Topline:
Natalie “Swell” Dillon and fellow Pacific Crest Trail alumni carry fresh food over Bishop Pass to surprise and support current hikers, a growing tradition known as “trail magic.”
What is trail magic? Trail magic ranges from a shared snack to a ride from a stranger, rooted in goodwill and the belief that “the trail provides” and now, more hikers are stepping up to give back.
Read on... to see what they encountered on their journey.
Natalie “Swell” Dillon, an avid backpacker who lives in Bishop in California’s Eastern Sierra, completed the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail in 2022.
And every year since, the occupational therapist — who’s also a member of her local search and rescue team — has spent a full weekend back out on the PCT to support those making the same journey she did.
These acts of kindness — offering tired, hungry thru-hikers everything from food and snacks to rides to the nearest town — are colloquially known as “trail magic.” And this year, Dillon decided to “go big” and invite other thru-hikers who’ve previously conquered the PCT to join her in her most ambitious trail magic plan yet: hiking 12 miles up and over nearly 12,000-foot Bishop Pass with as much fresh food as they could carry.
Dillon hiked the trail the same year as my partner, and as someone who completed the PCT myselfback in 2019, I found myself on Dillon’s invite list and joining her on her mission.
So if you’re new to the concept of trail magic or have always wondered how to get involved, keep reading for what you need to know.
At its most basic level, trail magic is “an act of goodwill or a remarkable moment,” according to the Pacific Crest Trail Association — anchored in the sentiment that “the trail provides.”
Some trail magic is serendipitous. On my own PCT hike, for example, it came in the form of a particularly juicy peach handed to me as I took my first steps into Oregon, followed by a ride from a stranger who saw three hitchhikers and stopped — even though she’d never heard of the trail before. As for the “remarkable moment” aspect, spotting nearly 100 dogs on a particularly popular stretch of trail near Tahoe added immense joy to my day.
I was also the grateful recipient of several coordinated pieces of trail magic from established “trail angels” who are known in their communities to offer help to hikers, including hot coffee and breakfast in a remote lakes area of Oregon, cold Gatorades after a particularly difficult day of hiking and much-needed rides to and from trailheads.
Taking on a long trek like the Pacific Crest Trail is no easy journey. The demands of hiking 20–30 miles per day for 12-plus hours often prompt many backpackers to bring only the most calorie-efficient foods in an attempt to save weight.
The PCT can also be mentally challenging. During my hike, in certain sections of the trail, I found myself without new company for days on end.
All of this can make coming across fresh food and a group of new people incredibly refreshing. And in a section like the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where hikers travel through 300 miles of unbroken wilderness and very little in the form of access to luxuries, it can be positively transformative — not to mention surprising, as the only ways in and out are extremely rugged.
Dillon said she was inspired to start doing both organized and spontaneous trail magic after her own experiences receiving “countless encounters of trail magic” on her PCT hike — including one standout moment when she stumbled upon a trail angel offering water and a “huge buffet of breakfast and lunch foods” in a hot section of Southern California. “We feasted for hours.”
“All of those acts of generosity from other people really fueled me forward in ways that were essential to finishing a thru-hike,” she said.
To make this year extra special, Dillon asked everyone she knew who had hiked the trail in previous years and lived within a day’s drive of Bishop to meet her one weekend in early June, loading pounds of fresh fruit, vegetables and other surprises into our packs to hike 12 miles up and over the nearly 12,000-foot Bishop Pass and spend a full day cooking and socializing with hikers in the High Sierra.
“Even for us in our three-day weekend together, we created a little ‘tramily,’” she said. “And instead of being driven by trying to get to Canada, we were all driven by this idea of trying to provide a superb trail magic experience for this year’s hikers.”
These hikers included Simon from Belgium, who goes by “Presoak” (many long-distance hikers are given or choose their own “trail names”). “Trail magic in the middle of freaking nowhere!” he exclaimed upon seeing our group, shocked to come across us so deep in the wilderness.
