Shawn E. Bell

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

Shawn E. Bell — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 03:03:47 +0000

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.

What Suspense Day Actually Does to a Bill

Every bill that carries a cost to the state has to clear the Assembly Appropriations Committee before it can reach a floor vote, and once a year, that committee works through a stack of bills on what’s called Suspense Day. Bills get sorted into two piles: move forward, or get spiked. There’s no debate on the spiked ones. No public testimony. No explanation beyond the decision itself.

Senate Bill 1305, the California Grizzly Restoration Act, got spiked on August 13. Its author was Sen. Laura Richardson, who represents the state’s 35th District, and the bill wouldn’t have released a single bear anywhere. It would have directed the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to develop a roadmap – Fish and Wildlife’s own term – evaluating whether, where, and under what conditions a grizzly reintroduction might be feasible. Two Native American tribes cosponsored it. The agency would have had until June 30, 2030, to finish the work, in consultation with tribes and local communities.

The first year of that study alone was projected to run $5.2 million, and the bill never identified where the money would come from. According to reporting on the bill’s demise, the state hasn’t fully funded its existing programs for managing human-wildlife conflict in years – the same conflict-mitigation infrastructure that would have to absorb a grizzly on top of the mountain lions, black bears, and returning gray wolves it’s already stretched to cover.

Assembly Appropriations Committee chair Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat, made the call, citing the wolf situation as the reason. Gray wolves have been trickling back into California on their own since 2011, and their return has already meant cattle losses and real anger in ranching country. Wicks argued the state needs to prove it can handle the predator conflicts it already has before it studies adding a bigger one.

Opponents lined up behind that argument. Sen. Megan Dahle, who represents a large swath of rural Northern California, said the bill drew more constituent concern than almost anything else on this year’s docket, and she credited local sheriffs, ranchers, farmers, and hunting groups for making the case that “one more top-level predator was more than rural California could take.” Supporters made a different case entirely. Yurok Tribe wildlife department director Tiana Williams-Claussen testified in June that “that loss lingers in our heart and in the attenuation of a millennia-old relationship.” The full scope of what disappeared with the grizzly, she said, still isn’t understood.

Ten Thousand Bears

Researchers estimate roughly 10,000 grizzlies lived across the state before Spanish settlement took hold in the second half of the 1700s, and they weren’t confined to the mountains. They ranged through nearly the entire state – coastal chaparral, oak woodland, hardwood forest, the Central Valley, the foothills – with only the far southeastern and northeastern corners outside their territory. The first documented European sighting came in 1603, when a Spanish explorer near Monterey watched grizzlies feeding on a beached whale carcass. That report barely circulated. It took the overland Portola expedition of 1769 to put grizzlies on the map for good – literally, in places like Los Osos, where the Spanish word for bear is baked into the name.

These were big animals, though not quite the giants of frontier legend. Nineteenth-century newspapers loved to report bears topping 1,000 pounds, and one 1866 bear killed near what’s now Valley Center in San Diego County was said to weigh as much as 2,200 pounds – if that number holds up, it would rank among the largest bears of any species ever recorded. Museum specimens tell a more modest story: average body size estimates run from about 229 to 556 pounds depending on the method. Still formidable. Just not mythical.

They ate almost everything the state offered – grasses, acorns, berries, elk, deer, salmon, steelhead, carrion, and, along the coast, the occasional stranded whale. Once Spanish and Mexican ranchers introduced cattle, the bears added beef to their menu, and that single dietary shift set the two species on a collision course that would leave only one standing.

From Rebel Flag to State Seal

The grizzly earned its spot on California’s flag through a very specific, very short-lived act of rebellion. In June 1846, a group of American settlers in Sonoma raised a homemade flag and declared California an independent republic, breaking from Mexico. That flag carried a crude grizzly, and the uprising became known as the Bear Flag Revolt. The republic lasted less than a month before U.S. military forces absorbed California into the growing United States, but the bear stuck around. It became a permanent fixture of the state seal in 1849, and the Legislature formally adopted a refined version of the Bear Flag as the official state flag in 1911. California named the grizzly its official state animal in 1953.

Even Yosemite likely owes its name to the bear. The word probably traces to the Ahwahneechee term for grizzly, rendered variously as “Oo-soo-mah-ty” or “Yo-hem-ah-ty.” James Hutchings, one of the earliest promoters of Yosemite tourism, later named the park’s giant sequoia the Grizzly Giant specifically to borrow the animal’s reputation for size and staying power.

