Jackson

Jim McBride, the Grammy-nominated country songwriter who partnered with singer Alan Jackson on songs including “Chattahoochee” and “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow,” died Tuesday. He was 78.

“Jim was a good man and a great and genuine songwriter,” Jackson wrote on Thursday in an Instagram story. “He understood country music and touched many with his songs. Jim and I wrote some of my favorite songs together and I don’t know if my career would have ended up quite the same without his help, inspiration, and encouragement in my early years. Thank you Jim, rest in peace.”

Jackson’s photo showed him and McBride as younger men, smiling and holding ASCAP certificates. In 1994, “Chattahoochee” won the Country Music Assn.’s award for song of the year and they were nominated for the Grammy for country song of the year as well.

“I am in shock. I am devastatingly sad. My phone has been ringing and dinging all day, so I hope my friends will understand I’m just not able to talk right now,” songwriter and close friend Jerry Salley wrote Wednesday on Facebook, noting that McBride died after a fall on Monday. McBride had texted Salley just hours before falling, the latter said.

“I’ll never know why he took a chance to write with me” when they met in Nashville in the early 1980s, Salley wrote, “but man, we hit it off, became instant friends, and loved being in the writing room together. He always brought out the very best in me.”

Though best remembered for his Jackson collaborations, McBride’s songs were also recorded by artists including Conway Twitty, Johnny Lee, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Reba McEntire, Alabama, Willie Nelson, Charley Pride, Kris Kristofferson, Randy Travis, Toby Keith and Dwight Yoakam.

“We will greatly miss Mr. McBride — may his legacy live on forever,” the Alabama Music Hall of Fame said Wednesday on Instagram. The hall remembered the songwriter as a “beloved Alabamian, songwriter, friend, mentor, and so much more.”

Born Jimmy Ray McBride in Huntsville, Ala., on April 28, 1947, he began writing songs a child, but didn’t get one recorded until much later.

“The songs just started coming in my head and after a while I decided to try it,” he said in an interview published by American Songwriter at the end of 1997. “I just thought I’d write some songs and bring them to Nashville and see what happened.”

He said he was always drawn to anything about music and learned early on that “that little bitty name beneath the song was the person who wrote the song.”

McBride’s first bid sending songs to Nashville didn’t result in instant success. He knew only one guy in town, songwriter Curly Putman, who served as a mentor.

“Curly gave me good advice and he was always very honest. He told me, ‘Unless I’m honest I can’t help you,’” McBride told American Songwriter. “I’d play him a song and he’d tell me what was wrong with it and he was always right. But if there was something there, he would be sure and let me know that I had done something right. And he always encouraged me to get another opinion, but I never did; his opinion was always good enough for me.”

He saw several of his songs performed in the early 1970s on the show “Hee Haw,” but in the mid-’70s he wound up tucking his dreams away and staying at his job with the U.S. Postal Service. Even then, he kept writing songs with Roger Murrah, who would be a Grammy nominee in the early 1990s for “Don’t Rock the Jukebox,” recorded by Jackson.

He promised Murrah and others that he would return to Nashville if he got “that big lick.” Then came Conway Twitty, who wanted the song “A Bridge That Just Won’t Burn.”

“Roger called me one night and said, ‘I guess you need to pack your bags, we’ve got Conway’s next single,’” McBride told American Songwriter. “I quit the post office the day after Christmas, 1980, and then started work the first of January with Bill Rice and Jerry Foster. The only other writer they had was Roger Murrah.”

Events at that time were bittersweet for McBride, whose mother — his biggest musical influence growing up — died of cancer in 1981. She was buried the same day he was supposed to get his first music award, for “A Bridge That Just Won’t Burn.”

That September he had his first No. 1 hit, “Bet Your Heart On Me,” with singer Johnny Lee. And he fine-tuned his songwriting.

“I don’t think I’d ever had a bridge in a song until I moved here,” he told American Songwriter. “Another thing I had to unlearn was that I wasn’t Kristofferson. I cut back on the poetic stuff. I was writing a lot of stuff where every line had to be brilliant. Through the years, I learned to write conversational lines.”

McBride didn’t have a hit single again for six years, until Waylon Jennings recorded “Rose in Paradise,” his last No. 1 track, in 1987.

“I had songs on 14 albums and couldn’t get a single,” McBride told Huntsville’s News19 in 2023. “Randy Travis kinda kicked the door open and Waylon.” After that, McBride said, “Things started picking up.”

That’s when he met Alan Jackson, with whom he would have four No. 1 hits, “Chattahoochee” being the biggest of them.

“He said, ‘Will you write with me?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, let’s get together,’” McBride told News19. “So, we got together and hit it off just like that. It was like writing with myself, really.”