Simon had been traveling for the past four years and became inspired to visit the U.S. for a long-distance trail this year by a podcast about the Appalachian Trail on the East Coast.
“It’s amazing,” he said of his PCT hike so far. “Every day is getting more beautiful than the last.”
Simon’s reaction, Dillon said, is exactly why she chose Bishop Pass for her group weekend of trail magic — aside from its proximity to her home and the challenge it offered her fellow angels, she wanted to bring an element of surprise to the several dozen hikers we met that weekend.
“Something that was cool about this weekend was creating a vortex of hikers that stopped, took off their packs [and] lounged for not 30 minutes, not an hour, but like two or three hours,” Dillon said, noting that some hikers were just as excited to run into one another as they were for the trail magic itself. “It’s just a facilitator of joy, really. You see joy in the surprise of it — the theme of community.”
As well as offering food and a morale boost in the wilderness, trail angels can offer a hand when it comes to a thru-hiker’s logistics — and their safety.
Mark Trent, who lives in McCloud near the PCT in the Mt. Shasta area, manages a Facebook group dedicated to organizing rides and places to stay for hikers in Northern California.
Trent said he started bringing sodas and other goodies to hikers when he first moved to the area around a decade ago. Now, he’s become an instrumental force in the support system for hikers passing through the area, especially during wildfire season.
For the past several years, fires have closed trailheads in the Mt. Shasta region, a key resupply stop for PCT hikers. And when that happens, “angels have to turn into getting people off the trail and down to safety,” Trent said. He’s also performed trail maintenance, provided fresh food and a place to stay and even gone out to help hikers stuck alone navigating dangerous snowfields.
“I do a little bit of everything,” he said. “We’re so remote up here that there’s not a lot of services. And public transportation is lacking, to say the least.”
If you don’t have enough time to do a whole weekend trip and you don’t live by a long trail, don’t count yourself out of becoming a trail angel.
If you find yourself in a town — or even out hiking near a long trail like the PCT — consider keeping your eyes peeled for backpackers who may appreciate some fresh food. You could, for example, consider packing a few extra snacks in your pack.
If you feel comfortable doing so, you could also consider offering rides. Because Dillon lives in Bishop, where hundreds of thru-hikers pass through every year, she often runs into hikers at her local grocery store, around town or at local trailheads, and will offer rides to their next stop.
“When you’ve already walked over 700, 800 miles, walking 2 miles to the grocery store and then another 2 miles back from the grocery store can feel tiring,” Dillon said.
The PCTA offers a few good suggestions, too, including paying a hiker’s tab at a restaurant — either in person or by calling from home and asking if there are any hikers dining that day that you could treat.
But most of all, keep it simple, Trent said.
“Find a local angel group [online] and just look it over and see what is necessary,” he said. “The hikers will tell you themselves.”
As for what not to do as a trail angel starting out, remember: Trail magic in its purest form is a serendipitous moment, so the more of that energy you can bring, the better.
The PCTA suggests choosing less popular locations or times of year, when your magic won’t create a crowd or compete with local businesses. And never leave food or beverages unattended on the trail, because they’re likely to get eaten by animals before any human stumbles upon them.
“Overdone trail magic is no longer magical,” the organization said.
The spirit of trail magic also asks that you don’t accept anything in return. If a hiker offers to pay, Trent said, he does his best to decline — but if they insist, he will just use the money to feed the next hiker.
Or as Dillon puts it, as an alumna of the PCT: “Participating in trail magic and providing trail magic for the PCT hikers is a way of giving back to the community.”
Topline:
Big Bear’s famous bald eagle couple, Jackie and Shadow, now have a pair of eggs to look after.
Why now: Jackie welcomed the second egg of the season around 5:10 p.m. Monday, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs a popular YouTube livestream centered on the nest overlooking Big Bear Lake.
