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Old School Arizona
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I Fugging love It,,, a MicroGrow in a nursing Home. I assume He's a Resident. How COOL.
Peace n LOve; Twisted
Peace n LOve; Twisted
Madjag Canyon......the history
Madjag Canyon......the history
Yes, my friends....we had weekly visits in order to fire up the good old 5 H.P. Briggs&Stratton centrifugal pump.....
This remote alluvial flateau garden was tough in several senses:
• It was 80 feet above the creek on a little alluvial flat. The Briggs and Stratton pump maxed out at around 100 feet of head so the water flow was much less per hour than if the flat had been closer to the creek. On the positive side, being 80 feet above the water source meant that no hiker could accidentally walk near or through the garden when following the creek. In 5 years we only saw one set of prints going through the canyon. Only one because we purposefully never left prints in sand, dirt, or mud so that we could tell instantly if someone had been around in our absence.
• Lots of boulders with junipers and pinon pine for blending in new vegetation. Mesquite, too, which is lighter in color and has the same color tones as the Sacred Herb. The large boulders in the sandy, volcanic dirt meant a lot of excavating. Several giant chunks were VW-sized and blocked some of the better grow sites so we.......blew them up!
We bought a product called Kine-Pac for the job. It was a binary explosive meaning it had two parts that you mixed together when you were ready to use it: one part was an ammonia-based liquid in a hard plastic tube and the other part was some sort of powder in a metal-coated soft pack. You poured in the liquid and waited 10 minutes and then you essentially had dynamite. You also had to have a blasting cap to set it off after lighting a fuse. The two parts by themselves were harmless so I was able to buy it, in 1977 that is, without a permit or anything special for the authorities.
The blasting caps, because they explode by lighting a fuse that is inserted into the cap required I.D. and I had to sign a few papers. Ranchers who grow some of their own feed in the southwest use these packs for blasting tree stumps or boulders in their alfalfa fields. We tested it out in the empty desert near Bisbee and man the sound was like that of a jet breaking the sound barrier 100 above the deck. Bam! It blew chunks of that boulder about the size of truck batteries in all directions. Luckily we hid behind a large, 10 foot tall, above-ground boulder and watched a few chunks sail overhead……hahahaha.
Kids, what you gonna do with them ??
• The beginning of the 45 minute hike down into this canyon and to the grow flat was begun only after you first drove a 5 mile incredibly rough 4-wheel drive Jeep trail that took 2 hours minimum. When it rained on the upper mesa leading in the Jeep trail would turn into slime, coating the 4x4 tires of the Toyota Land Cruiser that we drove with 3 inches of grey-black mud. Sometimes we had no other option but to park and walk in that slime and our shoes weighed 3 pounds apiece just from mud and grass sticking to them.
Yes....we actually weighed them.
Add up all of these unique attributes and you get a pretty safe spot for guerrilla growing, especially from May to September when it was 90F - 105F. As I mentioned, we observed in over 5 years of weekly visitation only one set of footprints that passed through the canyon and ironically my partner accidentally picked him up hitchhiking in a nearby town. He was a young hippie with a good-sized backpack and shared tales with my partner while they drove about his hike of 3 days through this amazing remote canyon nearby.
What are the odds, you say, of meeting this guy, the very same guy, who was the only one to leave his footprints in our canyon over all those years? Hahahaha....one-in-a-million.
Still, like the lottery, you can't win if you don't play and if you do play you probably have a special mojo if you are this passionate about your trade. We did.........
Madjag Canyon......the history
Yes, my friends....we had weekly visits in order to fire up the good old 5 H.P. Briggs&Stratton centrifugal pump.....
This remote alluvial flateau garden was tough in several senses:
• It was 80 feet above the creek on a little alluvial flat. The Briggs and Stratton pump maxed out at around 100 feet of head so the water flow was much less per hour than if the flat had been closer to the creek. On the positive side, being 80 feet above the water source meant that no hiker could accidentally walk near or through the garden when following the creek. In 5 years we only saw one set of prints going through the canyon. Only one because we purposefully never left prints in sand, dirt, or mud so that we could tell instantly if someone had been around in our absence.
• Lots of boulders with junipers and pinon pine for blending in new vegetation. Mesquite, too, which is lighter in color and has the same color tones as the Sacred Herb. The large boulders in the sandy, volcanic dirt meant a lot of excavating. Several giant chunks were VW-sized and blocked some of the better grow sites so we.......blew them up!
We bought a product called Kine-Pac for the job. It was a binary explosive meaning it had two parts that you mixed together when you were ready to use it: one part was an ammonia-based liquid in a hard plastic tube and the other part was some sort of powder in a metal-coated soft pack. You poured in the liquid and waited 10 minutes and then you essentially had dynamite. You also had to have a blasting cap to set it off after lighting a fuse. The two parts by themselves were harmless so I was able to buy it, in 1977 that is, without a permit or anything special for the authorities.