How California Emptied the Landscape

Spanish ranchers started the process in the late 1700s with poisoned bait – suet or swine entrails loaded with strychnine and hung from tree branches, positioned to be reachable by bears but not by dogs or children. Mexican-era vaqueros captured bears alive for public bear-and-bull fights, a bloodsport that drew crowds and heavy betting through much of the nineteenth century. Grizzly hides sold to trading ships for six to ten pesos each. One bear was made into a chair and presented as a gift to President Andrew Johnson in 1865.

The killing accelerated as the cattle economy, which had briefly fed the bear population, collapsed. Severe drought and flooding in the 1860s and 1870s wiped out huge numbers of ranch cattle, and with their easiest food source gone, grizzlies turned toward the livestock that remained – which only intensified the campaign against them. Bounties followed. So did a market for grizzly meat, which turned up on San Gabriel Valley restaurant menus, with bear paws and cub meat marketed as delicacies.

Individual hunters did staggering damage on their own. Absolom “Rocky” Beasley claimed 139 grizzlies killed across the Santa Lucia Mountains. Seth Kinman, a Humboldt County mountain man, claimed more than 800 over twenty years. William Holcomb hunted grizzlies so relentlessly through what’s now San Bernardino County that he picked up the nickname “Grizzly Bill.”

The Last Grizzly

By the early 1920s, there weren’t many bears left to find. In 1920, a grizzly known as Two Toes – he’d lost part of a front foot to a trap – was still evading hunters in the Shuteye Peak area of Madera County, one of the last known individuals in the state. The final confirmed kill came in August 1922, in Tulare County, though no body, skeleton, or pelt was ever produced to document it. Less than seventy-five years after gold turned up at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, California had hunted almost every grizzly bear within its borders to extinction. The last reported sighting of what was believed to be a grizzly occurred in 1924 at Sequoia National Park. After that, nothing. The state’s only surviving native bear became the smaller, shyer black bear – the one that still shows up in trash cans and campgrounds today.

What Other States Are Doing With Their Predators

Colorado voters forced the issue directly, passing a 2020 ballot measure that required the state’s game agency to release wolves regardless of what wildlife managers preferred. Colorado Parks and Wildlife released ten wolves from Oregon in December 2023, and the program has run into serious trouble ever since – exactly the kind of outcome that opponents of SB 1305 pointed to as a cautionary tale.

Washington’s North Cascades offers a slower, more institutional model. The National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a decision in 2024 to actively restore grizzlies to that region, but no bears have been released, and no release timeline has been set yet.

Grizzly populations in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming took a third path entirely: no reintroduction at all, just protection and time. More than 1,000 grizzlies now live in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as a result, and the Interior Department has recently moved to hand more of that population’s management back to the states.

Where This Leaves California

Two tribes backed SB 1305. So did environmental and animal welfare groups. What sank it was a $5.2 million study with no funding attached, arriving at the exact moment ranchers and rural lawmakers were pointing at an active, unresolved wolf conflict as proof the state can’t yet handle what it already has.

Nothing in how this bill died permanently closes the door. The language explicitly left room for a future Legislature, or an outside group, to pick the funding question back up. For now, the only grizzly bears in California are the ones in zoos, the one on the state seal, and the one on the flag that’s flown over the Golden State.

BLM Opens Guided Hikes Through Old-Growth Redwoods at Headwaters Forest Reserve

Shawn E. Bell — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 23:59:18 +0000

Starting July 2, guided hikes are available on the Salmon Pass Trail, just south of Fortuna in Humboldt County, every weekend through mid-November.

The trail sits at the southern end of the Headwaters Forest Reserve. The hike covers three miles over three to four hours, climbing 360 feet through a mix of old-growth and second-growth redwood – moderately strenuous, definitely not a stroll. The ground is unpaved. Rain turns it slick, and the forest holds its chill – even in July.

Bring waterproof boots. The trail can turn muddy fast. Bring layers – the redwoods stay cool and damp, even in summer – so pack a fleece, a rain jacket, and a light layer for the climb. Carry a couple of liters of water. Pack food you can eat without stopping. The BLM also recommends sunscreen, a hat, and bug spray.

Registration runs through Recreation.gov and closes three days before each hike.

The Reserve covers 7,472 acres. It holds some of the last intact old-growth redwood left anywhere, grounds that still shelter coho salmon, northern spotted owls, and marbled murrelets. The Arcata Field Office runs it in partnership with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Questions? Call the Arcata Field Office at 707-825-2300.