Why it matters: More than 22,000 people were watching the livestream when Jackie laid the new addition, up from more than 14,000 viewers when the first egg arrived Friday afternoon.
Go deeper: Eaglet watch is underway! Big Bear’s famous bald eagles welcome first egg of the year
Big Bear’s famous bald eagle couple, Jackie and Shadow, now have a pair of eggs to look after.
Jackie welcomed the second egg of the season around 5:10 p.m. Monday, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs a popular YouTube livestream centered on the nest overlooking Big Bear Lake.
More than 22,000 people were watching the livestream when Jackie welcomed the new addition, up from more than 14,000 viewers when the first egg arrived Friday afternoon.
Jackie laid the first egg around 4:30 p.m. Friday, with Shadow stopping by to see it for the first time about 10 minutes later, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley records.
It was almost exactly a year after the feathered duo welcomed the first egg of the 2025 season.
Jackie tends to lay eggs three days apart, and the second egg arrived right on schedule.
Jackie could be seen rousing and puffing up her feathers about a half-hour before laying the second egg. She made a high-pitched whistling tea kettle noise a little before 5 p.m. Monday.
Officials from Friends of Big Bear Valley have told LAist those behaviors are signs an egg is imminent.
“She looks almost royal, because all of her feathers are out and it's just — I cry,” Jenny Voisard, the organization’s media and website manager, said with a laugh last week. “It's usually pretty amazing.”
The eagle pair typically takes turns caring for their eggs. Shadow visited the nest for nearly three hours across nine incubation “daddy duty” sessions on Sunday, according to organization records.
Jackie has laid up to three eggs in a clutch, including in each of the past two seasons, so fans could see another egg arrive this week.
A clutch refers to the group of eggs laid in each nesting attempt. Bald eagles generally have one clutch per season, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley. A second clutch is possible if the eggs don’t make it through the early incubation process.
For example, Jackie laid a second clutch in February 2021 after the first round of eggs was broken or destroyed by ravens the month before.
The Big Bear eagles also practice delayed incubation, which is when Jackie and Shadow don’t apply their full body heat to the eggs until the whole clutch is laid.
Waiting to incubate full time helps the eggs hatch closer together, making the chicks more similar in size and age, which the organization says gives them a better chance of survival.
Jackie and Shadow successfully delayed incubation for their trio of eggs last season, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley. Sunny and Gizmo hatched and later went on to fledge, or fly away from the nest for the first time, last summer.
Once egg-laying is over, the chick countdown is on.
Jackie and Shadow's usual incubation time is around 35 to 39 days, starting when the eagles begin to fully incubate their clutch, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley.
Last season, the first egg hatched at around 40 days old, the second egg hatched around 38 days old and the third egg around 39 days old.
“Pip Watch” — short for pipping, which is the first hole an eaglet makes as it emerges from its egg — is typically announced by Friends of Big Bear Valley before chicks break through each season.
Last year’s Pip Watch kicked off in March, a few days before the first chick hatched in the nest.
Topline:
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights announced a new lawsuit Monday against federal immigration agencies for claims detainees at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center lack basic necessities and medical care.
Who is involved: Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and Public Counsel are assisting in the case against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security.
What they want to change: ”We're asking both that the judge force Adelanto, the detention facility, to ensure that basic medical care is being provided, that basic hygiene and sanitary conditions, food and water are provided, and that oversight is conducted over the facility,” said Alvaro Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center.
A history of issues: In court documents, CHIRLA pointed to reports by government and nonprofit agencies that showed problems in previous years, including a DHS Office of Inspector General report from 2018 that found “a number of serious issues that violate ICE’s 2011 Performance-Based National Detention Standards and pose significant health and safety risks at the facility.”
Read on ... for more about the lawsuit and the stories of two families whose loved ones died while detained at the facility.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights announced a new lawsuit Monday against federal immigration agencies for claims of inhumane conditions at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County.