McBride was inducted into both the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2017 and was a past president of the Nashville Songwriters Assn. International.

But for more than 30 years, that hit song “Chattahoochee” was a part of his life — especially the one line at the beginning where it talks about it getting “hotter than a hoochie coochie” down on the Chattahoochee River, which borders Alabama and Georgia. Everyone wanted to know what that meant, apparently.

“Alan got tired of everyone asking him,” McBride told News19. “He told everybody to call me, and they did. When the county fair would come to town, there was always a side show with the hoochie coochie girls. So that’s what I was thinking. And the deal was if you were a young man, you’d try to get in there before you were 18.”

And why, pray tell?

“They’ll show you a little bit,” he said, “but you’re going to have to pay if you see any more.”

McBride is survived by his second wife, Jeanne Ivey, and sons Brent and Wes from a previous marriage.

A year ago, we were all glued to our phones, namely the Watch Duty app, as we watched fires rip through beloved neighborhoods and landscapes. We braced ourselves for the death toll, the number of homes lost and what was harmed in our beloved mountains.

The Eaton and Palisades fires were the beginning of a crushing year for L.A.

I don’t believe in closure or want to push the idea of resilience, concepts too often forced in these kind of post-disaster narratives. But I do believe in pausing to discern what we have learned over the past year.

I recently spoke with trail crew volunteers, including two who lost their houses in the fires, to get their takes.

They each shared what’s helped them move through this past year, including what we can learn from the regrowth and recovery of our local forests. I left these conversations feeling inspired by both the natural and human spirit. I hope you will be too.

Lesson 1: Humans are adaptable like the trees and plants

After the devastating 2018 Woolsey fire, which burned much of the Santa Monica Mountains, photographer Jane Simpson made regular pilgrimages to Malibu Creek State Park to document the renewal process. She saw the hillsides start to green, and lupine and other flowers (and mustard) start to bloom.

It helped give her a baseline for what to expect when she started returning to the mountains scorched by the Palisades fire.

Simpson is a member of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter’s Santa Monica Mountains Task Force trail crew, known often by their nickname, the Trailies.

In November, Simpson worked alongside other Trailies on the Bienveneda and Leacock trails in Topanga State Park. The area was badly burned, but still Simpson noticed green sprouts peeking out of the ashy soil and from the branches of trees that the average passerby might assume were dead.

“I just want to think that the trees, the flowers, the [landscape] are not just responding blindly and dumbly — we know they’ve learned to adapt, and humans are learning to adapt as well,” said Simpson, who joined the Trailies in 2017.

Simpson has been forced to adapt. Her home in the Palisades Highlands was among thousands that burned in the Palisades fire, and she alongside her neighbors are grappling with whether to rebuild. Simpson grew up in Mandeville Canyon, and as a kid, she’d head out the door with a sack lunch and friends for a day of unsupervised adventures. It’s hard to imagine not living there.

Trail crew worker Jane Simpson observes a Humboldt’s lily in Santa Ynez Canyon last summer.

(Gaby Valensi)

Before the fire, Simpson could walk out her front door and quickly take one of about five nearby trailheads. She and a neighbor would often “just head out the door and go anywhere,” she said, like the many times they headed along Palisades Drive to Temescal Ridge Trail to Radio Peak, a local name for Temescal Peak.

Those trips helped them learn the local plants and how they changed with the seasons, like how the ceanothus would blossom with blue blooms in early spring. And in Santa Ynez Canyon, Simpson loved spotting the Humboldt’s lilies, knowing the perennials would come back every year.

Even after the devastation of the Palisades fire, she’s seen those lilies return to the same spot they’ve always been.

“A fire-scarred landscape may look dead, but spotting a familiar flower is like seeing old friends,” she said. “It’s reassurance — that some kind of normal is possible. Of course, when it is your own property, there is no normal there, but there is reassurance that for the earth, the wildlife, plants, things will go on, even if I don’t return.”

Lesson 2: We have our own ecological role to play

Trailie crew member Ron Dean is drawn to trail work for creativity. Every 10 minutes, there’s seemingly a new problem the trail crew faces, like, “Where should we put the trail? Should we put the rocks over here? Does this need a drain? How can we move this thing out of the way? It’s wonderful,” he said.

When I asked Dean, who joined the crew 12 years ago, to describe his relationship with the Santa Monica Mountains, he was quick to answer.

“When I’m out in the mountains, I feel like I’m hanging out with my best friend,” Dean said.

A Trailies volunteer works on the Leacock Trail in 2019.

