Sievers brought suit after the Forest Service denied his request to have the road built. Wilderness Watch, along with four other conservation organizations represented by the Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund, intervened in the case on the side of the Forest Service. In upholding the Forest Service’s decision, the Magistrate held that while the Wilderness Act discourages motorized equipment and roads in Wilderness, Congress guaranteed adequate access to property located within designated areas. Faced with seemingly conflicting mandates, the Forest Service is required to research historical modes of access on similar tracts of land, while determining which modes of access would have the least impact on the area’s wilderness character. The Magistrate was clear that in making its determination, the Forest Service must remember that the preservation of Wilderness predominates over other values.

The Magistrate found that the Forest Service fulfilled these duties in its initial review of the project. In their review, the Forest Service found that access to other mining claims in the area had always been accomplished on foot or on horseback, with the occasional use of a helicopter. No new roads had been constructed since the area was designated in 1978. Furthermore, a nation-wide review of inholdings for which motorized access has been approved found that the roads in the Wilderness were pre-existing, not waiting to be constructed.

"This is an important decision that should have impacts way beyond the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness," states George Nickas, Executive Director of Wilderness Watch. "The law does not require destruction of the public’s land every time somebody buys property within Wilderness and wants to drive to it. This ruling shows that managers can and should say, ‘no.’ Protecting Wilderness comes first."

Another important aspect of the ruling concerned the interplay between the Wilderness Act and the Alaska National Interest Lands and Conservation Act (ANILCA). Signed into law in 1980, ANILCA created 56 million acres of Wilderness in Alaska and outlined special management guidelines for the agencies. In the current case, Sievers charged that ANILCA required the Forest Service to allow motorized access for inholders. The Magistrate rejected this claim, stating that ANILCA does not amend or weaken the protections of the Wilderness Act

Bordering Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park, the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness comprises 943,626 acres of alpine lakes, dense forest and rugged mountains including Granite Peak, the highest point in Montana. The road proposed by Sievers would tear through untracked country, with an expected price tag for taxpayers lying somewhere between $150,000 and $1.7 million. Sievers, who is busy building cabins and trails on the property, complains that access by foot and horseback is inconvenient, while helicopter access is too expensive. Not surprisingly, this complaint received little sympathy from the Magistrate, who held that while Congress guaranteed adequate access to inholdings, it did not require that the permitted method of access be the most economical option.