Links:

Registration: HERE
Know Before You Go: HERE
Headwaters Forest Reserve: HERE
Arcata Field Office: HERE

BLM Selling $1 Firewood Permits Near Chester, CA

Shawn E. Bell — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:56:00 +0000

The Bureau of Land Management is selling firewood permits for a dollar a cord on public land near the Chester Airport, and the wood is already on the ground. It’s from the 2021 Dixie Fire – standing dead and downed trees that need to come out of the forest anyway, and now you can haul them home for next to nothing.

That’s the deal: a dollar per cord, and every cord you collect helps clear out fuel that’s been sitting there for five years. Fewer dead trees means healthier forest and better habitat behind the burn scar.

Permits are sold online at forestproducts.blm.gov, and they’ll stay available until the downed wood in the collection area is gone. There’s a map showing exactly where you’re allowed to cut, so check it before you head out. Stick to existing roads while you’re in there – the BLM asks that much, and it’s not a big ask for a dollar-a-cord deal.

Questions go to the Eagle Lake Field Office at 530-257-0456.

You can find out more and buy a permit HERE.

You can find out more about the collection area HERE.

You can find out more about the Eagle Lake Field Office HERE.

Will Private Insurance Ever Come Back to Wildfire Country?

Shawn E. Bell — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:05:00 +0000

Drive up into the foothills east of Redding, past the last gas station with cell service, and you’ll see them – empty lots where houses used to stand, driveways that lead to nothing but a chimney and a mailbox. Some of those lots have been empty since 2018. Not because the owners gave up. Because nobody would insure what they wanted to rebuild.

For most of the last decade, that’s been the story of wildfire country in California. Homeowners with clean records and defensible space, dropped anyway. Whole zip codes redlined by carriers who decided the math no longer worked. And a question that’s followed every one of those empty lots: will the private insurance market ever come back, or is California stuck propping up its own backcountry forever?

The short answer is that private insurers are already coming back. The longer answer explains why they left in the first place, and it starts with a law most Californians have never heard of.

Proposition 103 passed in 1988, and for decades it did real good – it forced insurers to justify their rates to a state regulator instead of setting whatever price the market would bear. But it also locked insurers into pricing coverage off historical loss data, backward-looking numbers from years that no longer resemble the fire seasons California actually has now. A wildfire model built on 1990s data has no idea what a 2020s Sierra foothill looks like in September. Prop 103 also barred insurers from passing along the cost of their own reinsurance – the backstop insurance companies buy to protect themselves from catastrophic losses – onto their customers. Reinsurance got dramatically more expensive as fires got worse. Insurers ate that cost themselves, with no way to price it into a policy.

Run that math for long enough and the outcome is inevitable. Insurers were writing policies in the highest-risk parts of the state at prices that didn’t reflect the actual risk, then absorbing the full cost when a fire came through and wiped out a decade of premiums in one season. State Farm and Allstate, among the largest carriers in the state, stopped writing new homeowner policies here entirely. Not as a warning shot. As a straightforward response to losing money on every policy they sold.

Homeowners who got dropped landed on the FAIR Plan, and this is where a lot of the public conversation goes sideways. People call it a government bailout, a taxpayer-funded safety net for people who chose to live somewhere risky. It isn’t that. The FAIR Plan is a syndicate – a pool funded entirely by the private insurers licensed to do business in California, built to guarantee that no homeowner in the state goes without basic coverage, even if no single company wants to carry that risk alone. It’s the insurer of last resort, not a state agency writing checks. Every dollar in it comes from the same private industry that pulled back from wildfire country in the first place.

Which brings us to what’s actually changing. California’s new Sustainable Insurance Strategy rewrites the deal. Insurers can finally use forward-looking catastrophe models instead of pure historical data, meaning they can price a home in the Sierra foothills based on what the fire risk actually looks like today, not what it looked like when Reagan was governor. They can also factor reinsurance costs into premiums, closing the gap that was bleeding capital out of every wildfire-zone policy they wrote.

In return, the state isn’t handing out a blank check. Insurers who want the new pricing flexibility have to commit to writing at least 85% of their statewide market share inside California’s designated wildfire-distressed areas. That’s the trade: better tools to price risk accurately, in exchange for a legal obligation to actually write policies in the places that need them, instead of cherry-picking the low-risk suburbs and walking away from everywhere else.