(Jane Simpson)

Dean moved from Wisconsin to L.A. in 1970 for a job and stayed for the climate and landscape. Every Sunday for the past several years, Dean and his son Josh would hike in the Santa Monica Mountains, leaving Dean’s home in the Palisades and often hitting a loop trail to Goat Peak, also referred to by some locals as High Point. After the hike, they’d have brunch and watch football.

That home, which was built in 1951, burned in the Palisades fire. Similar to how he approaches trail work, Dean is looking at how to create a better home for today’s climate, adding solar panels, backup batteries, water recycling and a heat pump system.

Dean is comfortable tackling problems that seemingly have no end. He’s known among his fellow Trailies as the “mustard man” because whenever he sees invasive black mustard — the yellow flowers that cover L.A.’s hillsides in the spring before drying into quick-burning brown twigs — he yanks it out. “Will I win? Of course not,” Dean said.

A member of the Trailies works on Leacock Trail in 2019.

(Jane Simpson)

This is the kind of acceptance Dean has learned from our local mountains — that we can all do our part for as long as we’re here.

Lesson 3: Restoration is a form of reciprocity

In 2012, Rubio Canyon Trail Crew member Sean Green made it his personal mission to restore the Lone Tree Trail in Rubio Canyon. The path, built more than 100 years ago, was constructed so that workers from a municipal water company could reach the utility’s water intakes far into the canyon, Green said.

The trail had been abandoned for decades, but was rediscovered after the 1993 Kinneloa fire ripped through the area. “I decided I loved that trail and I restored it,” Green said.

The Rubio Canyon Trail Crew removes a landslide from the Gooseberry Motorway in 1997.

(Sean Green)

The trail crew’s work is part of a long history of give and take between humans and the canyon.

The lush landscape of chaparral, coast sage scrubs and creek beds was once a stop on the Mount Lowe Railway. The “railway climbed the steep Lake Avenue and crossed the poppy fields into the Rubio Canyon,” according to a local history website. “This part of the trip was called the Mountain Division. At this juncture stood the Rubio Pavilion, a small 12-room hotel. From there the passengers transferred to a cable car funicular which climbed the Great Incline to the top of the Echo Mountain promontory.”

The Rubio Cañon Land and Water Assn. has pulled water from the canyon since the 1880s, delivering it to nearby residents in Altadena. But in the late ’90s, in a still-debated controversy, the water company completed a construction project that sent thousands of yards of debris into the canyon, burying at least three waterfalls.

“Whether by nature’s hand or man’s, with time or with money, Rubio Canyon’s waterfalls will return,” Pasadena Star-News journalist Becky Oskin wrote at the time.

It appears that time has finally come.

Green said heavy rains pushed debris away from the once-covered Maidenhair Falls, a 30-foot cascade named after the Maidenhair ferns that once surrounded it.

The Rubio Canyon Trail Crew, which has worked in the area for more than 25 years, is busy bringing the rest of the canyon’s trails back too.

Claus Boettger, Phil Fujii and Jason Trevor backfill a new retaining wall along the Gooseberry Motorway in 2005. The original road was built in 1923 by Southern California Edison to install electric towers along the foothill ridges. It is now a single-track trail.

(Sean Green)

The Eaton fire ripped through the Rubio Canyon Preserve, seriously damaging the canyon’s chaparral, coast sage scrub and riparian habitats.

Green said his crew has almost finished restoring the Loma Alta Trail and has put in several hours on the Gooseberry Motorway, which takes hikers up and over a ridgeline, eventually into Angeles National Forest. The motorway was originally built by Southern California Edison to install electrical towers, Green said.

The crew has started seeing wildflowers, trees and wildlife all return to the canyon.

“The land is recovering,” Green said. “The Eaton fire caused a lot of damage, burning many houses down and burning the vegetation, but nature is very resilient and it will come back. … The canyon itself is going to take awhile to look like a vegetated canyon bottom because of all the debris that came down, but the rest of Rubio Canyon is going to regrow. It’s going to look pretty, and we’re going to get the trails in shape.”

Lesson 4: Hard work pays off

Lowelifes founder Rob Pettersen repairs a trail in Angeles National Forest.

(Erik Hillard, Lowelifes RCC)

The hiking trails of Angeles National Forest, as a whole, are in far better shape than they were 10 years ago. In spite of repeated wildfires — the Bobcat fire in 2020, the Bridge fire in 2024, the Eaton fire last year — and heavy rains, the trails remain.

I was so focused on the damage of the past year from the Eaton fire and heavy rainfall, I hadn’t zoomed out to consider the bigger picture until I spoke to Rob Pettersen, a founding board member of the Lowelifes Respectable Citizens’ Club.

