[pct-l] Re: horse free p.c.t.? / Horse droppings

[JPayne at standardsteel.com (James Payne)]

Mr. Vance,

Do you do political campaign work?  Your 'word bites' are pretty
effective...  snip out only what YOU want and ignore everything else
that was said!

Just to make sure that you know - I'm a HIKER...  I'm NOT a HORSEMAN.

I wish to respond to your rebuttals...  mostly for a little knowledge
or background for all the other 'hikers' out there on the list (by your
responses, Mr. Vance, I'm fairly certain your mind is already made up
and I won't sway you one bit whatsoever).

>"hikers do far more hours of trail work than horse groups"...
That might be true nationwide, but in some areas (northern CA and
southern OR is one such region) that is far from true.  "Horse groups"
put in far more "hours" than hikers on trail maintenance and support of
same in far northern CA and southern OR. The point that I tried to make
was that I feel there is a much higher PERCENTAGE of horsemen that do
volunteer trail work compared to hikers...  I used 'percentage' for a
reason - there are many more hikers than there are horsemen...

>"watta bunch of great guys, cutting out blowdowns for their own
profit"... 
Hate to tell you this, but packers don't make much of a profit...  most
packers got into the business as a sideline to their way of life -
ranching/wrangling ('cowboy')- and their love of the outdoors...  Much
of the work in NorCal and southern OR is done by BCH
(http://www.backcountryhorse.com/ for national; http://www.bchc.com/
for CA)- horsemen, but most are NOT commercial packers...  and
>"more people cutting windfalls for there own benifit" and "a few
people do trailwork for there own benifit"..
These are public trails on public lands - it 'benefits' EVERYONE that
will use the trail, hikers included!  And let me see, hikers doing
trailwork are doing it for WHOM?  Are hikers doing trailwork ONLY for
THEMSELVES, too, or doing trailwork for 'the trail'?

>"appaled at the filth and degredation left behind by horseman" and
"responsibility to clean up after themselves"...
Are you absolutely certain that it was done by "horseman" and not left
by 'hikers'?  I've been off-trail to lakes that stock couldn't possibly
get into and found lots of trash, exposed human feces and TP, and
campsites that are definitely not LNT (more saddening is the fact that
the location was still 'pristine' the previous year). 

>"most hikers have embraced leave no trace ethics for decades"...
According to the Leave No Trace website (www.lnt.org/history.php),
LNT's history was "conception and early development in the 1970's,
revitalization in 1990, creation of Leave No Trace, Inc. in 1994"... 
but drop the "most" qualifier since that is simply not true...  I think
the majority of the pct-l subscribers embrace LNT, but not "most hikers"
in general...  and
>"horseman have not" (embraced LNT)...
Possibly not, but rules and regulations have certainly changed and
gotten stricter over the "decades"...  Horsemen/packers cannot picket
their stock in meadows in many areas - they have to pack in all the
stock feed...  Many areas have been closed to 'stock' camping (and some
to even 'hiker' camping as well)...  Commercial packers have it much
harder than Joe Public 'horseman' as to the regs/rules - dig into the
Inyo NF website and possibly the Sequoia/Kings Canyon NP website to
check it out...

I don't want to leave Duane Steiner's comments out...
>"most of the other volunteers were horse people"...
According to Mr. Vance, that should be highly improbable... and
>"the goal was always to make the trail more "horse friendly"."...
Do you realize that the Forest Service, National Parks, and the PCNST
have 'standards' for trails - i.e., tread must be so wide, clearance to
the sides and overhead must be so wide or high, and in some cases (the
PCT, specifically) the grade cannot be too steep?

In conclusion, as I stated before, FOOT-POWERED groups must stay and
work TOGETHER to save/preserve/maintain what trails we have...

Enough said...

Happy trails!