[pct-l] Re: marajuana

[mt2mt at sbcglobal.net (David Frederck)]

This summer, along the PCT I was trying to identify a
thru hiker
to the group at Kennedy Meadows. I tried to remember
some
distinguishing feature and remember he smoked
cigarettes.
So I said, "He smokes!"
The reply was, "EVERYONE smokes."
"Cigarettes," says I.
"OH..... " 

I guess if your gonna demand the stuff,
someone's gonna have to supply it.


(I included all the text below 
because some readers like it that way)


All kidding aside...

This summer I hitched down into Trout Lake.  I'd spent
the night at a 
gorgeous camp (near a bridge over a really excellently
flowing creek).  
I'd set up my SD ultralightyear and was enjoying
snacking on dinner 
when 
a couple old guys (I'm 53 and they were at least 55,
but they looked 
it!!!) cruised into camp and set up 15' from me. 

One of the things that I hate when doing a long hike
is having to camp 
with someone else around.  there are all sorts of
social obligations 
that come along with camping in close proximity that
I'm simply not 
interested in.  When I get to camp I go to bed, eat,
read, and fall 
asleep.  Socializing is not my forte in camp on the
trail.

I remember finding a camp at a spring somewhere in in
southern 
washington or northern oregon and setting up and
drying clothes and 
getting warm.  I went to bed and was half asleep when
Recess, Cedar and 
Skittles quietly made their way to the spring and
camp.  They set up, 
got in their tents, wrote in their journals by
artifical light, and 
went 
to sleep. 

I got up the next morning at dawn and was on the trail
before first 
light, and felt almost parental as I light-stepped by
their tents, only 
a couple feet away, to get back to the trail.  We all
marvelled later 
when we met at Ramona Falls or some place like that
they hadn't 
bothered 
me and I hadn't bothered them.  This is the
rock-bottom-base-line of 
sharing on the trail.  What else happens happens... 

What's funny is that Monty and Dave - I forget his
trailname - walked 
by 
really involved in a conversation about where the
kickoff should be 
held.  I know that only a couple people on the list
have actually met 
WArner Springs Monty.  Genuiness and caring is what I
carried away from 
my couple short contacts with him. 

At another camp - Lava Spring in Oregon - I was in
bed, reading, having 
already eaten and ready to conk out by seven, when a
couple and their 
little dog descended the trail from the south,
wandered around, and set 
up not 30' from me.  There were countless flat spots
where they would 
have been out of sight/mind.  But no, they set up so
that I could hear 
every word. 

The guy had had a rough day, and was moaning,
literally.  His 
girlfriend 
had the kind of voice where she was used to coping
with his personality 
that was so patronizing I about barfed as I lay in my
tent trying to 
ignore them.  This was the only time I got pissed on
the trail this 
summer.  This couple had no sense of the world outside
their pain and 
weird relationship.  (I hope they're not on the
listserv!!!)

I am an earlier riser on the trail and was long gone
before the old 
guys 
woke up.  I got to Road 88 about 6:30 and began to
hitchhike.  What was 
funny is that there were no cars to put my thumb in
front of and shame 
into stopping to pick me up.  I spent two hours
standing by the side of 
the road, watching the sun get higher in the sky and
no one came by.  
No 
one. 

I began to walk toward Trout Lake, 12 miles down the
road.  I figured 
this would be a good time to see just how fast I walk
on even surfaces.  
I walk three miles an hour. (What's amazing to me, is
this is the pace 
I 
hike at on the regular PCT grade)  I would have
arrived in Trout Lake 
sometime around 1PM. 

Hiking on the road is different from hiking on the
trail.  There were 
mileage signs for one, so I could see how many minutes
it took me to go 
a mile - generally about 19.  I was so conscious, so
awake and aware 
within the act of walking I had to cope with heart
palpitations.  
Super-consciousness in the moment tends to slow time
down and when 
you're walking, this is not a desireable feature of
living!!!  This was 
a microcosm of what I was experiencing on the trail, a
sense of 
elongation, that all I was doing was putting one foot
in front of the 
other, heading to???  High anxiety... 

I noticed that Busch beer was the beer of choice of
those who threw 
their cans out of their pickups. Coors was a close
second, with 
Budlight 
a close third.  I just wish that there had been
pickups driving by.  
 From the time I left the intersection of the trail
with the road and 
when I was finally picked up, nine miles down the
road, seven cars had 
passed.  Most had swerved to avoid hitting me.  I
particularly remember 
the face of one old guy with a big gut who had to
"work" to turn the 
wheel so that he entered the other lane to avoid me on
the non-existent 
shoulder, brush pushing me into the traffic lane.  His
effort was 
heroic, and I thanked him. 

Speaking of big guts...

