Category Archives: Outdoors

Big Bear Lake, California, Outdoors

Before the Storm: A Southern California Mountain Winter Preparedness Guide

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell
Heavy rain, mountain snow, and closed roads can turn an ordinary winter storm into a serious problem. Here’s what mountain residents should take care of before the weather arrives.
 
Winter is coming to Southern California’s mountains, and the developing El Niño has given mountain residents another reason to prepare.
A wet winter can bring welcome snowpack and much-needed water to our forests. It can also bring flooded roads, debris flows, extended power outages, and enough snow to isolate entire neighborhoods.
Residents of Big Bear, Lake Arrowhead, Wrightwood, Idyllwild, and other mountain communities already know how quickly conditions can change. Those living below burned slopes or along steep canyon roads face additional hazards when heavy rain arrives.
The time to prepare is before the first major storm appears in the forecast.

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Big Bear Lake, California, News, Outdoors

A Powerful El Niño Is Building. What Does That Mean for Southern California’s Mountains?

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell
NOAA sees an increasing chance of a historic El Niño this winter. Here’s what that could mean for our national forests, mountain communities, and backcountry.
 
El Niño is getting stronger, and Southern California could be in for an unusually wet winter.
 
On October 8, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that ocean temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific continued to climb through September. The Niño-3.4 region reached 3.8°F above average, while portions of the eastern Pacific exceeded 7.2°F above normal.
 

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California, Conservation, Conservation Actions & Projects, Fishing, Hikes, Hunting, National Forests, Off Roading, Outdoors, Overlanding, Public Lands and Access, Public Lands Policy & Management, U.S. Forest Service

The Fifty-Inch Fight: Why the Roadless Rule Should Be Rescinded

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

A Measurement Decides a Trail’s Fate

Fifty inches. That’s the width of a bath towel laid out flat, or two dining chairs pushed together. It’s also the number a lawyer, not an engineer, chose twenty-five years ago to decide which off-road routes across 44 million acres of national forest are legally protected from repair and which ones aren’t. Twenty-five years.

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California, Hiking Guides, Outdoors, State Parks, Trail Guides, U.S. Forest Service

Mono Lake – a Million Years of History in 65 Square Miles of Salt and Tufa

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell
Mono Lake covers 65 square miles in California’s eastern Sierra Nevada. It’s more than a million years old, has no outlet, and holds no fish. It does hold trillions of brine shrimp, calcium-carbonate towers rising straight out of the water, and enough migratory birds each year to rank among the most important stopovers in the West.
 
The lake sits off Highway 395, 13 miles east of Yosemite, just outside Lee Vining.

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Day Hikes, Hikes, Hiking Guides, Interesting Places, National Forests, Outdoors, Trail Guides

The Three Waterfalls of the McCloud River

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

About five miles east of the town of McCloud, a side road turns off Highway 89 at the sign for Fowler’s Campground. Over the next mile and a half, that road passes all three falls – Lower, Middle, and Upper – each with its own parking lot a short walk to the water.

This is the McCloud River, cutting through the Shasta-Trinity National Forest on its way down from Mount Shasta’s southern flank. Lower, Middle, and Upper Falls sit close enough together that you can walk the whole stretch on one trail or drive to each one separately – from parking lot to parking lot.

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