7 ms·

Remembering the time it rained 6k pounds of marijuana on Yosemite (2019)

143 points by kyleblarson 5y ago

WalterGR 5y ago
(2019)
- dang 5y ago
  Added. Thanks!
dfsegoat 5y ago
My parents were park rangers at Yosemite when this happened. They said for the next 5-6 months, the trail clearing crews - who first came across the spilled cargo - were continuously in a verrrry good mood.
- dver 5y ago
  My dad was the AV tech around then. Similar stories. There was also a t-shirt with tail sticking out of the water, with a caption of "I got mine at..."
  - ajkjk 5y ago
    yeah, there's a picture in the article
mtnGoat 5y ago
rumor has it the ganja hauled out and sold back in Berkley partially financed the startup costs of a number of now large outdoor equipment companies. as well as trips to europe for american climbers to climb in the alps and really step up their knowledge and skills.
- twalla 5y ago
  Some more background here: Yvonne Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, is one of the "Dirtbags" mentioned in the article - I can't recommend the documentary (the trailer is also in the article) Valley Uprising enough.
  - elevaet 5y ago
    I met a gringo in Mexico who told me this long tale of a smuggling plane that had crashed in Yosemite, and how he and other climbers would hike up there to haul weed out, and how this funded many adventures and climbers at the time. He also mentioned that he was good friends with Chouinard. I wasn't completely sure he wasn't making it all up, but the story checks out more and more...
    - gameswithgo 5y ago
      Yeah, sometimes the implausible stories are real. During a high school field trip to MIT, our guide saw a helicopter leaving campus, and he said it was probably his friend who goes to vegas to count cards and makes millions. Sure, I thought, sure. Then later books and movies came out about it, and the timing checks out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team
  - pluies 5y ago
    Just a nitpick: it's Yvon Chouinard, Yvonne being the feminine version of this first name.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    also 'Camp Four'
mypalmike 5y ago
That site is more cancerous than most, at least on mobile. Popups over popups, brings up the keyboard for some reason, blocks back navigation... I gave up trying to read it.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  Try turning off javascript, maybe using an extension like NoScript.
- FractalHQ 5y ago
  iOS Reader Mode is a godsend in these situations
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  Looks fine in mobile safari using the Wipr content blocker, I didn’t see any ads.
- deepsun 5y ago
  Firefox Mobile has "reader mode" button right at the URL box.
Digit-Al 5y ago
That title makes no sense whatsoever. In what way did it "rain marijuana"?
- samtheprogram 5y ago
  Metaphorically. Clever as it came down into Yosemite via a plane falling out of the sky. Although, yes, it’s a bit of tongue-in-cheek clickbait.
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  It fell from the sky. Also, people were able to pick it up out of a lake after it fell. Those are pretty rain-like attributes, and not often associated with packaged marijuana. Yes, it happened to be inside a crashing drug-running airplane as it fell, rather than precipitating from a cloud of water vapor, but that's a minor detail.
  - awb 5y ago
    To be fair, what happened doesn't meet the definition of "rain": https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rain https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rain The closest would be: "a heavy fall // a rain of arrows", but even that implies multiple things coming down over an area, not a single plane crashing. And all the weed was in close proximity to the plane, not like it was being dumped out as the plane flew overhead and spread out over a large area. It's semantics, but the headline definitely makes you think that a storm is raining down weed when that's not at all what happened.
    - scoopertrooper 5y ago
      https://literaryterms.net/literary-device/ https://literaryterms.net/literary-device/
- cracker-news 5y ago
  > That title makes A title "making" something? A title can't make anything! That is just not logical.
KoftaBob 5y ago
What on earth is this trash website? For a supposedly enlightened community, HN sure seems to happily upvote low quality clickbait headlines that are barely accurate.
- Judgmentality 5y ago
  Well, it fell from the sky into Yosemite. I feel like it's an appropriate headline, even if it's not literally true.