The Lowelifes are among a dedicated coalition of trail crews that dedicate hundreds of hours every year to reestablishing damaged trails by lugging out fallen and dead trees, moving soil and rock, and more.

“We are moving forward, but Mother Nature has other ideas sometimes,” Pettersen said. “There’s no silver bullet for fixing these trails. They just need constant attention. It’s just the nature of our geology.”

Pettersen has volunteered on trail work crews off and on for the past 20 years, most consistently after Lowelifes was founded in 2019. Pettersen enjoys living in Los Feliz, but like most of us, is drawn to the solace and peace that the mountains provide.

After the 2020 Bobcat fire, which burned through Big Santa Anita Canyon and several other beloved places, the Lowelifes focused several months on restoring the Idlehour Trail, a six-mile jaunt through lush woodland.

“This time last year, Idlehour was in some of the best shape it’s ever been — and then it got melted” in the Eaton fire, Pettersen said. “It’s a very popular [and] special place for Lowelifes folks individually, and the fact we had just completed a lot of work there is kind of brutal.”

This ebb and flow of fire and flood, exacerbated by human-caused climate change, he said, is why the Lowelifes focus on restoring trails to a quality that can withstand harsh conditions.

“Even though we’ve had multiple years now where we’ve done a bunch of trail restoration work and then got hit by several inches of rain in 12 hours,” Pettersen said, “the vast majority of the trail mileage holds up because we do good work so the trail isn’t gone. But the trouble spots — the heavy drainages, the cliffy areas — those are always impacted by debris flow. So it’s a bummer, but it also feels good to be making a difference and doing good work for the community.”

Rob Pettersen cuts through a downed log during a Lowelifes work day on trails in Angeles National Forest.

(Matt Baffert, Lowelifes RCC)

Several Lowelife crew members lost their homes or livelihood in the Eaton fire, including Lowelifes president Matt Baffert. Additionally, the fire also burned up the crew’s tools, which were stored at Baffert’s home.

A year later, though, Baffert and others are rebuilding and moving back, Pettersen said.

That’s in large part because the community rallied behind the Lowelifes. The group received several grants and donations, and the Lowelifes as a nonprofit came out of the fire more financially secure than before. Pettersen said so many volunteers showed up to help that the Lowelifes had to turn people away because they couldn’t safely fit everyone who showed up on the trails to work.

“It’s amazing seeing how many people care about our Lowelifes individually and about our trails and our Angeles National Forest,” Pettersen said. “People care about trails, people care about public lands; that’s been positive and we want to keep building on that.”

This month, the Lowelifes plan — rain and snow permitting — to head back to the Idlehour trail.

The work continues.

3 things to do

Hikers with Hearts for Sight and the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter trek along a path together.

(Joan Schipper, Hearts For Sight)

1. Volunteer as a hiker guide in L.A.
Hearts For Sight and the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter will host their monthly White Cane Hike at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 18 in Griffith Park. Volunteers are needed to guide blind and visually-impaired hikers on a gentle hike from Franklin’s Cafe & Market to a heliport in the park. The hike is free, and lunch is provided. To register, call Hearts for Sight at (818) 457-1482.

2. Make new friends hiking in Elysian Park
LA for the Culture Hiking Club will host a beginner-friendly, free community hike at noon Saturday in Elysian Park. The group will meet at the Grace E. Simons Lodge parking lot before heading onto the Elysian Park West Loop, which offers stunning views of the city. Register at eventbrite.com.

3. Commune with nature and a notebook near Calabasas
California State Parks and Santa Monica Mountains Nature Journal Club will host a nature journaling meetup from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sunday at Malibu Creek State Park. Participants who are new to nature journaling are invited to take a free introductory course while experienced nature journalers can head into the park. The group will reconvene at noon to share their experiences. Guests are invited to bring a potluck dish to share. Register at eventbrite.com.

The must-read

(Mary Forgione / Los Angeles Times)

One of the first places I go to research a trail is The Times archives because we’ve been writing about the trails and campgrounds of Angeles National Forest for more than 100 years. In all that time, we haven’t slowed down enough to write a comprehensive guide of the forest — until now. I spent the past few months researching and writing what is a part love letter/part guide to help you explore every corner of the 700,000-acre national forest playground that sits right in our backyard. I hope you save this guide and use it for many of your future adventures! I know I will.

