Category Archives: Public Lands

California, State Parks

Keep the California State Library Parks Pass Going

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

AB 1804 cements the California State Library Parks Pass so Californians can borrow a day-use pass like a book and get outside.

Legislation has been introduced in the Assembly that matters if you like getting out of town and into wild places. California’s library-based parks pass — the program that lets a library card check you into a state park with a vehicle day-use pass — has been wildly popular, and AB 1804 is the push to stop it from wobbling on short-term budget choices.

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Activities, Bureau of Land Management, California, Conservation, News, OHV

United States District Court Orders OHV Route Closures in the West Mojave Desert

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

United States District Court Orders OHV Route Closures in the West Mojave Desert

A federal judge has handed down a decision that will reshape how we use some of the Mojave’s most familiar dirt.

A January 2026 ruling against the Bureau of Land Management requires the closure of up to 2,200 miles of off-highway vehicle routes inside designated Desert Tortoise Critical Habitat unless and until the BLM completes a new route designation plan. The closures could begin as soon as March 2026. There are many hard conversations ahead.

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Cal Fire, California, National Forests, State Parks, U.S. Forest Service

Fire Lookouts: the Overlooked Wildfire First Responders

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Volunteers and towers still catch small ignitions early — a human, practical layer that many agencies have let lapse.

Human observers remain a reliable detection option when cell service is spotty, and cellphone networks are disabled by power shutoffs. Many rural ridgelines and backcountry roads have little or no cellular coverage, and utilities’ preemptive outages can render personal devices useless exactly when they’re most needed.
 
Fire lookout towers once formed a dense statewide watch. At their peak, there were thousands of towers nationwide – and, roughly, 600 in California alone, situated to give broad, unobstructed views across forests and foothills. That system thinned over decades as budget cuts reduced staff and closed sites.
Day Hikes, Hikes, National Forests, Wildfire

Eaton Fire Closes Beloved Angeles National Forest Trails – And It Didn’t Have to Be This Way

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

I’ve hiked the Sam Merrill Trail more times than I can count. Echo Mountain. Mount Lowe. The old incline railway grade that reminds you California used to dream bigger than it does now. These aren’t just trails to me – they’re places I’ve carried memories into and brought new ones out of every single time.

They’re closed. All of them. The Eaton Fire saw to that.

Effective January 7, 2026, the Angeles National Forest has closed a significant chunk of the front range above Altadena through December 31, 2027. The closure covers roads and trails that generations of Southern Californians have been walking, riding, and exploring for over a hundred years.

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California, National Parks, Outdoors

Stop the National Park Surcharge Experiment

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Redirect existing revenue, fix the backlog, and keep parks open to everyone.

California boasts nine national parks — more than any other state — that are part of the National Park Service, which protects and manages the more than 10,000 acres of mountains, deserts, seashore, and old-growth forest. Those parks sit alongside numerous other National Park Service–managed units — national monuments, historic sites, preserves, and cultural landscapes — all part of the vast U.S. National Park System, which protects millions of acres under a range of designations.

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