  - awb 5y ago
    I don't know, I was disappointed by the title. "Crashed" would have made more sense than "rained". I was waiting for the part where a storm rained the weed all over the valley, but that didn't happen.
    - quantified 5y ago
      More of one big marijuana hailstone.
- hluska 5y ago
  I don't know friend, Yosemite climbers in the 1970s were really amazing hackers. They didn't have anywhere near the level of equipment available today but innovated in some key areas. As an example, Yvon Chouinard (one of the Dirtbags referenced in the article) founded Patagonia. One of his biggest innovations was recognizing that some of the equipment his first company manufactured damaged rock, so they invented some new tech, leading to a patent on Hexentrics in 1974. Here are some references: - https://patents.google.com/patent/US3948485 https://patents.google.com/patent/US3948485 - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/19/patagonias-philosopher-king https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/19/patagonias-phi...
  - snowwrestler 5y ago
    Chouinard founded both Black Diamond (called Chouinard equipment at the time) and Patagonia. He sold the hardware business to the employees when he didn’t want to deal with the liability anymore, and they renamed it Black Diamond. He kept Patagonia which was a safer business and grew faster. Patagonia popularized polyester fleece and long underwear among climbers and skiers. Tom Frost was a Stanford-trained engineer who worked with Chouinard to innovate on ice axes, crampons, pitons, and yes the Hexentric. Royal Robbins was another big name in early Yosemite climbing and he started the eponymous outdoor clothing company. The Lowe brothers were well-known climbers in 60s and 70s and invented the internal-frame backpack and the modern padded outdoor camera bags, with their companies Lowe Alpine and Lowepro. Ray Jardine was an aerospace engineer who invented the spring loaded cam so he could protect the first 5.13 climb in Yosemite. He later invented a lot of the ultralight backpacking gear and techniques that are popular now (tennis shoes, tarps, quilts, etc) which he detailed in a guidebook to the Pacific Crest Trail. Not all these folks were in on the smuggler plane of course but yeah there was a ton of invention and innovation that came out of early climbing.
pmoriarty 5y ago
For more stories of pot in rural areas, I can recommend "Cows Are Freaky When They Look at You: An Oral History of the Kaw Valley Hemp Pickers"[1] [1] - https://www.amazon.com/Cows-Freaky-When-They-Look/dp/0922820139 https://www.amazon.com/Cows-Freaky-When-They-Look/dp/0922820...
perfect_wave 5y ago
I quite enjoyed this podcast about this time: https://open.spotify.com/episode/69ec4DsblB3utgO1PEkLOh?si=332de4084c074f91 https://open.spotify.com/episode/69ec4DsblB3utgO1PEkLOh?si=3... Also can't recommend the documentary Valley Uprising enough.
pcardoso 5y ago
Nice read. Reminds me of a similar story about cocaine and the Azores. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/10/blow-up-how-half-a-tonne-of-cocaine-transformed-the-life-of-an-island https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/10/blow-up-how-...
snowwrestler 5y ago
John Long wrote a great story about this, which got optioned and eventually became the movie Cliffhanger.
- stickfigure 5y ago
  I remember seeing that movie in the 90s, it was terrible. Ripe for MST3K terrible.
iainctduncan 5y ago
In John Long's recount (who was a dirtbag) the beginning was even more interesting... apparently someone's girlfriend worked a switchboard and overhead a call about it, mentioned this, and someone else knew the plane type mentioned was a frequent smuggler plane, kicking off the search. Can't remember which book he writes about it in, but it's a great story!
8bitsrule 5y ago
This 2005 (claimed to be from Mountain Gazette in the late 70s) repro includes some hiker nostalgia. http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic%20id=68674 http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic%20id=6867... More discussion: [http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/topic/1178/gonew/1 http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/to...]
fnord77 5y ago
in the comments section > ... Those photos are mine and yet no one contacted me for any information.
- Agentlien 5y ago
  I saw the same thing. I was going to upvote this link but changed my mind due to that detail. It's an interesting story, but I don't want to promote a website which uses photos without consent from the author.

