9th Cir.;
14-35505

The court of appeals affirmed a judgment. The court held that the U.S. Forest Service did not violate either the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) or the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in approving designated parking for motorized recreationalists in a national forest.

With the increasing popularity of winter recreation in the Deschutes National Forest in Central Oregon, parking shortages and on-snow user conflicts between motorized and non-motorized recreationalists were exacerbated. In 2012, the National Forest Service approved the building of Kapka Sno-Park, a parking lot primarily designed for motorized recreationalists, and issued an environmental assessment (EA) for the project. Wild Wilderness, a group representing non-motorized users, challenged approval of the project on the grounds that the Forest Service had violated both NFMA and NEPA.