The Growing Lawlessness in California’s Forests

On the day of the kidnapping, the campground at Gumboot Lake happened to be nearly empty, so Joseph Charles Henrichsen was one of the only people to see the two Forest Service biologists pull up in their pickup truck. Federal employees didn’t visit all that much—campers who’d been coming to the small alpine lake for years told me they’d never seen a ranger on patrol in these Northern California woods. But some of the regulars had noticed the “frog people,” as one called them, quietly collecting…