Category Archives: Public Lands and Access

California, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Wildlife, Wildlife & Habitat Protection

A Gray Wolf Just Turned Up West of Interstate 5

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Why did the gray wolf cross the road? Nobody knows yet.

A gray wolf was spotted in northern Lake County in late August, and it’s the first confirmed sighting west of Interstate 5 since the species began returning to California.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife got two reports and a set of photos from the area where Mendocino, Glenn, and Lake counties meet. A CDFW wolf biologist checked the photos, surveyed the area, and found wolf tracks at one of the two sighting locations. The agency believes it’s a single, dispersing black wolf – one animal moving on its own, likely still searching for territory or other wolves. It may have already left the county.

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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The Fifty-Inch Fight: Why the Roadless Rule Should Be Rescinded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, History, Public Lands and Access, Public Lands Policy & Management, Wildlife

The Grizzly Bear Bill Is Dead. Here’s How California Lost the Real Thing

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Senate Bill 1305 would have required the state to study the feasibility of reintroducing grizzlies. It never got a vote – and the fight isn’t over.

California has a grizzly bear on its flag, on its state seal, and on the jerseys of two university mascots. It has not had a wild grizzly bear inside its borders in more than a hundred years. On August 13, a bill that would have taken the first real step toward changing that died in an Assembly committee room without a single public word said about it.

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California, National Forests, Outdoors, Recreation & Responsible Use, U.S. Forest Service

Tahoe Trails: E-Bikes, New Connectors, and Upgraded Trailheads

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Forest Service signs off on new e-bike branches, restroom-equipped parking and wayfinding. Construction slated for June 2026.

Lake Tahoe is about to change the way people get around on two electric-powered wheels. In early January 2026, the U.S. Forest Service finalized a basin-wide plan that expands where e-bikes can go and ties loose ends in the trail network across the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. The agency incorporated community input into route selection and environmental analysis, resulting in a mapped program with new access and infrastructure.

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Activities, Adventures, California, Hikes, Land Stewardship & Restoration, News, Outdoors

After the Flood: Southern PCT and Trail Towns Counting the Cost

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Last week’s storms slammed the length of California, dumping heavy rain, triggering floods and debris flows from the Coast Range to the Sierra and through the Transverse Range all the way to the tip of the Peninsular Mountain Range.

The Southern California stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail — a place near and dear to my heart; I live here and have section-hiked the PCT for years — took an especially hard hit, with trailheads, road approaches, water crossings, and low camps dragged or buried by mud and runoff. That stretch changes from low desert washes and sage-and-chaparral foothills up into oak and mixed-conifer slopes on the San Gabriel and San Bernardino ridgelines, then climbs into the higher San Gorgonio and San Jacinto country where pinyon, fir, and true montane/subalpine stands hold late snow. Expect everything from loose, rocky tread and brushy switchbacks to steep gullies that channel flash runoff — which is precisely the kind of terrain that turns a heavy storm into road-and-trail damage in a hurry. Post-storm, gateway towns are digging out, businesses and volunteers are scrambling, and land managers are triaging access and safety across the corridor.
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