This is why insurers are starting to move back in rather than doubling down on the exit. A company that’s allowed to price risk honestly, and required to show up where the risk is highest, has a very different set of incentives than a company boxed into underpricing a burning hillside with no way to hedge against it. The regulatory bottleneck that pushed State Farm and Allstate out the door is the same bottleneck the Sustainable Insurance Strategy is built to unwind.

None of this means every homeowner in every canyon gets a policy at the same price they paid in 2015. Rates in the highest-risk zones will reflect the risk, and that’s going to be a hard adjustment for people who bought their home when the math looked different. Consumer advocates have raised real concerns about affordability, and about whether catastrophe models built by the insurance industry itself will be scrutinized closely enough by regulators. Those are fair questions, and the answer plays out over the next few fire seasons, not in a press release.

But the direction is clear. The state spent thirty-five years asking insurers to price wildfire risk with one hand tied behind their back, then wondered why they left. Untie the hand, and they come back – not out of charity, but because the math finally works again.

California Just Made Its State Historic Parks Free

Shawn E. Bell — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 21:21:12 +0000

Here’s How to Get Your Pass

If you’ve been putting off a visit to one of California’s state historic parks because of the entry fee, here’s some good news: for a limited time, you don’t have to pay it.

California State Parks is giving away a special edition of its Historian Passport — normally a $50 annual pass — completely free. The catch? You’ve got to grab it before Monday, July 6. Once you’ve downloaded it, you’re set for the rest of 2026, with unlimited admission for up to four people per vehicle at more than 30 state historic parks scattered across the state.

That’s no small thing – A pass that usually runs $50 a year, covering 30-plus sites, for FREE! If you’ve got even a passing interest in California history — Gold Rush boomtowns, Chinese immigrant heritage, Native American culture, Black pioneer settlements, frontier military outposts — this is the best way to see it in person.

How to Get It

You’ll need an account with ReserveCalifornia.com, the state parks system’s official reservation site. Once you’ve got that set up, the special edition Historian Passport is a free download. No mailing, no waiting — register and go.

A Few Stops Worth Building a Trip Around

The list of participating parks runs the length of the state and covers a lot of ground, historically speaking. A handful that stand out:

Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park — Founded in 1908 by Colonel Allen Allensworth and a group of Black pioneers, this is a California town that was built, financed, and governed entirely by African Americans. It’s one of the most significant sites in the state for telling that chapter of California’s story.

Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park — Home to what’s believed to be the largest collection of bedrock mortars in North America, along with one of the largest ceremonial roundhouses still in active use by Native Americans in California. The Chaw’se Regional Indian Museum on-site has an excellent collection of artifacts from tribes throughout the region.

Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park — Ground zero for the 1848 gold discovery that touched off the California Gold Rush and reshaped the entire trajectory of the state and the nation. The site doesn’t shy away from the harder parts of that story either — the displacement and violence the Gold Rush brought to California’s Native communities.

Weaverville Joss House State Historic Park — The oldest continuously used Chinese temple in California, built in the heart of a Gold Rush-era Chinese American community up in Trinity County. A powerful reminder of how much Chinese immigrants contributed to building this state, often in the face of serious discrimination.

That’s just four of the nearly 30 parks on the list — there’s plenty more out there worth tracking down once you’ve got the pass in hand.

Other Free Ways to See State Parks Year-Round

If you can’t make the July 6 deadline, or you want more free options, California State Parks runs several standing free-access programs worth knowing about:

California State Library Parks Pass — Check one out from any public library, just like a book, for free vehicle day-use at 200-plus parks.
California State Parks Adventure Pass — Free entry for fourth-graders in public school and their families at 54 parks.
Golden Bear Pass — A free annual pass for families on CalWORKs, SSI recipients, income-eligible Californians 62 and older, and Tribal TANF participants — good for vehicle day-use at over 200 parks.
Distinguished Veterans Pass — Free day-use, family camping, and boat use at 100-plus parks for honorably discharged California resident veterans, with free access for active, reserve, and retired military on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

California’s state park system is the largest and most diverse in the country — over 340 miles of coastline, some of the tallest and oldest trees on Earth, more than 5,200 miles of trail, and a deep bench of historic and archaeological sites. The Historian Passport is a good excuse to see a slice of it you might not have gotten around to otherwise.

Download yours before July 6, and go stand where California history happened!

Download your pass here: Special Edition Historian Passport

Fire Danger is HIGH on the Angeles National Forest – Here’s What That Means for You

Shawn E. Bell — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 01:47:00 +0000

Summer’s here, the hills are dry, and the Angeles National Forest just elevated fire danger to HIGH. Effective June 12, 2026, a new forest order is in place covering the entire Angeles National Forest and San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, running through December 31, 2026.

