that they stomp down and kill enough vegetation that other hikers see it and believe they've found new trails.

"Some people have gone onto these trails that went nowhere and they go lost," Hendricks said.

Fontaine said the Sierra Club supports restricting the number of hikers in groups, as well as the size of pack parties.

"If there are too many people in one place at one time for too many days, that's going to have a natural impact," on other hikers and campers, said Fontaine, noting that large groups have kept other visitors out of campgrounds, used up available firewood and overfished lakes, leaving little for the next group of hikers to go there, he said.

"You can really trample an area and ruin the experience for people who come later."

Although the new rules could hurt his business guiding groups on horseback through the national parks and renting out stock animals, Tim Loverin isn't complaining on the restrictions.

Back in 2012, Loverin and his wife had to shut their business, Cedar Grove Pack Station, for about a month after the Park Service restricted access to the parks to commercial "packers" following a lawsuit that lead to a federal judge ruling the federal agency hadn't adequately addressed commercial stock use in its park park management plan.

In response, federal lawmakers passed a bill authored by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, directing the agency to issue the permits.

Between that and the ongoing objections by some groups over allowing livestock into Sequoia and Kings Canyon, "I'm just glad they're including livestock in their plan for the next 20 years," Loverin said.

"The way I see it, they're trying to balance out their mission of protecting the parks along with the recreational needs and the wants of the public. And I think they're doing a really good job of it," he said.

"Some of it's going to affect us financially ... but there's no way around it," Loverin added, noting that the Park Service sought input from his industry and from private individuals who use their own stock to traverse the national parks.

Fontaine said the new stock animal rules are good because they include "good, clear guidelines where they can graze that stock," which is particularly important in high-elevation areas where grass in meadows grow slowly and thin, so overgrazing can occur quickly.

And if those meadows are wet, hooves from large numbers of animals can "make a muddy mess" of them, he said.

Some of the changes in the Wilderness Stewardship Plan will be initiated this summer, but most will start next summer, Hendricks said.

"We'll be doing a big effort this summer to explain what changes will be occurring," she said.

Guides at national parks could have fewer days

Among the hundreds of provisions to protect Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks outlined in the Wilderness Stewardship Plan, there's one that could cut into businesses that lead hikers, climbers and others in the parks.

While those commercial businesses are allowed to operate in the parks under the federal Wilderness Act, the law also prohibits them from operating unchecked to the point of causing "excessive or undesirable impacts" to public lands, explained Gregg Fauth, wilderness coordinator for the two parks.

And recent court rulings against agencies overseeing public lands — including Sequoia and King Canyon — have prompted them to take closer looks at commercial activities n their lands and to set limits on them in order to protect wilderness areas.

As such, as part of the Stewardship Plan, "What we are doing with this [plan] — and particularly land management agencies in the west — are doing needs assessments looking at what types and levels of commercial services can be allowed [and] not cause excessive impacts," Fauth said.

The Park Service has determined that it will allow 8,400 "service days" annually in Sequoia and Kings Canyon for businesses that guide or assist visitors to wilderness areas, which includes guided hiking, guided rafting, guided climbing, guided stock animal trips, guided fishing, guided cross-country skiing and ski mountaineering and commercial photography.

When any one of these businesses conducts business in the park with one or more customers over any part of a 24-hour period, that is a single service day.

And all the businesses permitted to operate in the parks will have the 8,400 service days divided between them, said Fauth, adding that filming for commercials, movies and television isn't included in the list of affected businesses.

Tim Loverin, who operates with his family the Cedar Grove Pack Station — the only pack station based inside Kings Canyon park — said Tuesday that he didn't know yet whether to worry about the service day rules.

"There are going to be so many days allotted. And I don't' know how many it's going to be," he said, adding that his expectations was that for his industry, it will be based on the numbers of days stock guide businesses licensed by the Park Service have reported that they normally operate in a year.

"It could limit our business, but I don't know if it will limit our business in a real manner or if it will be a number that sits there, and we'll never reach it anyway."

Exactly how the service days will be divided isn't known yet, as the Park Service is working on how to do it, Fauth said.

He said the U.S. Forest Service offers a similar system for businesses operating on its land, and the Park Service will work with that agency and affected business operators to develop its own system.

As for when this may happen, Fauth said 2016 is possible, but some time in 2017 currently seems more likely.

He added that the the various new rules the Park Service plans to adopt for the next 15 to 20 years could change before that, as the Wilderness Stewardship Plan includes a provision allowing alterations dictated by environmental changes, including California's ongoing drought.

See the Stewardship Plan for yourself

The more than 1,600-page Wilderness Stewardship Plan/Final Environmental Impact Statement for Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks is available for viewing at the following library branches in Tulare County: Visalia, Dinuba, Exeter, Lindsay, Three Rivers, Porterville.