Wednesday, October 7, 2026

The Bouquet Fire northeast of Santa Clarita is 74 percent contained, the Angeles National Forest said today. Activity was light overnight, with some interior pockets still smoldering. Crews are gridding for leftover heat, starting near the line and working inward, and suppression repair has begun where the fire is contained.

Riders should note a reversal. On Tuesday the forest said it had lifted the temporary closure of the Drinkwater and Rowher Flat OHV areas. Today's update lists both as temporarily closed again, citing high fire danger and suppression work. We have not found an explanation for the change. Treat both as closed until the forest says otherwise.

Hot, dry weather continues through Thursday. Bouquet Canyon Road stays closed from Spunky Canyon to milepost 5.7, and forest roads 6N18 (Saugus del Sur) and 6N19 (Quarry Road) are closed for fire work.

Evacuations are unchanged from Tuesday: one zone, LAC-E030-A, is listed under an order. The federal incident report filed Tuesday evening gave 71 percent containment, 171 personnel and an estimated final cost of $2.7 million, with the cause listed as undetermined.

Yosemite's campground season is winding down. Porcupine Flat closes for the year on October 11, and Crane Flat and Tamarack Flat close October 12, according to the park's conditions page. Bridalveil Creek, White Wolf, Yosemite Creek and Tuolumne Meadows are already closed.

That leaves Upper, Lower and North Pines and Camp 4 in Yosemite Valley, plus Wawona and Hodgdon Meadow outside it. All require reservations; the park lists no first-come, first-served sites. Camping or sleeping in a vehicle is allowed only in a campsite you are registered for, and if the park's campgrounds are full you must leave the park to camp.

Starting October 15, overnight parking is no longer allowed along Tioga Road or Glacier Point Road or in their parking lots. That matters for backpackers planning late trips from those trailheads. Glacier Point Road itself is closed for the Dome Fire.

A few other things to know before you go. Fire restrictions remain in effect below 8,000 feet. Expect 15-minute weekday delays at El Capitan Bridge through December and on Big Oak Flat Road, and up to 15-minute delays on Tioga Road between Olmsted Point and Tioga Pass Monday through Thursday. Yosemite Falls is dry.

The permit season at the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, the BLM's busiest site, began October 1 and runs to April 15. A permit is required for the primary vehicle, the street-legal one that brings you there. Weekly permits are $55 bought in advance and $70 on site, and a season permit is $185. Buy them online at isdpermits.net or from approved off-site vendors.

The big change this season is the ranger station. The BLM vacated the Cahuilla Ranger Station off Gecko Road in April and plans to demolish it late this year, with a new station due in summer 2028. Until then, a temporary ranger station at Cement Flats sells permits and has emergency medical trailers for walk-in injuries.

That means Cement Flats itself is off-limits. A BLM order closed the Cement Flats area to camping and recreation from September 8, 2026, through February 2028 while it serves as the temporary station. Pick another camp.

Permits are not needed for day visits to Osborne Overlook, the Plank Road site, Buttercup Ranger Station or the Watchable Wildlife Area. In an emergency, call 911; the El Centro Field Office is at 760-337-4400.

Overland Expo East runs October 23 to 25 at Oak Ridge Estate in Arrington, Virginia, the series' only East Coast show and its last of the year. Gates are open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.

The organizers list more than 200 exhibitors of overland, adventure travel, camping and motorcycle gear, and more than 175 classes, slideshows and demonstrations. There is rustic on-site camping in an open field, an evening film festival, and a charity dinner for the Overland Expo Foundation that is open only to campers and exhibitors. Tickets are sold through the event site.

If you are planning next year already, the 2027 schedule is posted: SoCal in Costa Mesa March 13 and 14, West in Flagstaff May 14 to 16, Pacific Northwest in Redmond, Oregon, June 25 to 27, and Mountain West in Brighton, Colorado, August 20 to 22.

Outdoor Channel and Sportsman Channel are free to watch through October 31 on a long list of cable and satellite providers, Outdoor Sportsman Group said. Participating operators include Armstrong, Astound, Blue Ridge Cable, DISH, Service Electric Cable, Sling and TDS, and the company says the preview reaches about 10 million households that do not normally get the channels. The full provider list is on the two networks' websites.

The preview lines up with the fall season. Outdoor Channel's Premiere Week ran September 28 to October 4 and brought back Farming the Wild, Cast Iron Cowboy, Ranch America, Jason the Butcher, American Archer in its 30th season, Reel in the Outdoors and Buck Commander, among others. Steven Rinella's new show, Rinella's Field Notes, premiered October 3, followed by the MeatEater special 12 in '26.

If you do not have cable at all, the same company launched a free ad-supported streaming channel, GAME & FISH TV, which carries a Monday-night block of its cooking and ranching shows.

Montana's pheasant season opens Saturday, October 10. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks plans to release more than 15,000 pheasants across the state this fall, including more than 3,500 this week, under its Roosters for Recruitment program, now in its sixth year. The program is aimed at giving new hunters a better chance of success.