The organization claims people detained in the Adelanto facility lack drinkable water, healthy food, clean clothes, places to sleep and access to medical care. Failing to provide these basic necessities, CHIRLA says in court documents, amounts to punishment — violating detainees rights to due process.
“ We are really at a moment where we are seeing a human rights crisis right before our eyes,” CHIRLA policy director Jeanette Zanipatin said at a news conference Monday. “And the detention centers, especially the one at Adelanto, is where we are seeing it unfold in real time.”
Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and Public Counsel are assisting in the case against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security.
”We're asking both that the judge force Adelanto, the detention facility, to ensure that basic medical care is being provided, that basic hygiene and sanitary conditions, food and water are provided, and that oversight is conducted over the facility,” said Alvaro Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center.
ICE and Homeland Security have not responded to LAist about the case or claims in this article.
When CHIRLA announced the lawsuit on Monday, Zanipatin said there has been “a long history of unsafe and abusive conditions” at the Adelanto facility. She referenced a July 2025 report from the nonprofit Disability Rights California that found conditions at the facility were “dangerous and inadequate for all people, especially for those with disabilities.”
Court documents filed by CHIRLA also reference previous reports that found issues at the facility, including a 2018 report from the DHS Office of Inspector General that found “a number of serious issues that violate ICE’s 2011 Performance-Based National Detention Standards and pose significant health and safety risks at the facility.”
Those issues included findings of nooses in detainees’ cells, improper use of disciplinary segregation and inadequate medical care.
“Based on interviews with detainees and medical staff and a review of independent reports,” the report states, “we concluded that detainees do not have timely access to proper medical care.”
CHIRLA claims in their lawsuit that Adelanto leadership rejected the findings of the inspector general report and took no corrective action.
The concerns raised by CHIRLA as they announced the lawsuit closely resemble the findings of Disability Rights California, which also claimed detainees were not provided adequate medical care, food, water or clean clothing. The organization also reported that some people had limited access to communication with their loved ones.
Huerta claimed that the conditions in the Adelanto facility are poor by design.
“ Adelanto, like most ICE prisons, is engineered to be so punishing, so relentlessly soul crushing, that people abandon their rights and accept deportation even when they have strong asylum claims or a clear pathway to legal status,” Huerta said.
He said 32 people died while detained by ICE nationwide in 2025, and at least 6 more have died in January. Two people died at Adelanto last fall, Huerta said.
Mariel Garcia told LAist she would call her father, Gabriel Garcia-Aviles, nearly every day. That ended when he was detained by immigration agents in Costa Mesa on Oct. 14.
Garcia-Aviles had a work permit, his daughter said, but he was detained and taken to Adelanto. She said she tried many times to ask the facility staff to allow her to call her father, or even to get an update on his condition, but she was never able to talk to him again.
Worried, she said she got a call from the staff at Adelanto.
“ They called me the day he was passing away,” Garcia told LAist, “They're like, go tell your family and friends to come and say their last goodbyes because your father's in critical condition.”
Her brother, Gabriel Garcia, said that when they arrived at the hospital their father was intubated and “lifeless." Still, he said, there were law enforcement officers standing outside the hospital room.
Garcia-Aviles died Oct. 23 at age 56.
Jose Ayala also talked about the loss of his brother, Ismael Ayala-Uribe, while he was detained in the Adelanto facility.
“ He was there for about a month and we knew nothing of his condition,” Ayala said at Monday’s press conference, “just that he was sick and that he wasn't getting any help when he asked.”
Ayala said his family learned of his brother’s death when the police came and knocked at their door. He said staff at Adelanto did not tell them Ayala-Uribe had been hospitalized or that he needed a surgery, which ICE said in a news release was for an abscess.
Ayala told LAist that he was able to talk with his brother over the phone a couple of times when he was detained, and Ayala-Uribe was joking with him about the poor conditions of the facility causing him to lose weight.
“ One of the last things he told me,” Ayala recalled, “was, ‘We'll see who comes out skinnier.’”