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

After the recent rain and snowfall, there are new and serious hazards on our local trails that you must consider before heading out. We have already lost at least three hikers locally this winter. As I’ve written previously, you often need crampons and an ice axe, equipment you need to be experienced using, before heading into a snow hike with elevation gain. I have seen several images on social media of hikers celebrating at the snow-covered Mt. Baldy summit, the highest point in the San Gabriel Mountains, but anyone headed up Baldy needs to understand how dangerous the hike is in winter conditions. As Kyle Fordham, a 36-year-old experienced hiker, told my colleagues, the Devil’s Backbone trail is typically considered the easier option, but it becomes “a death slide” in the winter. “It basically becomes a giant ice cliff,” Fordham said. “If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can very easily die on it.” If you do run into a fellow hiker in need, please help however you can. It can sometimes be the kindness of a stranger that saves a life. Stay safe out there, friends!

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

I worry more about Joe Burrow’s window closing because since reaching that LA Super Bowl in 2022, Cincinnati have not looked the same.

I don’t know if I trust their organisation to draft and bring in the depth they need. In Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, the Bengals have the NFL’s most expensive offence, from a salary cap perspective.

It’s always been able to hum a little, but the offensive line still needs strengthening and the defensive line, in particular, has been anaemic.

They had this weird pre-season, not wanting to give Trey Hendrickson the contract he wanted, and they’ve drafted some good young players, but why did they not do this years ago?

When the Bengals had a back-up QB in there, it showed how much Burrow does for the team and how he really extends plays. He is a freak of nature.

He’s the kind of guy that you want in the play-offs, in the Super Bowl, because he gets more dangerous as the season goes on. But it’s sad to think all three of these quarterbacks won’t be there this time.

Other teams are stepping up, because you’re drafting to kind of beat the guys in your division. In the AFC North, the Pittsburgh Steelers have always been consistent, but 100% it should have been the Ravens or Bengals winning that division this season.

The Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers have been building out their rosters to beat the Chiefs in the AFC West. What happens now the tables have been flipped? What will next season look like now the Chiefs will have higher draft capital?

You hope that they’re able to bring in or develop some star receivers. I know they wanted Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy to be that. But really, since Tyreek Hill left in 2022, they’ve not had that number one, true threat receiver.

I like that in their last two games they’ll be able to get some of their young guys true NFL game experience. That’s going to be crucial and will probably give them an upper hand long term.

They’ve been working in some of the younger tight ends, but if Travis Kelce retires, what does that look like? Who becomes that reliable player that Mahomes feels comfortable throwing to because, especially coming back from injury, he’s going to need somebody he can trust.

This is a really big recovery for him. I would be amazed if he’s able to recover to the point where he can start next season and be mobile. But he’s always going to have an opportunity because of who he is as a quarterback and a competitor.

The Chiefs have a lot of pending free agents so how they manage that – who they’re bringing back, who they’re bringing in – will be a really big piece of the puzzle for them.

My concern for them getting back to the play-offs next season is that the AFC West is really competitive. Are the Chiefs going to beat the Broncos twice a year? Are they going to beat the Chargers twice a year?

I feel more confident in the Bengals and Ravens, and either of them winning the AFC North. The Ravens are probably the most whole team. They need a couple more pieces on defence.

The Bengals need an entire defence, but at least they’ve got an offence that can be high-powered. I feel like the Chiefs are going to have to start from ground zero.

But for now, the three-headed monster is gone from the AFC, so maybe the path is clear for my Buffalo Bills to finally get back to the Super Bowl.

Two goals in 18 minutes from forward Nicolas Jackson set the tone for Senegal’s Group D win over Botswana at AFCON 2025.

Bayern Munich striker Nicolas Jackson grabbed a brace as Senegal eased to a 3-0 victory over Botswana in the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) on Tuesday.

Jackson, on loan at the Bundesliga giants from Chelsea, struck either side of half-time in Tangier, with Cherif Ndiaye completing the scoring late on.

The victory took Senegal to the top of the table in Group D on goal difference, ahead of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), who beat Benin 1-0 in Rabat earlier.

It was a predictable outcome to the first match of the tournament for both teams as Senegal are 119 places above Botswana in the world rankings.

Senegal and DRC, both former champions, are expected to fill the top two places and qualify for the round of 16.

Benin and Botswana will view their clash on Saturday as a must-win affair, giving potential victors a chance to fill one of four places in the knockout stage reserved for third-placed teams.

Torrential rain greeted the teams as they walked onto the pitch at the 75,000-seat stadium, the biggest by capacity of the nine being used in Morocco for the tournament.

Senegal had a great chance to take the lead within three minutes in a one-on-one situation, but goalkeeper Goitseone Phoko blocked a shot by Jackson.

Two-time African Player of the Year Sadio Mane, Iliman Ndiaye and Jackson all came close to breaking the deadlock as the Teranga Lions dominated possession, while the Zebras defended in depth.

Botswana waste chance

While Senegal and former Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy was a mere spectator, Phoko was constantly in action, using his hands, feet and legs to keep the West Africans at bay.

