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It can definitely be an issue and a point of conflict in popular areas. It may be an issue that needs to be resolved with permits—limiting to a certain number o
by waterphone 10y ago
It can definitely be an issue and a point of conflict in popular areas. It may be an issue that needs to be resolved with permits—limiting to a certain number of horse users per day per trailhead, for example. I hate permits, but if visitors are beginning to significantly impact the Wilderness (which the Wilderness Act is established to protect against) then permits to reduce impact are necessary.
Where I live, most Wilderness Areas are relatively little used and suffering from post-fire erosion, and so the trails often suffer from overgrowth and fading tread. As a result, horse use is actually quite welcome as it's currently below the threshold where it goes from helping keep the trail beaten in to actively damaging it.
- username223 10y agoYou're lucky to live near relatively untrodden wilderness. In my experience as a hiker, many trails in the Sierra Nevada have been beaten into dusty trenches by horses, mostly thanks to pack companies. Quite a few in the southern Rockies have clay-rich soil, which horses will destroy when it is wet (so will bikes, but mud-riding is awful, so most riders will stay away). I have also been in some areas where horse traffic is the only reason that unmaintained Forest Service trails have not grown over. I think banning commercial packers from the Wilderness would go a long way to fixing the problems with horses. Perhaps with some sort of licensing system, mountain bikers could be allowed as well.