new burden with Eastern Sierra wilderness permits
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 8:22 pm
This summer there has been a change on entry policies to Sequoia and Kings Canyon NP through Inyo NF trails that require a permit reservee to appear in person at the Inyo ranger stations or visitor centers when they pick up permits. What that means is no more putting wilderness permits in night boxes at those stations which had been the status quo for quite a number of years. In the past we would drive say to Bishop by late in the evening, stop by the White Mountain Ranger Station, grab one's already written up permit, sign it, take the copy, and drive up to someplace like the Peabodies to disperse camp overnight. At sunrise, we'd drive up to trailheads like South Lake and by 6am be on our way up the trail towards Bishop Pass. A nice cool time to start hiking I and I'm sure many others prefer.
Well no more if one is going to cross into the national parks across the crest. That is so the NF wilderness office person can give us the face to face chat about policies like LNT, bear cannisters, and the like. Apparently some backcountry rangers have had cases of confronting groups entering through Inyo that had made night box pick ups, that not surprisingly never bothered to read the usual attached policy sheet, entered the parks, and proved themselves to be morons to the rangers. So the solution to that from the park superintendent was for all Inyo entries to get a real indoctrination instead of just picking up the permit. For those that live about the Owens that is little inconvenience as they can simply pick up their permit the afternoon before the starting date. However for the weekend m-f 8-5 person working peon down in one of our California urban land of jobs, driving in on Friday evening that means they arrive well after the stations close so are forced to wait till a station opens which is typically 8am or such, go through the permit pickup ritual with chat, and then spend most of an hour driving to one of the trailheads before starting up the trail. Of course at 9am or 10am the warming sun has been up a few hours and hiking at the lower levels often sucks. A backpacker going up Shepherd or Taboose in that situation would quickly puke after getting out of their car.
So yesterday after securing a permit on the phone with Inyo NF to go over Lamarck Col this Labor Day period, I was confronted by this situation I'd earlier caught wind of and instead of telling the fib that I was just going to stay east of the crest since I prefer to be the honest type, came out and admitted I was going down into Darwin Canyon. The permit person immediately blurted out I needed to pick up the permit in person. I explained how I've been actively climbing and backpacking over 3 decades having listened to the policies several times each season, read the lnt.org manual recently, etc thus this policy will be a huge hindrance. The NF person explained they have no flexibility with the NP dictates which was no surprise. Somewhat irritated, I then contacted the SEKI wilderness office, leaving a message. This morning a person there returned my call and we calmly discussed the policy for about ten minutes. The result was a name and number of one of the higher ups in the parks organization that is responsible for making those policies. So I'm now in the position of having some type of discussion with one of the SEKI higher ups and would like some input from some of you other backpacking enthusiasts. At least I'm expecting some of you ought to be concerned about this too. Hopefully I might skillfully suggest something that will eventually make them modify the policy.
The reality with backpacking groups is the one person that picks up a permit is not likely to have a session at a trailhead explaining to others in their group whatever the policy sheet says nor what the wilderness office person related. It is true if the leader is someone like me that while on the trip, if I see some novice doing something unnacceptable that I would try and educate them. And if there was anything special about the trip area like no fire or camping areas, I would likely say a bit sometime during a break. But in most groups that just doesn't happen. So the new policy is hardly a solution if the intent is to indoctrinate backcountry users with these policies because just talking to the one person picking up a permit is likely missing everyone else. There are other ways to improve the communication of those policies to users however penalizing the 90% of we experienced users, making us waste valuable time on our limited weekends or vacation time is hardly a reasonable situation we ought to be burdened by. So I hope some of you can make some inputs that will give me some more representitive ideas across our backpacking community about how we feel about the situation and possible solutions that will satisfy the park's objectives and lessen our own burden with the process. ...David
Well no more if one is going to cross into the national parks across the crest. That is so the NF wilderness office person can give us the face to face chat about policies like LNT, bear cannisters, and the like. Apparently some backcountry rangers have had cases of confronting groups entering through Inyo that had made night box pick ups, that not surprisingly never bothered to read the usual attached policy sheet, entered the parks, and proved themselves to be morons to the rangers. So the solution to that from the park superintendent was for all Inyo entries to get a real indoctrination instead of just picking up the permit. For those that live about the Owens that is little inconvenience as they can simply pick up their permit the afternoon before the starting date. However for the weekend m-f 8-5 person working peon down in one of our California urban land of jobs, driving in on Friday evening that means they arrive well after the stations close so are forced to wait till a station opens which is typically 8am or such, go through the permit pickup ritual with chat, and then spend most of an hour driving to one of the trailheads before starting up the trail. Of course at 9am or 10am the warming sun has been up a few hours and hiking at the lower levels often sucks. A backpacker going up Shepherd or Taboose in that situation would quickly puke after getting out of their car.
So yesterday after securing a permit on the phone with Inyo NF to go over Lamarck Col this Labor Day period, I was confronted by this situation I'd earlier caught wind of and instead of telling the fib that I was just going to stay east of the crest since I prefer to be the honest type, came out and admitted I was going down into Darwin Canyon. The permit person immediately blurted out I needed to pick up the permit in person. I explained how I've been actively climbing and backpacking over 3 decades having listened to the policies several times each season, read the lnt.org manual recently, etc thus this policy will be a huge hindrance. The NF person explained they have no flexibility with the NP dictates which was no surprise. Somewhat irritated, I then contacted the SEKI wilderness office, leaving a message. This morning a person there returned my call and we calmly discussed the policy for about ten minutes. The result was a name and number of one of the higher ups in the parks organization that is responsible for making those policies. So I'm now in the position of having some type of discussion with one of the SEKI higher ups and would like some input from some of you other backpacking enthusiasts. At least I'm expecting some of you ought to be concerned about this too. Hopefully I might skillfully suggest something that will eventually make them modify the policy.
The reality with backpacking groups is the one person that picks up a permit is not likely to have a session at a trailhead explaining to others in their group whatever the policy sheet says nor what the wilderness office person related. It is true if the leader is someone like me that while on the trip, if I see some novice doing something unnacceptable that I would try and educate them. And if there was anything special about the trip area like no fire or camping areas, I would likely say a bit sometime during a break. But in most groups that just doesn't happen. So the new policy is hardly a solution if the intent is to indoctrinate backcountry users with these policies because just talking to the one person picking up a permit is likely missing everyone else. There are other ways to improve the communication of those policies to users however penalizing the 90% of we experienced users, making us waste valuable time on our limited weekends or vacation time is hardly a reasonable situation we ought to be burdened by. So I hope some of you can make some inputs that will give me some more representitive ideas across our backpacking community about how we feel about the situation and possible solutions that will satisfy the park's objectives and lessen our own burden with the process. ...David