But endless Senegalese pressure finally reaped a reward in 40 minutes when Germany-born Ismail Jakobs and Germany-based Jackson combined to put one of the title favourites ahead.

Jakobs cut in from the left and pulled the ball back to Jackson, who reacted instantly, using his left foot to steer the ball wide of Phoko and into the net.

Botswana, who qualified at the expense of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers Cape Verde, finally threatened to score in added time at the end of the opening half.

But they failed to take advantage of a free kick just outside the area. A weak shot was deflected for a corner that was overhit and went out of play beyond the far post without being touched.

A flowing move from midfield with quick, crisp passing set up Jackson to double the lead after 58 minutes.

When the ball was worked to him in the box, the 24-year-old rounded Mosha Gaolaolwe and tapped home.

Cherif Ndiaye put the cherry on the cake for Senegal as he finished smartly at the end of another fine team move in the 90th minute.

Confident his team were cruising to victory, Senegal coach Pape Thiaw introduced 17-year-old Ibrahim Mbaye from European champions Paris Saint-Germain midway through the second half.

The teenage striker last month became the youngest Senegalese scorer in an international when he netted in an 8-0 rout of Kenya in an AFCON warm-up match.

Manchester United target Antoine Semenyo in January transfer, Ruben Neves wants Premier League return, Bruno Fernandes’ release clause revealed and Bukayo Saka on the verge of signing ‘record-breaking’ Arsenal contract.

Manchester United will go all-out to sign Bournemouth and Ghana forward Antoine Semenyo in January and hope the uncertainty over Pep Guardiola’s future at Manchester City could boost their chances of landing the 25-year-old. (Telegraph – subscription required), external

Portugal international Ruben Neves, 28, has rejected a new contract at Saudi Pro League side Al-Hilal and wants a return to Europe with Manchester United a possible destination for the former Wolves midfielder. (Times – subscription required), external

Manchester United will only consider selling Kobbie Mainoo, 20, in the January transfer window if they receive an exceptional offer and the club are equally reluctant to let the England midfielder leave on loan. (Sky Sports), external

Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca, 45, is high among the candidates Manchester City are considering if Spanish manager Pep Guardiola, 54, leaves the Etihad Stadium next summer. (Athletic – subscription required), external

Saint-Etienne have rejected an initial offer of 8m euros (£7m) from Chelsea for Djylian N’Guessan, 17, but would consider selling the French striker for 12.5m euros (£11m). (L’Equipe – in French), external

AZ Alkmaar’s talented Dutchman Kees Smit, 19, is one of four midfielders being monitored by Newcastle, while Toulouse’s French defender Dayann Methalie, 19, is also thought to be high on their wishlist. (Mail – subscription required), external

Manchester United and Portugal midfielder Bruno Fernandes, 31, has a clause in his contract that means clubs outside the Premier League can buy him for £56.6m. (Mail – subscription required), external

Atletico Madrid are interested in signing England forward Marcus Rashford, 28, who is currently on loan at Barcelona from Manchester United. (Fichajes – in Spanish), external

It is very unlikely Bayern Munich will exercise the option to make Nicolas Jackson’s loan move from Chelsea permanent in the summer, with the 24-year-old Senegal striker used as a back-up for England international Harry Kane, 32. (Bild – in German), external

Bukayo Saka, 24, will become the first player in Arsenal’s history to earn a weekly wage of £300,000, with the club close to announcing a record-breaking new deal for the England winger that will run until 2031. (Teamtalk), external

West Ham winger Luis Guilherme wants to stay and fight for his place at the club, despite reports linking the 19-year-old Brazilian with a move in January. (Sky Sports), external

National League side Morecambe are interested in extending the loan of Arsenal defender Maldini Kacurri, with the 20-year-old Albania international also attracting interest from clubs higher up the football pyramid. (Sun), external

Everyone switched off their headlamps and there we stood together in total darkness, inside the San Gabriel Mountains. Yes, inside.

I had joined a local caving group in an attempt to understand more about what lies beneath the plants, trees and dirt we hike around.

I was in awe of the cavern’s striations and white globs of minerals dripping from its ceiling. The experience stuck with me, enough that in this week’s Wild, we’re exploring more about the geology of our local mountains.

And we’re in luck! This week, the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park debuted “Unearthed: Raw Beauty,” an exhibit of rare earth minerals, including several from Southern California.

Visitors will see blue cap tourmaline, crystals named after their blue tops, and other tourmaline crystals mined in San Diego. They’re estimated to be 100 million years old!