I've gained most of the weight back I lost while
hiking for 700 miles.  
One of the differences I noticed when I was down to
235 pounds was that 
when I leaned over while sitting down to tie my shoes
I no longer tied 
them so the knot was on the inside.  I figure that fat
people, like me 
:-)  can't really lean over and tie their shoes from
the top down.  We 
need to lean over and reach our laces and tie our
shoes so that the 
knot 
is is on the INSIDE of our shoes.  This bugged me for
the first month 
of 
hiking.  When I got down in weight and was able to sit
on a log and 
lean 
over and tie my shoes so the knot was on the outside,
I felt so 
fulfilled....  When I'm hyperaware I find myself
looking at people's 
shoes to see where the knot is.  I generally affirm my
hypothesis - fat 
people tie their shoes so the knots are on the inside
of the shoe... 

I'd about given up getting a ride.  I'd hiked by a
part of the road, 
three miles outside of Trout Lake, where they were
logging the 100 yard 
wide strip left to shield tourists from the ravages of
clearcutting.  I 
walked by the machine that does everything.  He
stopped his operation 
while I walked by on the road.  I felt like he was
honoring me when I 
knew that it was insurance requirements that
determined what he did.  
His cab was blacked out with sunscreening, and I knew
he was air 
conditioned.  It was ugly, really, really ugly...

Finally, a fellow in a old Bronco with no roof
stopped.  He had long 
gray hair and beard.  I damn near stumbled into his
car with thanks to 
a 
larger reality.  And there, lo and behold, was Warner
Springs Monty.  
He 
was hitching into Trout Lake to resupply as well.  WE
shared a bit of 
our experience and headed our different directions
when we got into 
Trout Lake. 

One of the things I would change about hiking this
summer is how much 
time I spent with people.  I tended to avoid them.  I
liked the two 
hour 
talk and that's it.  I stayed away from "The Wave"
pretty well.  I was 
out to deal with my own demons, which I knew couldn't
be seen, met, and 
dealt with if I were in a group of people.  i wasn't
out on the trail 
to 
hike from A to B.  I was there to let my own demons
emerge and see what 
they looked like.  Most people were out to simply hike
the trail. 

I think the next time I do a long walk - perhaps next
summer!!! - I 
want 
to see if the loose confederation model will work for
me.  My  ultimate 
dream is to find a woman that likes to hike as much as
I.  I found one 
in the early 90s, and we spend 30 days on the PCT,
Lassen to South 
Tahoe, before I blew out an ACL.  Not a loose
confederation, but the 
deepening of a relationship, the 24/7 contact and
physical/emotional 
pain - the experience that builds relationships... 

I kept wanting to ask the honeymooners/newlyweds (they
never became 
individuals for me) what was going on with them.   The
boat people were 
removed, in their own world.  I loved talking with
Stick-girl and Bump.  
They helped me leave the trail for good, or at least a
month...

I met one couple an hour from the end of their
thru-hike and I was a 
stranger.  I empathized, felt, sympathized,
celebrated, etc.  They 
simply looked at my response as a validation, minor
albeit...

The experience of hiking as a couple is not to be
exceeded, at least in 
my experience. 

The old Bronco without a top arrived in Trout Lake and
dropped Monty 
and 
me off at the store.  I headed over to the post office
and picked up my 
resupply package.  I found a concrete wall behind the
post office and 
culled and added and groaned and got real.  The real
part was that I 
wasn't going to hike from there to the border.  I was
going to 
hitchhike 
to Cascade Locks.  That felt good. 

Once I had my food packed and ready to go I walked to
the burger joint 
near the Y.  A couple 20 something guys, dirty,
skinny, with packs, 
were 
there with pints and burgers.  I sat down and a
beautiful young woman 
came out and took my order.  She was primally aware of
the two guys, 
and 
they were in damn near worship space.  Nothing was
said - it was all 
visuals...

The two guys and I started talking and over the next
half hour I went 
from the status of being some old guy to a peer.  The
fellow who did 
most of the talking was a brewmaster from a brewery
that was one of the 
few in the northwest that made organic India Pale Ale
(my beer of 
choice!).  I'd order a couple beers and was slowly
mellowing as we 
talked.  When all our food was done and we'd done
telling our stories, 
the brewmaster, assistant actually, asked if I wanted
to move over into 
the willows by the creek that ran by the burger joint
and get high. 

I was so honored.  I'm 53.  This guy was 25.  He saw
his way across the 
age divide to offer to share getting high.  This was
about 1PM or so, 
and my day had been long already.  I wanted to hitch
to the Gorge and 
find a motel room and let my body heal.  I hadn't
smoked pot in a 
while, 
and knew that hitchhiking while high on pot at 53
would have been like 
hitching on LSD when I was 23. 

I thanked the guy, ruing that I was so small/uptight
in my way at that 
moment.  In retrospect, being really high on good pot
wouldn't have 
made 
a whit of difference to my getting to Cascade Locks. 
I might have been 
a little more paranoid, but the rides would have been
the same... 

So, the end of the story is that illegal marijuana is
everywhere, and 
each of us has to make a choice in regards to our use
of it. 