143 points by kyleblarson 5y ago

WalterGR 5y ago

(2019)

dang 5y ago
Added. Thanks!

dfsegoat 5y ago

My parents were park rangers at Yosemite when this happened. They said for the next 5-6 months, the trail clearing crews - who first came across the spilled cargo - were continuously in a verrrry good mood.

dver 5y ago
My dad was the AV tech around then. Similar stories. There was also a t-shirt with tail sticking out of the water, with a caption of "I got mine at..."
- ajkjk 5y ago
  yeah, there's a picture in the article

mtnGoat 5y ago

rumor has it the ganja hauled out and sold back in Berkley partially financed the startup costs of a number of now large outdoor equipment companies. as well as trips to europe for american climbers to climb in the alps and really step up their knowledge and skills.

twalla 5y ago
Some more background here: Yvonne Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, is one of the "Dirtbags" mentioned in the article - I can't recommend the documentary (the trailer is also in the article) Valley Uprising enough.
- elevaet 5y ago
  I met a gringo in Mexico who told me this long tale of a smuggling plane that had crashed in Yosemite, and how he and other climbers would hike up there to haul weed out, and how this funded many adventures and climbers at the time. He also mentioned that he was good friends with Chouinard. I wasn't completely sure he wasn't making it all up, but the story checks out more and more...
  - gameswithgo 5y ago
    Yeah, sometimes the implausible stories are real. During a high school field trip to MIT, our guide saw a helicopter leaving campus, and he said it was probably his friend who goes to vegas to count cards and makes millions. Sure, I thought, sure. Then later books and movies came out about it, and the timing checks out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team
- pluies 5y ago
  Just a nitpick: it's Yvon Chouinard, Yvonne being the feminine version of this first name.
- dekhn 5y ago
  also 'Camp Four'

mypalmike 5y ago

That site is more cancerous than most, at least on mobile. Popups over popups, brings up the keyboard for some reason, blocks back navigation... I gave up trying to read it.

pmoriarty 5y ago
Try turning off javascript, maybe using an extension like NoScript.
FractalHQ 5y ago
iOS Reader Mode is a godsend in these situations
quickthrowman 5y ago
Looks fine in mobile safari using the Wipr content blocker, I didn’t see any ads.
deepsun 5y ago
Firefox Mobile has "reader mode" button right at the URL box.

Digit-Al 5y ago

That title makes no sense whatsoever. In what way did it "rain marijuana"?

samtheprogram 5y ago
Metaphorically. Clever as it came down into Yosemite via a plane falling out of the sky. Although, yes, it’s a bit of tongue-in-cheek clickbait.
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
It fell from the sky. Also, people were able to pick it up out of a lake after it fell. Those are pretty rain-like attributes, and not often associated with packaged marijuana. Yes, it happened to be inside a crashing drug-running airplane as it fell, rather than precipitating from a cloud of water vapor, but that's a minor detail.
- awb 5y ago
  To be fair, what happened doesn't meet the definition of "rain": https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rain https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rain The closest would be: "a heavy fall // a rain of arrows", but even that implies multiple things coming down over an area, not a single plane crashing. And all the weed was in close proximity to the plane, not like it was being dumped out as the plane flew overhead and spread out over a large area. It's semantics, but the headline definitely makes you think that a storm is raining down weed when that's not at all what happened.
  - scoopertrooper 5y ago
    https://literaryterms.net/literary-device/ https://literaryterms.net/literary-device/
cracker-news 5y ago
> That title makes A title "making" something? A title can't make anything! That is just not logical.

KoftaBob 5y ago

What on earth is this trash website? For a supposedly enlightened community, HN sure seems to happily upvote low quality clickbait headlines that are barely accurate.