Tourmaline grows in Southern California inside rocks called pegmatites, which are “basically granite that had time to grow large crystals. These rocks form when hot magma cools and hardens into solid rock inside Earth’s crust,” according to the museum. (We’ll talk more about pegmatites in a minute.)

While at the opening night event for the exhibit, I spoke to two experts to better understand all that rocks and rolls around us: Aaron Celestian, the curator of mineral sciences at Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and Kriss Leftwich, collections manager of mineral sciences at the Natural History Museum.

My main question for them was: How can hikers better understand what they’re seeing and hiking over and around?

Let’s dive into what I learned, which I’ve compiled for you into a brief beginner’s guide. It rocks!

A lone hiker takes in sweeping views of the Santa Monica Mountains at Eagle Rock along the Backbone Trail in Topanga State Park.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

What minerals can be observed in the Santa Monica Mountains?

The sediment and minerals of the Santa Monica Mountains were formed over millions of years, including through a process of ocean transgression and regression, Celestian said.

As Earth went through its natural periods of warming and cooling, ice sheets would melt and grow, causing sea levels to rise and fall. When sea levels rose, water moved further inland, covering ancient beaches and sandstone in layers of marine sediment, including shells and skeletons of sea animals. When the sea levels would fall, the water would recess, causing more beach material and sediments close to the shore to layer over the marine layers, he said.

Parts of the Santa Monicas were previously a beach-type environment that eventually developed into sandstone that we see while out hiking, Celestian said.

As this geologic report on the Santa Monica Mountains points out, “Sediments that were deposited in marine settings millions of year (sic) ago now sit high in ridges and peaks of the park as a result of tectonic forces and the uplift.”

The sunset seen from the Ray Miller Backbone Trail in Point Mugu State Park.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

The Santa Monica Mountains were formed over millions of years through a process called “compression,” where tectonic plates force land upward, and tectonic folding, where the rock bends instead of breaking.

Celestian said the Santa Monica Mountains originally ran along the coastline, but “they started to rotate horizontally … [because] there’s a fault that actually rotated the Santa Monicas perpendicular.”

“They call them the Transverse Ranges because they got twisted,” he added.

Because of the diversity of our mountains and how they were formed, geologists (or lucky hikers) might find surprising micro-environments with unexpected minerals.

One way these can be formed is through the cooling process of a magma chamber. “It’s releasing lots of water, and that water is like a convection cell, and it circulates through it, and it concentrates metals in various areas. So you can get these little pockets of random crystals that you’ve never seen before because of how the water cooled,” deep underground, Celestian said.

While out hiking recently in the Santa Monica Mountains, he found lots of invertebrate fossils at the top of a mountain. And then he found a “huge pocket of quartz underneath a tree” with nothing else around it, likely due to a geological process that developed a micro-environment.

A close look at a tourmaline on feldspar on display at the “Unearthed: Raw Beauty” exhibit at the Natural History Museum.

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)

What types of minerals might we notice while hiking in the San Gabriels?

As you hike in the San Gabriels, you may notice striations in rock walls, like large white rock with little black veins. That was likely a quartz-rich rock with mica, a flaky, “very glittery” mineral that will resemble the texture of eye shadow, Leftwich said.

“When it’s black, it’s biotite, and when it’s purple, it’s lepidolite,” Leftwich said, adding there are several other types of mica.

If lucky, hikers might observe pegmatite, which is essentially a rock with large crystals forming within it, she said.

Leftwich said the pegmatite on display at the museum could have been in a cooling magma chamber or a similar environment. The large hunk of rock — visitors are encouraged to touch it — features large plates called albite or cleavelandite, which are types of feldspar, a group of minerals “distinguished by the presence of alumina and silica in their chemistry,” according to Minerals Education Coalition.

Celestian said the reason that hikers might observe a lot of quartz, feldspar and mica in the San Gabriel Mountains is because the range is “mostly like old basement volcano rocks.”

“It was like magma chambers that cooled down deep in the earth, and over time, that got pushed up to the surface, and that’s what we have in the San Gabriels and surrounding mountains,” he said.

A tourmaline on quartz on display at the “Unearthed: Raw Beauty” exhibit. The piece is from the tourmaline King Mine in San Diego County and is estimated to be 100 million years old.

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)

Are there any tools I can carry as a hiker to help me identify rocks?

Celestian has tested apps that claim to be able to identify rocks and has found they’re correct only about 10% to 15% of the time.

“A lizard is going to have the same morphology every single time. A bird is going to have the same morphology every single time. A mineral is not,” Celestian said.

Hence why it’s so hard to develop an app. Calcite, he said, can grow in hundreds of different forms, making it near impossible for an app to recognize it just by using a phone’s camera.