Jeffrey Olson
Martin, SD

National Parks' Pot Farms Blamed on Cartels 

Mexican drug lords find it easier to  grow in state
than import 

by Zachary Coile 
San Francisco Chronicle - November 18,  2005 
Hikers in national parks such as  Yosemite and
Sequoia-Kings Canyon are 
encountering a danger more hazardous than  bears:
illegal marijuana 
farms run by 
Mexican drug cartels and protected by  booby traps and
guards carrying 
AK-47s.  
National Park Service officials  testified in Congress
on Thursday that 
illegal drug production in national  parks, forests
and other federal 
lands had 
grown into a multibillion-dollar  business in recent
years -- mostly 
concentrated 
in California.  
"These activities threaten our  employees, visitors
and our mission of 
protecting some of the nation's most  prized natural
and cultural 
resources," Karen 
Taylor-Goodrich, the National Park  Service's
associate director for 
visitor 
and resource protection, told the House  Resources
Subcommittee on 
National 
Parks.  
Last year, National Park Service  officers seized
about 60,000 
marijuana 
plants, with an estimated street value of  $240
million, from parks in 
California. 
About 44,000 pot plants were removed  from Sequoia
National Park near 
California's Central Valley. Another 10,000  plants
were seized in 
Yosemite National 
Park.  
The Park Service also has found pot  farms and other
drug trafficking 
activities in the Santa Monica Mountains  National
Recreation Area and 
the 
Whiskeytown National Recreation Area in Shasta  County
as well as two 
Bay Area parks: 
the Golden Gate National Recreation Area  and Point
Reyes National 
Seashore.  
The increasing use of national parks  and other public
lands for 
illegal pot 
farming is part of a major shift in the  marijuana
trade. Ten years 
ago, 
almost all of the state's pot was grown in the 
"Emerald Triangle," an 
area 
encompassing Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity  counties
in Northern 
California, law 
enforcement officials said.  
But Mexican drug cartels now are  seizing on the
state's mild climate 
and 
vast stretches of remote lands to set up  pot farms
across California. 
Tightened 
security on the U.S.-Mexico border has  also convinced
many drug gangs 
it is 
easier to grow marijuana in the state than  to smuggle
it into the 
country.  
Park service officials said the drug  cartels took
extreme measures to 
protect their plants, which can be worth $4,000  each.
Growers have 
been known to 
set up booby traps with shotguns. Guards armed  with
knives and 
military-style 
weapons have chased away hikers at gunpoint. In  2002,
a visitor to 
Sequoia was 
briefly detained by a drug grower, who threatened  to
harm him if he 
told 
authorities the pot farm's secret location.  
During a raid of an illegal pot farm in  Santa Clara
County in June, a 
California Fish and Game officer was wounded and a 
suspect shot and 
killed.  
"In prior years, guards used to flee  from Park
Service law enforcement 
but 
now stand their ground with leveled guns  using
intimidation tactics," 
Laura 
Whitehouse, the Central Valley program  manager for
the National Parks 
Conservation Association, told the committee.  
The illicit pot farms can also cause  environmental
damage. Growers 
often cut 
trees, dig ditches, create crude dams on  streams, and
haul in plastic 
hoses 
and other equipment to irrigate the plants. 
Fertilizers and other 
chemicals 
used by growers pollute watersheds and kill  native
species. Last year, 
the 
Park Service spent $50,000 to clean up tons of 
litter, debris and 
human waste at 
pot farms that were discovered or abandoned.  
Congress approved a slight increase in  funding for
Park Service law 
enforcement for next year, $3.6 million, $746,000  of
it for drug 
eradication efforts 
in California parks. But federal and state  officials
say they still 
lack the 
money and personnel to patrol vast areas in  and
around the state's 
parks.  
"It's a $2 billion or a $4 billion  problem, and we're
throwing $1 
million at 
it," said Supervisor Allen Ishida of  Tulare County,
whose deputies 
seized 
157,000 pot plants on public and private  lands and
made 28 arrests 
this year.  
Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., the chairman  of the
national parks 
subcommittee, 
said it would be tough to find more money in  the
federal budget as 
Congress 
deals with rising deficits and is considering  cutting
many programs. 
He urged 
the Park Service to put more officers on drug 
eradication instead of 
"writing 
parking tickets."  
Donald Coelho, the Park Service's chief  of law
enforcement, agreed 
that more 
money was not the only solution. He said a 
coordinated strategy by 
state, 
federal and local law enforcement officials 
ultimately could put a 
dent in the 
Mexican cartels' operations.  
"Sometimes it takes time to work your  way through an
organization," 
Coelho 
said.  
State narcotics officers and the Drug  Enforcement
Administration 
seized a 
record 1.1 million pot plants on public and  private
lands in 
California this 
year, up from 621,000 plants last year, through  an
aggressive campaign 
called 
CAMP, or Campaign Against Marijuana Planting. The 
street value of 
those drugs 
is estimated at $4.5 billion.  
But state and federal officials said  drug growers
were adapting 
quickly -- 
for example, planting smaller pot farms  that are
tougher to spot from 
surveillance planes and helicopters. Some growers 
have responded to 
drug raids in 
Sequoia and other parks by moving their farms to 
nearby Forest Service 
or Bureau 
of Land Management lands.  
Without a more comprehensive plan, "we are just
shifting the  problem 
from 
one jurisdiction to another," Ishida said.  
 (http://www.sfgate.com/)