The blasting caps, because they explode by lighting a fuse that is inserted into the cap required I.D. and I had to sign a few papers. Ranchers who grow some of their own feed in the southwest use these packs for blasting tree stumps or boulders in their alfalfa fields. We tested it out in the empty desert near Bisbee and man the sound was like that of a jet breaking the sound barrier 100 above the deck. Bam! It blew chunks of that boulder about the size of truck batteries in all directions. Luckily we hid behind a large, 10 foot tall, above-ground boulder and watched a few chunks sail overhead……hahahaha.
Kids, what you gonna do with them ??
• The beginning of the 45 minute hike down into this canyon and to the grow flat was begun only after you first drove a 5 mile incredibly rough 4-wheel drive Jeep trail that took 2 hours minimum. When it rained on the upper mesa leading in the Jeep trail would turn into slime, coating the 4x4 tires of the Toyota Land Cruiser that we drove with 3 inches of grey-black mud. Sometimes we had no other option but to park and walk in that slime and our shoes weighed 3 pounds apiece just from mud and grass sticking to them.
Yes....we actually weighed them.
Add up all of these unique attributes and you get a pretty safe spot for guerrilla growing, especially from May to September when it was 90F - 105F. As I mentioned, we observed in over 5 years of weekly visitation only one set of footprints that passed through the canyon and ironically my partner accidentally picked him up hitchhiking in a nearby town. He was a young hippie with a good-sized backpack and shared tales with my partner while they drove about his hike of 3 days through this amazing remote canyon nearby.
What are the odds, you say, of meeting this guy, the very same guy, who was the only one to leave his footprints in our canyon over all those years? Hahahaha....one-in-a-million.
Still, like the lottery, you can't win if you don't play and if you do play you probably have a special mojo if you are this passionate about your trade. We did.........
R
rbt
Madjag It looks to be about 5800 in elev. one more pic I think I can tell you where it is. I stayed out of the canyons instead built collectors in the draws and arroyos using gravity for irrigation. I guess it is like the days of old with bootleggers water was the first concern all others could be dealt with. Stayed in the Gila's and Blue's much more water. The areas in and around Cliff and Gila NM have been a growing mecca for years but most go east for market. By the sediment of rock it appears to be upper Salt lower Mogollon Rim. Did you ever try burros or drop pack? My 1st cousin was the Fish & Game warden in Upper Aravaipa Canyon Pima Thatcher side. I didn't want to mess with him SOB was the most ticket writer in the state for years even wrote himself a ticket for shooting the wrong kind of duck. I will bet he himself broke up thousands of grows. I remember a growers saving his butt breaking up bobby traps and once giving him cover fire with some militants AK7 toting self claimed paramilitary group from PHX. It appears the new stories now will be what the camera see's in grow rooms for the state tax collector and how to stuff green buds out of site from the MAN.
I applaud your tenacity in order to go there weekly quite the endeavor. In the day we could do 100 or better 10 to 15 plant grows and service them maybe 4 times a grow would lose about 25% for whatever reasons but mostly wildlife and grazing. Soil on those grows you pick was limited on size of plant? It looks like clandestine but limited in grow potential volume. I remember using some old explosive storage shafts built by the CCP or the WPA as drying places. curious what was the yield?
I applaud your tenacity in order to go there weekly quite the endeavor. In the day we could do 100 or better 10 to 15 plant grows and service them maybe 4 times a grow would lose about 25% for whatever reasons but mostly wildlife and grazing. Soil on those grows you pick was limited on size of plant? It looks like clandestine but limited in grow potential volume. I remember using some old explosive storage shafts built by the CCP or the WPA as drying places. curious what was the yield?
Wish the cameras werte better WAY back then. I just Love the high deserts of the S.W.
Man I wanna see HD pics. Guess I can shit in this hand and wish in the other, Huh?
Would love to Hike With One of Yo0u 0ld Mountain Goats. I could see plenty of cool shit on My own, but Y'all know right where all the truly amazing stuff is.
rbt I bet You pretty close,,, sheez guessing according to the geology.
That's the knowledge only gained from having been there, and done that.
Peace; 1TT
Man I wanna see HD pics. Guess I can shit in this hand and wish in the other, Huh?
Would love to Hike With One of Yo0u 0ld Mountain Goats. I could see plenty of cool shit on My own, but Y'all know right where all the truly amazing stuff is.
rbt I bet You pretty close,,, sheez guessing according to the geology.
That's the knowledge only gained from having been there, and done that.