He said his brother was 39 when he died on Sept. 22, 2025.
CHIRLA alleges in court documents that staff at Adelanto were aware Ayala-Uribe was having a potentially life-threatening medical emergency three days before his death, but he was taken back to his cell after being seen by the facility’s medical team.
An ICE news release said Ayala-Uribe “was evaluated by an on-call medical provider Sept. 18, provided medication, and returned to his dormitory,” but did not mention the severity of his condition.
The cause of both deaths remain under investigation, CHIRLA said in an accompanying news release.
If you have a tip, you can reach me on Signal. My username is jrynning.56.
Topline:
The second deadly shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis is raising the prospect of a partial government shutdown at the end of the week.
Why now: Senate Democrats say they will not vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security without new guardrails for immigration enforcement.
Why it matters: That opposition may also torpedo the larger $1.3 trillion spending package needed to keep large swaths of the federal government operational past Friday night.
Read on... for what this means for the Friday deadline.
The second deadly shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis is raising the prospect of a partial government shutdown at the end of the week.
Senate Democrats say they will not vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security without new guardrails for immigration enforcement.
But that opposition may also torpedo the larger $1.3 trillion spending package needed to keep large swaths of the federal government operational past Friday night.
"The appalling murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis must lead Republicans to join Democrats in overhauling ICE and CBP to protect the public," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote on Sunday. "People should be safe from abuse by their own government."
Democrats were already raising alarms about the conduct of immigration officers before the latest killing in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Last week, all but seven House Democrats voted against the funding bill covering homeland security, which includes money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
At the time, a few Senate Democrats also pledged to vote against the funding when it reached them this week, though the response across the Capitol was far from the near-unified opposition in the House.
That is because the House sent the DHS funding over to the Senate tied together with billions in spending for defense, health, transportation and other federal agencies, in part to expedite the process as Congress races to meet a Friday deadline to keep the government fully open.
"The hard truth is that Democrats must win political power to enact the kind of accountability we need," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate appropriations committee, wrote in a statement last week saying she would vote for the total package.
After Pretti's shooting on Saturday by a Border Patrol agent, Murray said she would join her Democratic colleagues in opposing the funding.
The timeline was already tight once a winter storm delayed the first Senate votes of the week until Tuesday night. But the renewed debate over immigration enforcement is complicating the task more.
Schumer wants to cleave the DHS measure from everything else. The other remaining spending measures have overwhelming bipartisan support. Democrats want to continue negotiating the DHS funding bill without shutting down large parts of the government.
The funding measure needs to reach a 60-vote threshold to pass, meaning some Democratic support is needed for it to clear the Senate. But disentangling different parts of the legislation requires buy-in from Republicans, and so far, GOP leadership has not indicated that they are willing to separate the funding bills.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune's communications director, Ryan Wrasse, wrote on X on Monday that the Senate will proceed as planned to consider all the funding bills together.
"A government shutdown, even a partial one, does not serve the American people well," he wrote. "Hopefully Senate Democrats, who are actively engaged in conversations, can find a path forward to join us before this week's funding deadline hits."
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the appropriations committee chair, told The New York Times over the weekend, "I'm exploring all options. We have five other bills that are really vital, and I'm relatively confident they would pass."
Collins, who is up for reelection and whose state is also a target of immigration raids by the Trump administration, is among the Republicans who have expressed fresh concerns about the tactics, calling for an investigation.
A handful of Republicans have called for congressional hearings or offered sharper criticism.
"My support for funding ICE remains the same," Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., wrote in a statement. "But we must also maintain our core values as a nation, including the right to protest and assemble."
Even if Democrats could convince Republicans to agree to separate DHS funding from the rest, that would mean the legislation needs approval again in the House, which is on recess until Feb. 2. It is unlikely that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., would call members back to Washington early, increasing the risk of a partial shutdown.