If you’re heading out to the forest this summer – hiking, camping, off-roading, whatever brings you up there – this affects you directly.

Here’s what the High fire danger order prohibits:

Building, maintaining, attending, or using a wood or charcoal fire or campfire outside of a developed recreation site
Welding or operating any acetylene or other open-flame torch
Discharging a firearm, air rifle, or gas gun, except at currently authorized public shooting ranges listed in the forest order

A few things worth noting. Hunters with a valid California hunting license can still discharge a firearm at legal game during open season – that exemption is written into the order. And if you have a valid California Campfire Permit, you can still use a portable lantern or stove running on gas, jellied petroleum, or pressurized liquid fuel. You just can’t have a wood or charcoal fire outside a developed site. Get your free campfire permit at readyforwildfire.org before you go.

I’ll say what I say every fire season: the Angeles is one of the most heavily visited national forests in the country, sitting right on the edge of one of the largest urban areas in the world. The margin for error out there is basically zero. One spark in the wrong place on a dry August afternoon and we’re watching another hillside burn on the evening news – and losing another set of trails for two years while it recovers.

We’ve been down that road recently enough that nobody should need reminding. But here we are.

Be smart out there. Check conditions before you go, follow the order, and for the love of everything green and growing in those mountains – don’t be the person who starts the next one.

Angeles National Forest Supervisor’s Office: (626) 574-1613.

More info: Angeles National Forest – Fire Danger

Fire Season is Here: BLM Issues Seasonal Fire Restrictions Across California

Shawn E. Bell — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:21:34 +0000

It’s that time of year again. If you’ve been following along here, you know I love nothing more than loading up the rig and heading out to some of California’s wide-open BLM lands — but with the dry conditions we’re seeing across the state, the Bureau of Land Management has been rolling out seasonal fire restrictions one field office at a time. So before you plan your next trip, let’s run through what’s changed and where.

These seasonal restrictions stack on top of BLM’s year-round statewide fire prevention order, and they’ll stay in effect “until further notice” — meaning until conditions get wet enough that the fire danger eases up. Here’s the rundown, region by region:

Bakersfield Field Office — effective May 15, 2026 This one covers a lot of ground that off-roaders and campers know well: eastern Fresno, western Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Ventura counties, plus the Carrizo Plain National Monument, Keysville Special Recreation Management Area, Lake Isabella, and the San Joaquin River Gorge. No campfires, wood, briquette, or charcoal barbecues anywhere — in or out of developed campgrounds. Pressurized gas stoves and grills are okay, but only with a valid California Campfire Permit (free, and easy to get online).

Central Coast Field Office — effective May 15, 2026 Covering western Fresno, Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz counties. Same story here — no campfires, briquette, or charcoal barbecues except in agency-provided fire rings or barbecues at developed recreation sites. This is on top of the permanent fire restrictions already in place at Fort Ord National Monument and Cotoni-Coast Dairies, so if you’re headed that way, plan accordingly.

Mother Lode Field Office — effective May 22, 2026 This one hits the Gold Country and Sierra foothills crowd: Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Mariposa, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Yuba counties. No campfires or open flame of any kind, including in established campgrounds.

Ukiah Field Office — effective June 5, 2026 And rounding things out, the North Coast and wine country region: Colusa, Glenn, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Solano, Sonoma, and Yolo counties are now under the same no-campfire, no-open-flame restrictions.

What this means across the board:

No matter which of these regions you’re exploring, the restrictions generally include:

No campfires, open flames, or (in most areas) charcoal/briquette barbecues
No smoking except in vehicles, buildings, or a cleared 3-foot area at developed sites
No welding or open-flame torches
No off-road travel with motorized vehicles or tools off designated roads and trails
Restrictions on target shooting and steel-core/incendiary ammunition — hunting with a valid CA license is still allowed
Fireworks and pyrotechnics remain prohibited on all BLM land, restrictions or not

A valid California Campfire Permit is required anywhere a stove or fire is allowed — get yours free at readyforwildfire.org.

Bottom line: California’s backcountry is calling, but let’s keep it standing for the next generation of explorers. Check the BLM California Fire Restrictions map before you head out, since these orders can expand to additional field offices as conditions change. And remember — 95% of wildfires in California are human-caused. A little extra care goes a long way.

More info: BLM Bakersfield

Stay safe out there, and I’ll see you on the trail.