Judgmentality 5y ago
Well, it fell from the sky into Yosemite. I feel like it's an appropriate headline, even if it's not literally true.
- awb 5y ago
  I don't know, I was disappointed by the title. "Crashed" would have made more sense than "rained". I was waiting for the part where a storm rained the weed all over the valley, but that didn't happen.
  - quantified 5y ago
    More of one big marijuana hailstone.
hluska 5y ago
I don't know friend, Yosemite climbers in the 1970s were really amazing hackers. They didn't have anywhere near the level of equipment available today but innovated in some key areas. As an example, Yvon Chouinard (one of the Dirtbags referenced in the article) founded Patagonia. One of his biggest innovations was recognizing that some of the equipment his first company manufactured damaged rock, so they invented some new tech, leading to a patent on Hexentrics in 1974. Here are some references: - https://patents.google.com/patent/US3948485 https://patents.google.com/patent/US3948485 - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/19/patagonias-philosopher-king https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/19/patagonias-phi...
- snowwrestler 5y ago
  Chouinard founded both Black Diamond (called Chouinard equipment at the time) and Patagonia. He sold the hardware business to the employees when he didn’t want to deal with the liability anymore, and they renamed it Black Diamond. He kept Patagonia which was a safer business and grew faster. Patagonia popularized polyester fleece and long underwear among climbers and skiers. Tom Frost was a Stanford-trained engineer who worked with Chouinard to innovate on ice axes, crampons, pitons, and yes the Hexentric. Royal Robbins was another big name in early Yosemite climbing and he started the eponymous outdoor clothing company. The Lowe brothers were well-known climbers in 60s and 70s and invented the internal-frame backpack and the modern padded outdoor camera bags, with their companies Lowe Alpine and Lowepro. Ray Jardine was an aerospace engineer who invented the spring loaded cam so he could protect the first 5.13 climb in Yosemite. He later invented a lot of the ultralight backpacking gear and techniques that are popular now (tennis shoes, tarps, quilts, etc) which he detailed in a guidebook to the Pacific Crest Trail. Not all these folks were in on the smuggler plane of course but yeah there was a ton of invention and innovation that came out of early climbing.

pmoriarty 5y ago

For more stories of pot in rural areas, I can recommend "Cows Are Freaky When They Look at You: An Oral History of the Kaw Valley Hemp Pickers"[1] [1] - https://www.amazon.com/Cows-Freaky-When-They-Look/dp/0922820139 https://www.amazon.com/Cows-Freaky-When-They-Look/dp/0922820...

perfect_wave 5y ago

I quite enjoyed this podcast about this time: https://open.spotify.com/episode/69ec4DsblB3utgO1PEkLOh?si=332de4084c074f91 https://open.spotify.com/episode/69ec4DsblB3utgO1PEkLOh?si=3... Also can't recommend the documentary Valley Uprising enough.

pcardoso 5y ago

Nice read. Reminds me of a similar story about cocaine and the Azores. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/10/blow-up-how-half-a-tonne-of-cocaine-transformed-the-life-of-an-island https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/10/blow-up-how-...

snowwrestler 5y ago

John Long wrote a great story about this, which got optioned and eventually became the movie Cliffhanger.

stickfigure 5y ago
I remember seeing that movie in the 90s, it was terrible. Ripe for MST3K terrible.

iainctduncan 5y ago

In John Long's recount (who was a dirtbag) the beginning was even more interesting... apparently someone's girlfriend worked a switchboard and overhead a call about it, mentioned this, and someone else knew the plane type mentioned was a frequent smuggler plane, kicking off the search. Can't remember which book he writes about it in, but it's a great story!

8bitsrule 5y ago

This 2005 (claimed to be from Mountain Gazette in the late 70s) repro includes some hiker nostalgia. http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic%20id=68674 http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic%20id=6867... More discussion: [http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/topic/1178/gonew/1 http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/to...]

fnord77 5y ago

in the comments section > ... Those photos are mine and yet no one contacted me for any information.

Agentlien 5y ago
I saw the same thing. I was going to upvote this link but changed my mind due to that detail. It's an interesting story, but I don't want to promote a website which uses photos without consent from the author.