In the year 2000 we filed suit in federal court challenging the Forest Service’s authorization of commercial packstock uses in the John Muir and Ansel Adams Wildernesses in the Sierra Nevada in California -- two of the most popular wildernesses in the lower forty-eight states. We alleged that the agency failed to control commercial packstock uses, failed to limit commercial packstock as wilderness plans required, failed to control damage caused by commercial packstock to alpine lakes and other areas, and failed to comply with NEPA when issuing special use permits. Our clients have been attempting for years to alleviate damage from commercial packstock overuse but do not seek to stop commercial packing altogether. We won aspects of the first suit, and won the remainder in the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that the agency had violated both NEPA and the Wilderness Act. After the agency got another chance to write revised plans for the wildernesses, it wrote one that was even worse than the first. We successfully challenged the revised plan in federal court, and are now briefing the relief phase of the suit.

Attorney: Pete Frost