Click on image to read Sheriff Baca's letter (PDF)

Read the full account of Brian's Account here

December, 2006 - Naturists scored a “significant local victory” last month when the Sheriff of Los Angeles County admitted in a letter “simple nudity in the unincorporated county area of the Angeles National Forest is not prohibited by law.”

The letter was dated November 8 and addressed to Allen Baylis, Naturist Action Committee Board member. It was written in reply to an inquiry by Baylis on behalf of a local nude hiker who had been harassed by a Forest Service technician.

The hiker, Brian K. of Altadena, had hiked nude around sunset for years on a remote mountain trail above his home. In a telephone call to SCNA, he said he occasionally met other hikers and Forest Service employees along the way, but had encountered no problems. “I always carry my shorts just in case, but nobody ever seemed to care.”

That is until October 23, when he encountered a FS employee who did care – enough to report the incident to the local sheriff station.

Brian said the sheriff’s staff issued a warning that if he was seen hiking nude again, they would come after him “with a helicopter, if necessary.”

The hiker then called AANR, who referred him to Debra Sue Stevens, who is the AANR-West government affairs chair, who, in turn, referred him to Baylis. Baylis, who is a California attorney, wrote a letter to the LA Sheriff’s Department on Brian’s behalf and pointed out that the Penal Code states that a person cannot be cited for indecent exposure unless the offender “willfully” exposes his/her private parts “where the intent is to offend or annoy” others. He also cited the California court case In re Smith where the state Supreme Court had established these rules.

On November 8, Baylis received a reply from a Captain J.L. Gutierrez, writing on behalf of Sheriff Leroy D Baca, admitting that Baylis was correct, stating, “Your client appears to be within his legal rights to hike in the forest in the nude.” The letter continued, “Altadena Station Deputies will be briefed that simply hiking nude in the forest is not a violation of the law.”

The Angeles National Forest covers more than 650,000 acres of the San Gabriel Mountains that run approximately from Mt. Wilson all the way to Big Bear.