In the summer of 1972 I was a sixteen. I don’t hold many illusions about what some call the innocence of that era, but it was different from today in ways that are perhaps unimaginable to teenagers today.
It was the post-hippie era and I had been steeped in all those hyperbolic exaggerations that seem so over-the-top now. I was enamored with Hesse and Kerouac, Ed Abbey and John Steinbeck.
I adored Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums and was up for a mountaineering adventure that summer. So three of my friends and I set out across the Los Angeles Basin in my buddy’s throughly spent 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air. This was the kind of car you could buy back then for fifty bucks. It took all day and the poor, tired beast labored up The Idyllwild Forest Highway into the San Jacinto Mountains. The compression was so bad, my friend’s foot was usually on the floorboards.
We were fortified with a large “lid” of Mexican weed. As others have noted, this was not like the manicured seedless female buds carefully bred for potency you might purchase from a dispensary today. This stuff came in pressed kilo “bricks.” It was grown indiscriminately with male plants and female plants that had gone to seed. Then the entire plant, stems, seed, leaves and anything else lying around (rocks, dirt, trash - I even heard of a tennis shoe once) were mercilessly smashed into 2.2 pound brick. Even after all the detritus had been removed this stuff was not very potent.
The poor Bel Air had to be rested and cooled in turnouts on the incline. “Let’s turnout to see how we turn out!” Never failed to crack us up. It was a low bar. But the moon was nearing full and massive cumulus thunderheads loomed silvery over the summits and getting out of the car and walking around was a treat. We weren’t in any hurry. We would just “rrrrrrrrrooooooooooooooolllllllllllll… …another one.”
The next morning we set out from Humber Park with gear that would astound today’s ultralight backpacker. Our kits consisted of whatever sporting goods we could co-opt from the family garage. Internal frame packs? Forget about it. More like canvas “Yucca Packs” with shoulder straps that did their best to separate your arm from your torso. Metal WWII surplus canteens. Canned goods. Air mattresses that were actually designed as pool toys and usually left you flat on the ground before midnight. Flannel sleeping bags with pictures of game birds or cowboys & Indians on the lining. Tube tents. Ah, tube tents! They were just plastic tubes held up with clothesline. If it ever actually rained, one just retreated further into the tube as the mouth of the tube got wetter and wetter. I once shared a tube tent with a friend who put his head out the other end. One rainy night we realized we were sunk when we passed each other in the middle, trying in vain to seek any remaining dryness.
Yet, regardless, our intrepid band of pranksters made it up to Taquitz Meadow and pitched our humble camp. The monsoon cumulus stacked up over the summits, billowing into Joni’s “ice cream castles in the air.” Luck was with us on this expedition - we never experienced Ms. Mitchell’s other “side” of this phenomena.
The next day we set out for Taquitz Peak. These were the days when you could still go all day up in a place like the San Jacinto Wilderness and never see another soul. When we made the summit we found that the fire lookout was manned by a character that was Japhy Ryder or Cody Pomeray to me.
The clouds danced an intricate ballet around the tower as our ranger/lookout put on classical music an an FM station.
Nobody else visited the tower that day so we broke out the Mexican and he contributed a bottle of wine to the party. Can you imagine? I’m sure the statute of limitations has expired on what he would probably be hauled off for today, but, man, was that ever fun! It was a day I will forever cherish. Before we left, our new-found friend initiated the four of us into The Ancient and Honorable Order of Squirrels.
I left with the strong desire to become a fire lookout myself someday, a desolation angel.
Sadly the practical aspects of the program were discontinued shortly thereafter. Only a few token active fire lookouts remain. Most of the towers have been either abandoned, destroyed in fire or demolished.
All this was long before I got my amateur radio license, and even longer before I discovered the SOTA program. Two years ago I returned to Taquitz Peak to activate it. I was pleased to discover that Taquitz is one of the lookouts that remains. Ranger May was a bit puzzled when I asked if he had my Squirrel Card. He told me that they usually only handed them out to kids, but he obliged a 68 year old anyway. A young couple from Germany heard my request and also asked to be inducted into The Ancient and Honorable Order of Squirrels.