Still, the best tool for beginners is your phone’s camera because you can take photos of the rock in question for later research.

Taking pictures and “just trying to figure out your environment is really exciting,” Celestian said. “It matters a lot because all of the resources that we have available to us today came from the earth, and knowing more about how that came about, how much time it takes to create these things, adds a different perspective of Earth’s resources and how we appreciate them.”

A pegmatite rock on display at “Unearthed: Raw Beauty.” Attendees are allowed to touch and interact with the rock as part of the exhibit.

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)

To take the most useful images for mineral identification, I’d recommend reading the rock key from the Mineralogical Society of America before heading out. It will help you understand the types of pictures you need to take (especially since on our public lands, you’ll be leaving the rock where you found it).

For example, the first question on the rock key is, “Is the rock made of crystal grains? (Does it have a lot of flat, shiny faces — maybe tiny to small — that reflect light like little mirrors? You may need to use a magnifier.)” To answer that question, you’d want to ensure you captured those characteristics in your photographs.

A piece of gold stands on on display at “Unearthed: Raw Beauty.” The piece is from the Mother Lode District in El Dorado County.

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)

How can a hiker learn more about our local geology?

One of my biggest takeaways from my conversations with Celestian and Leftwich was our local geology varies widely, and thus, there’s a lot to learn. But that complexity opens up a great opportunity to find community.

You can join one of several local geology groups where hopefully you’ll find not only knowledge but also new friends. And for anyone wanting to dive a little deeper, there are local caving groups like the SoCal Grotto, which teaches its members how to explore safely and responsibly, along with hosting experts at its meetings where members learn about a range of earth science topics.

A final thought

“Look under the rock before you pick it up — because of spiders and snakes,” Celestian said.

3 things to do

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

1. Celebrate New Year’s Day hiking around L.A.
California State Parks will host its annual First Day Hikes on Jan. 1 at more than 60 of its parks, including across L.A. At the Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park near Simi Valley, hikers can arrive by 11 a.m. for a stroll past its narrow canyons and hulking rocks. Mount San Jacinto State Park will host a snowshoeing hike at 11 a.m. for hikers willing to take the tram up. Or if you’re perhaps feeling like a later start, Malibu Creek State Park will host a guided night hike at 5 p.m., where hikers will trek under an almost full moon. Learn more, including how to register, at parks.ca.gov.

2. Nurture native plants in Agoura
National Park Service and Santa Monica Mountains Fund need volunteers from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday to restore native plants around Cheeseboro Canyon. Participants will plant hundreds of live plants grown from locally collected seed. Register at eventbrite.com.

3. Capture the sunset in Borrego Springs
The Anza-Borrego Foundation will host photographer Paulette Donnellon to teach a sunset photography class from 1:30 to 6:30 p.m. Jan. 3 at the park. Donnellon will share tips on how to shoot wildlife and landscapes before leading students into the desert for both golden hour and “blue hour” just after sunset. The class is $100. Register at theabf.org.

The must-read

Joseph Brambila vanished on Mt. Whitney in early November. This image is from a previous climb in the summer of 2025.

(Joseph Brambila)

Like many Southern California hikers, 21-year-old southeast L.A. County resident Joseph Brambila had fallen in love with Mt. Whitney. Only a four-hour drive north of L.A. to its trailhead, Mt. Whitney is the nation’s tallest mountain outside of Alaska. In early November, Brambila was reported missing, his last known location being Mt. Whitney. Times staff writer Jack Dolan spoke to Brambila’s family about the budding alpinist, highlighting what kept Brambila coming back to the mountain. “He always said he loves to disconnect from the real world,” his girlfriend, Darlene Molina, said. “He just wanted to be out there and enjoy life. … It was just him, nature, and God.” On Monday, the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office announced it had recovered the body of a young male hiker that fit the description of Brambila. He is the second person believed to have died near a steep, icy section of trail known as the 99 Switchbacks.

In reading Dolan’s story, I felt like I got a brief glimpse into the excitement and love that Brambila carried with him into the mountains. It’s an energy we can all relate to, one that keeps us returning for more.

Happy, safe adventuring,

P.S.

This is the final Wild for 2025. If you’d like to catch up on all we’ve covered, head over to our archives or my author page. The most-read Wild of the year was this piece about Austin Nicassio, founder of Accessible Off-Road, a nonprofit aimed at bringing off-road mobility devices to parks and trails around L.A. If you’re reading this as an email, consider replying and letting me know what you’d like to see more of. Yes, I read your last emails and I do plan to write more in 2026 about hikes in Orange and Ventura County. I love hearing from you and I cannot thank you enough for your support of The Wild. Happy holidays, friends!

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.