Bear Aware: Tips for a Safe Season on California’s Public Lands

Shawn E. Bell — Fri, 15 May 2026 14:37:24 +0000

Spring and summer are prime time for getting out into California’s backcountry — and they’re also prime time for bears to be on the move. The Bureau of Land Management recently put out a reminder for public lands visitors to brush up on bear safety, and given how much time I spend out exploring (and how much time I hope you do too), it seemed worth passing along and bookmarking for the season.

As bears come out of winter dens, they’re searching for food, moving through new habitat, and in some cases protecting cubs — all of which can increase the odds of a surprise encounter on the trail. As BLM’s Acting Director Bill Groffy put it, “Public lands managed by the BLM are wild places, and wildlife safety is visitor safety.” Simple precautions go a long way toward keeping both you and the bears safe.

Core bear safety reminders:

Never approach a bear, no matter how far away or how good the photo opportunity looks
Stay alert on the trail — skip the headphones so you can hear what’s around you
Hike in groups when possible
Make noise near streams, dense brush, and blind corners where visibility is limited
Store food, trash, and anything scented (toothpaste, sunscreen, etc.) properly — in a vehicle, bear box, or bear-resistant container
Carry bear spray where it’s recommended and allowed
Never run from a bear
Remember that bear spray and firearms are tools, not substitutes for good judgment and awareness

If you do encounter a bear:

Stay calm, speak in a steady, low voice, and back away slowly. No sudden movements, no running. If it’s safe to do so afterward, report the encounter to the local BLM field office so they can track activity in the area.

Bottom line: California’s wild places are also home to wildlife that was here long before any of us, and a little preparation means everyone — bears included — gets to enjoy the season. Keep this one bookmarked, and I’ll be linking back to it from upcoming hiking and off-roading posts as a quick refresher.

More info: BLM California

See you out there — and don’t forget the bear spray…

Has anyone gone directly to a book publisher without an agent? Is there any success?

Shawn E. Bell — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 15:09:50 +0000

Of course! Here’s what you need to know:

Large publishers prefer agented submissions because the work arrives pre-vetted. They’re not wasting their time on an amateurish screed from someone who thinks they’re a writer because they own a copy of Word and know how to stuff a manila envelope full of their poorly-written, spell-check-ignored ‘manuscript’ and fire it off (unsolicited) to the President of the publishing company.

Agents exist, in part, to spare editors from sending more paper to the local recycling facility.

If you have bona fides—actual credentials—you can approach a publisher directly. But you follow their roadmap, not yours. No serious publisher accepts unsolicited manuscripts, but most will consider a query letter and book proposal (for non-fiction), or a synopsis and sample chapters (for fiction) — IF the writer conducts themselves professionally.

That last word there is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Know Before You Go: San Gabriel Canyon OHV Area Prohibitions

Shawn E. Bell — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 01:41:00 +0000

If you’re planning a run through the San Gabriel Canyon Off-Highway Vehicle Area, there are some rules you need to know about before you load up the rig. The Angeles National Forest has a standing order in place – effective March 23, 2026 through December 31, 2028 – and if you show up unprepared, you’re going to have a bad day.

Here’s what’s prohibited in the San Gabriel Canyon OHV Area:

Entering or being in the OHV area when it’s posted as closed – check the closure map and associated documents linked below before you go
Entering or being in the San Gabriel Reservoir – stay out, full stop
Parking or leaving a vehicle in violation of posted instructions
Possessing or using a motorized vehicle without functioning four-wheel drive capability – yes, they mean it, and yes, they check
Possessing alcoholic beverages as defined by California State Law

That last one on four-wheel drive capability is worth calling out specifically. This isn’t a suggestion. If your rig doesn’t have a functioning 4WD system, you don’t belong in the OHV area – not because the Forest Service is trying to ruin your day, but because a two-wheel drive vehicle in that terrain is a rescue waiting to happen. Nobody wants to be that guy, and nobody wants to be the volunteer who has to come get that guy.

The San Gabriel Canyon OHV Area is one of the more accessible off-road destinations in Southern California – close to Los Angeles, well-known, and heavily used. That’s exactly why these rules matter. High use areas attract people who don’t always know what they’re doing, and a few bad actors ruin access for everyone. I’ve seen it happen. So have you.

Follow the rules, run your rig responsibly, pack out what you pack in, and this place stays open. It’s that simple.

For current closure schedules and maps, contact the Angeles National Forest Supervisor’s Office at (626) 574-1613.

More info: San Gabriel Canyon OHV