Peace; 1TT
bunch o hippies playin with dynamite
bunch o hippies playin with dynamite
In '78 we had a hard rock gold claim in the bradshaws n. of crown king. Our view east off of the edge of our mtn ridge was sunset pt. and the mazatzals beyond. We had an existing shaft 100' deep. We set a level at 60' and drilled 18 holes packed em with sticks of weeping dynamite, blasting caps, and fuse. Lit 3 sets of fuses, middle,top, and bottom. Ran to the wooden ladder and climbed the 60' out and waited for the boom (boom boom).
In those daze we were tokin lumbo gold and buyin brown bags of buttons from Jerome. We had to pitch in on an oz. because the 35.00 lid was more than we could afford. I still wanna know how they cured their bud to get that uniform blond color, and the taste...(maybe tuna will clue us in).
peace out
bunch o hippies playin with dynamite
In '78 we had a hard rock gold claim in the bradshaws n. of crown king. Our view east off of the edge of our mtn ridge was sunset pt. and the mazatzals beyond. We had an existing shaft 100' deep. We set a level at 60' and drilled 18 holes packed em with sticks of weeping dynamite, blasting caps, and fuse. Lit 3 sets of fuses, middle,top, and bottom. Ran to the wooden ladder and climbed the 60' out and waited for the boom (boom boom).
In those daze we were tokin lumbo gold and buyin brown bags of buttons from Jerome. We had to pitch in on an oz. because the 35.00 lid was more than we could afford. I still wanna know how they cured their bud to get that uniform blond color, and the taste...(maybe tuna will clue us in).
peace out
In Iowa in the early 80's we got that Columbian Gold Too, some of the 1st weed I ever smoked. Neverdid, and still don't know how that shit was so yellow. Ya man play Frisbee for hours on that shit.
Good Times.
Twisted
Good Times.
Twisted
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Most Colombian that was uniform gold/yellow was mostly sun dried. The black lumbo, Punta Rojo red, or Mangobiche green were dried and cured differently.
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Yes, that is what I deduced as well, Madjag. I was down in Santa Marta and most of what we smoked was the gold and I think it was just bleached by the strong Colombian sun to get that color. It was good pot, but the Punta Rojo, which I had a couple times down there was stronger.
orangeade5
New member
Madjag I can't get enough reading your stories. I'm a summer mogollon rim adventurer and have always dreamed of having a few small sites spread about up there, and reading your stores over the past few weeks has had me looking like crazy and exploring new hikes. If only finding a decent water source in a remote location wasn't so tough, water just loves to attract people! It's hard to even find a stream or creek that isn't converted to a hiking trail! At least my indoor is always good to me or I'd be screwed when the temps hit 120!
Yep, the water attraction issue makes for extra-long drives and serious hikes in order to be isolated. Just make sure you're not near an archaeological site.
A friend once cultivated a little patch about 1000 feet below a canyon rim. As he was digging, the authorities posted above watching the archeological pueblo site that had been being looted, accidentally saw him coming and going (parking his truck) in the area.
When they looked into the canyon below, the two guys digging down there looked like two guys excavating and looting artifacts. My friend got back to his truck and 10 Sheriffs and Deputies and Forest Service archeological experts jumped on him, arrested him for looting, and then searched his pack.
Lo and behold, they discovered a big bottle of herb seeds and no artifacts. The head archeologist who had hair down to his waist in a braid looked at my friend and said, "Oh, no...." He probably was a stoner and was very sad to be busting some laid-back guerrilla growers.
Oh well......
A friend once cultivated a little patch about 1000 feet below a canyon rim. As he was digging, the authorities posted above watching the archeological pueblo site that had been being looted, accidentally saw him coming and going (parking his truck) in the area.
When they looked into the canyon below, the two guys digging down there looked like two guys excavating and looting artifacts. My friend got back to his truck and 10 Sheriffs and Deputies and Forest Service archeological experts jumped on him, arrested him for looting, and then searched his pack.
Lo and behold, they discovered a big bottle of herb seeds and no artifacts. The head archeologist who had hair down to his waist in a braid looked at my friend and said, "Oh, no...." He probably was a stoner and was very sad to be busting some laid-back guerrilla growers.
Oh well......
R
rbt
It is a busy at the border this year too. look at the busts I think they have 8 tons of pot this month alone. The HLS incinerator on Valencia has not been running for awhile. I wonder if these pot busts are going into edibles. Here is a link to this months border busts http://azstarnet.com/gallery/news/b..._28f707c0-8bfd-11e2-8818-001a4bcf887a.html#19
orangeade5
New member
Wow, what a terrible roll of the dice for your buddy! So Madjag I remember earlier in the thread you said your buddy was writing a book on all your adventures, and I also recall you saying you might be writing something up yourself. Any news on this? It would be an awesome read!
How was it?
Twisted
Twisted
