RARE II (Roadless Area Review and Evaluation) was meant to settle the political contest that had been fought over wilderness since 1964, as the endgame to decide once and for all the winners and losers among federal lands. RARE II was a modified version of the process dictated by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, which by the time of RARE II was already a well-practiced set piece within the broader politics of environmentalism. These NEPA contests were not just about the specific policy questions at hand; they were also strategic, symbolic plays in the never-ending contest over the nation's public lands. Partly for this reason, the case of the Black Hills is interesting less for its unsurprising result--Wilderness status for the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve--than for how the political game played out.