Nonresident upland bird hunters who plan to hunt public land, or private land enrolled in FWP's access programs such as Block Management, have to wait until October 20 for most upland species.

A map and list of release sites is on FWP's Roosters for Recruitment page, and the 2026 upland game bird regulations have the rest of the rules.

The Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue, known as the Jack, runs October 9 and 10 at Wiseman Park in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Only around 90 teams get in, each having won a qualifying contest such as a state championship, and the field usually includes a deep international contingent. Admission has traditionally been free, with a voluntary donation to the Moore County schools.

It comes a week after the American Royal World Series of Barbecue, which ran September 30 to October 4 on the Royal's new campus in Kansas City, Kansas, for the first time. Because the campus is still under construction, the event was limited to invited guests, with no main stage or public activities, and turkey was dropped from the categories.

The Royal's Invitational came down to a hundredth of a point. Pennsylvania's B's Que won with 709.6916, ahead of Munny's Stove at 709.6800, with Porky Butts BBQ third, according to the Smoke Sheet newsletter, which links the full KCBS results. Sunday's Open, with 360 teams including 22 from 11 countries, went to Smokey Bey's Barbecue of Charles Winslow-Bey at 708.5600, ahead of Pop A Top Cookers and Porky Butts. A nine-year-old from Croatia won the Kids Que at her first competition. The Royal itself had not posted results on its site when this was written.

If you are going to Lynchburg, arrive early: parking fills quickly in a town of a few hundred people.

Kobayashi is recalling about 77,000 HotHands-branded rechargeable hand warmers because the lithium-ion battery and electronics can overheat and catch fire, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced October 1. No injuries have been reported. We missed this one last week while covering the much smaller Gobi Heat recall announced the same day.

The warmers are white with orange, sold in pairs that join magnetically, with a USB-C port, adjustable heat, LED indicator lights and a silicone lanyard. The model number, H163650, and a batch number are on the underside. Only the electric rechargeable warmers with the white HotHands logo are recalled, not the familiar disposable air-activated packs. They were sold at Bass Pro Shops, Meijer, Target, The Home Depot, Amazon and elsewhere from July 2025 through August 2026 for $30 to $40.

Stop using them and get a full refund through hothands.com/recall-notice-rechargeable. You will be asked to write "Recalled" and your claim number on each warmer in permanent marker and send a photo showing the marking, model number and batch number. Kobayashi's recall line is 866-534-9986, weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern. Do not throw the warmers in the trash, curbside recycling or a store battery bin; call your household hazardous waste site first.

Also recalled October 1: about 400 ZAREI portable camping showers sold by Golden Resale on Amazon and Walmart.com from February through August 2026 for about $60. The 1,500-watt immersion heater, with heart-shaped openings in its metal housing, can ignite if it runs partly or fully out of water. Stop using it and contact Golden Resale for a refund. The CPSC notice lists the number two ways, 855-927-2440 and 855-927-3440.

Mount Hood National Forest updated the Grasshopper Fire closure on October 1, and it is smaller than the version this paper last reported. The new order covers National Forest land on the Barlow and Hood River ranger districts east of Mount Hood and runs through December 31 unless the forest lifts it sooner. Our status band had still been showing the old count of 54 trails and 24 roads.

The order now lists 43 trails and 23 forest roads. Trail 678, Zigzag, and Trail 688, Surveyor's Ridge, are open, and Forest Road 44 is open from the eastern forest boundary to its junction with Road 4430. Closed trails include Lookout Mountain, Badger Creek, Bonney Meadows, Boulder Lake, Fifteenmile, Gumjuwac and Divide.

Campgrounds and trailheads inside the area stay closed, among them Badger Lake, Bonney Meadows, Fifteenmile, Little Badger, Underhill, Bonney Crossing, Knebal Springs and Pebble Ford campgrounds, the Badger Creek, Boulder Lake and School Canyon trailheads, and the Billy Bob and Pocket Creek sno-parks. Private and state inholdings are not covered.

Separately, the Crane Creek bridge on the Barlow Road, Forest Road 3530, has collapsed. The road is open but cannot be driven end to end. The forest's fire danger is High. Wasco County posts evacuation levels on its perimeter map.

The Wonderland Trail at Mount Rainier is closed from the Carbon River Suspension Bridge to White River Campground, the park's conditions page says, along with the Northern Loop Trail and every trail in the Grand Park area. Our status band still showed the closure running from Carbon River to Summerland; the park now lists White River Campground as the end point. Summerland has its own separate trailhead closure for bridge construction.

The cause is the Wonderland Complex, the Grand Park 2, West Fork, Garda Falls and Pigeon fires, which the park says remain active and are expected to burn until extinguished naturally.

White River Road and White River Campground reopened September 5. Sunrise and Sunrise Road are open to people on foot and bicycles but closed to private vehicles for the rest of the 2026 season. The Grove of the Patriarchs remains closed, as it has been since the 2021 flood.

Our earlier status also said no Wonderland circuit permits were being issued. We could not confirm that against the park's current pages, so it is no longer on the board. Check the park's wilderness information center about through-hike permits before planning one.