Before this weekend, few lawmakers expressed appetite for another shutdown after a record 43-day one this fall. For weeks, Democrats withheld their votes from a short-term funding measure to reopen the government without a deal to extend expiring health insurance subsidies.
Eventually, a handful of Democrats joined with Republicans to reopen the government, with the promise of a vote on the subsidies. That vote failed in December. The deal included the passage of three bipartisan spending packages for veterans, agriculture and other areas through the end of September 2026 and a short-term extension for everything else through Jan. 30.
Congress has already passed several more full-year funding bills through September, but the measures still awaiting final passage in the Senate account for 75% of annual federal discretionary spending.
But even Democrats who ultimately voted with Republicans to end the last funding stalemate now say they will vote against the DHS funding despite the risk of another shutdown.
"We have bipartisan agreement on 96% of the budget," Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto, D-Nev., wrote in a statement. "We've already passed six funding bills. Let's pass the remaining five bipartisan bills and fund essential agencies while we continue to fight for a Department of Homeland Security that respects Americans' constitutional rights and preserves federal law enforcement's essential role to keep us safe."
Holding up the DHS funding bill would not halt the administration's immigration crackdown. Last summer, Congressional Republicans allocated $75 billion for ICE over four years in President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill."
Democrats say they do not want to give ICE the roughly $10 billion base funding that is on the line now. But more so, Democrats see this as rare leverage in the minority to extract policy changes.
Democrats already negotiated to include $20 million in funding for officer-worn body cameras, plus more funding for oversight and a reduction in funding for enforcement and removal operations and detention bed capacity. But most Democrats said this did not go far enough.
Democrats want more sweeping reforms to reign in the tactics, such as prohibiting ICE from deploying excessive force and explicitly preventing them from raiding places of worship, hospitals and schools. Republicans previously rejected these demands.
The DHS funding bill also includes funding for the Transportation Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But Democrats are betting that the American public is on their side. A recent New York Times poll found that a majority of respondents said the federal immigration tactics have gone too far.
The funding fight over DHS is the latest dispute over funding in Congress. Last year, the Trump administration moved to rescind billions in federal funding appropriated by Congress for foreign aid and public broadcasting — and proposed a budget slashing nondiscretionary funding by some 20%.
Instead, the final legislation keeps federal nondiscretionary spending essentially flat. For example, the administration called for cutting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention budget by 50%. Under the bipartisan health spending bill, the agency's funding would remain roughly unchanged.
Bill Hoagland, senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former longtime appropriations committee staffer, said this is striking considering Congress has mostly followed Trump's lead.
"Congress is starting to show a little bit of backbone," Hoagland said. "I think there is increasing recognition of the need to have Congress exert its power of the purse."
Hoagland also notes that Congress is nearly a quarter of the way into the fiscal year, so once lawmakers greenlight the remaining funding, it will not be too long before the appropriations process begins again.
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Topline:
Ex-Olympian Ryan Wedding appeared in court Monday in Santa Ana where he pleaded not guilty to federal charges accusing him of running a billion-dollar drug trafficking ring and orchestrating multiple killings.
Why now: Wedding was taken into custody last week in Mexico City. Mexican officials say he turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy there, according to the Associated Press. But the AP also reported Wedding's lawyer said Monday that he actually did not surrender to law enforcement, but had been living in Mexico and was arrested.
The backstory: Wedding is accused of moving as much as 60 tons of cocaine between various locations in South and North America, and that he used Los Angeles as his primary point of distribution. The charges also tie him to the 2023 killing of two members of a Canadian family as retaliation for a stolen drug shipment, a 2024 killing over a drug debt and the killing of a witness in Colombia who was set to testify against him. Wedding was an Olympic snowboarder with Team Canada during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He appeared in just one event, the men's parallel giant slalom, where he finished 24th. Last March, Wedding was added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list.
What's next: Wedding's trail has tentatively been scheduled to start on March 24.
