Wildwood Canyon Named a State Park — Trails, Birds, Open Country

State Park and Recreation Commission formally classifies Wildwood Canyon State Park; the Yucaipa day-use area — open since 2003 — now moves into long-range planning with California State Parks.

Wildwood Canyon was formally classified and named Wildwood Canyon State Park by the State Park and Recreation Commission at its regular meeting on Dec. 17. The designation folds the Yucaipa day-use area — open to hikers, equestrians, and mountain bikers since 2003 — into California State Parks’ portfolio with new planning and stewardship responsibilities attached. The change won’t close trails or alter views from a ridge, but it does set the stage for long-range decisions on access, conservation, and historic resources within the state agency’s authority.
 

King of the Hammers: BLM Closures and Spectator Tips – What Johnson Valley Visitors Need to Know

King of the Hammers is back. The world’s most extreme off-road race and a week-long desert festival, KOH mixes high-speed desert runs with brutal rock crawling that chews up equipment and separates the finished from the wrecked.
 
The festival runs January 22 through February 7, 2026, with qualifying and tech the week before the main event and a calendar that builds up to the Race of Kings on Saturday, February 7. Expect qualifying and tech February 2–4 (Monday–Wednesday), the UTV Hammers Championship on February 5 (Thursday), the Every Man Challenge on February 6 (Friday), and the Race of Kings — the headline 4400 Unlimited Class showdown — on February 7. Multiple race classes run through the week, so there’s action to watch every day when you’re in Hammertown.

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MAPWaters Act: Digitizing Access to America’s Public Waters

The MAPWaters Act has cleared Congress and is headed to the President’s desk.

For people who boat, fish, hunt, or paddle on federally managed waters, this is a practical fix: the law directs agencies to digitize and publish recreational access information so users can find clear, up-to-date rules on phones and chartplotters, rather than digging through scattered paperwork.

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Eyes on Bigfoot: Practical Binocular Setup for the Trail

Binoculars are the simplest upgrade you can carry that actually changes what you see. Get them set right and a distant ridge, a bird on the wing, or a marker across the water resolves into something useful instead of a tired blur. Most folks treat them like they’re just one knob and a wild guess — twist the center wheel, squint, and keep turning until frustration wins. That’s backward. Binoculars are a time-proven, compact, mechanical instrument that performs perfectly when the parts are tuned to you.

Binoculars are a handful of simple systems that do very specific jobs. Know what each part does, and you won’t be fiddling when the bird, marker, or Bigfoot shows up. Continue reading

Department of the Interior Transfers Public Land to Navy to Close Border Security Gaps

760 acres in San Diego and Imperial counties will be transferred to the Navy for a three-year National Defense Area to support border security and reduce illegal-use impacts.

Let’s start with this: I’m not a fan of the government – federal or state – transferring public lands out of public hands. EVER.

The Interior Department is handing roughly 760 acres of public land in San Diego and Imperial counties to the Navy for a three-year transfer to establish a National Defense Area in support of border security operations. The designated area stretches from the western edge of the Otay Mountain Wilderness to about a mile west of the California–Arizona line, a corridor officials say sees heavy illegal crossing activity and the attendant strain on the landscape. Continue reading