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Sacred Seeds Skunk #1 in 1980
- Thread starter Madjag
- Start date
Having your old logo on a T-shirt would be awesome, MJ. I'd wear it with pride!
HB.
HB.
Yep same Hemphrey ...
The original label with the jaguar we used for the first two years. The 2nd label showing the riparian aspect of the canyon along the creek we used for the 3rd and 4th year.
PrimalHaze
Member
Hey MAdJAg, Do you have any stories about these guys in those riparian canyon areas?
click on the picture it tells you in the top bar, ring-tailed cat.
Garden Camps and Critters
Garden Camps and Critters
We had a small tent camp near each garden. Each camp and tent was under a dense canopy of trees so that no one could see us hanging out if they were on the canyon rim above us, 1500 feet higher. Not a likely chance anyway, but I went up once just to check while my partner was in the garden moving around. It was super difficult to see him in the bright daylight. When clouds covered the sun, it was easier. And at night, the flicker of flashlights were there, but you couldn't really focus on them. Still....
So we dug a hole two feet deep and 18" wide and had our night-time campfire in the bottom of that hole. Standing 50 feet away you could barely see any glow unless you looked from a certain angle and saw light reflecting off the nearby shrubs which were 6 feet tall anyway. From the canyon rim above, the campfire was not visible at all since it was under tall 30'-40' Sycamore and Cottonwood trees that lined the creek as well as well onto the immediate alluvial flats. And unless you were immediately above that tiny fireplace hole, like in a helicopter, you would be looking at it from a side angle and see no glow.
During the growing season, except at planting and harvest, we spent one night a week at each of our two garden camps that were a mile apart. Over the years we had all sorts of visitors. One was the stereotypical Ring Tail, full of its legendary fearlessness and curiosity. It once actually walked onto one of our fireside sitting logs, even with me sitting on the other end of the log and the fire going 4 feet away, and stared at us. If you moved suddenly it would spin around, ready to leap away, but didn't move if you didn't come toward it. Their tails are usually bushier and fatter than their entire little bodies. We've had a Ring Tail go through a day pack by climbing into it and search for food. Beautiful colors, too, and big-ass eyes. Only the Coatimundis of the canyons had bigger bug-out eyes. They aren't as beautiful as Ring Tails, but they definitely take the award for weird.
One week when I returned alone to do the weekly inspection and water the garden, I noticed that our tent was open as I approached our campsite to leave my gear. It's actually quite freaky when something out of the ordinary appears when you carefully walk into your camp or garden and least expect it, even though you are on Ninja alert the whole way.....we never left footprints along the creek or in any alluvial flat leading up to the immediate area so that we could instantly tell if someone else had been in our beloved canyon while we were gone. In 5 years we only saw three sets of footprints pass through that canyon. Remote? Especially... and difficult to enter when it's 95-105 degrees throughout the summer and you have a 1500 foot drop down a boulder-strewn wash at an approximate 50 degree slope with thick brush growing in it the entire way.
Note: small circle at center left in photo;
the hidden clearing that was used as a heli pad
Two sets of prints lead 1/4 mile to a small clearing that was 100 feet from the creek in dense, thick brush taller than a man. We had no idea that that clearing was even there until we freakily followed the invasive footprints to its location. In the middle of the clearing were two helicopter skid mark impressions pressed into the loose dirt with the two sets of footprints starting right next to it. I even got down on my knees and found tiny aluminum paint marks on some of the rocks that bruised the helicopter's landing skid's paint. That really set us off because we had no idea, no idea.....and to make things even more difficult to theorize, the prints stopped along the creek immediately below our garden's alluvial flat that was situated immediately above and 35 feet higher than the creek.
The other set of footprints went the entire length of the canyon bottom for miles and appeared to be those of a through hiker. As luck would have it my partner actually met the guy who left those prints when he picked up a hitch-hiker in the neighboring town a day later and listened to his tale of an amazing hike that he had just done. Unbelievable synchonicity, just wild.
I had seen no footprints on my way in. I knew that I had zipped the tent closed when we left 5 days earlier. Alarms went off. A wave of paranoia shoots through you so fast that you cannot even clock it because your awareness has pumped up so incredibly and Adrenaline is flooding your nervous system, yes, like its on steroids, because in fact, it is in a sense.
As I walked the last few nervous feet to the tent I noticed that I had been mistaken. The tent door wasn't open, there was a giant slit or cut in the tent's side. Shit! WTF? Looking all around in angst I took another closer glance through the opening and saw that my Holubar down sleeping bag cover had a rip in it as well. Suddenly something clicked inside my burning brain and I knelt down and checked out my bag in detail. Amazingly, I quickly ascertained that a bear had neatly dissected the bag's protective, waterproof cover without harming the bag itself in any way. This invisible surgeon bear had also perfectly slit the Coleman Classic tent in one apparently deft move, too, and stepped inside to do probably look for food. We never kept food in the tent for this exact reason but bears are damn curious, I've come to realize. Anything odd that appears in their territory will eventually get examined.....closely.
Once, at another garden, I saw a gigantic Black Bear, with a beautiful light brown color as if it was impersonating a Grizzly, lift a 5-gallon gas can out of its half-buried position in the ground and carry it a few hundred feet. This Cinnamon Bear as they are called in Arizona where there are no longer any Griz in the wild, suddenly smelled the leaking gas as he carried it and dropped that stinky can, leaving it to drain out as he high-tailed it out of there.
I kept that can, with its deep claw marks that went right through both sides, for many years....
Garden Camps and Critters
We had a small tent camp near each garden. Each camp and tent was under a dense canopy of trees so that no one could see us hanging out if they were on the canyon rim above us, 1500 feet higher. Not a likely chance anyway, but I went up once just to check while my partner was in the garden moving around. It was super difficult to see him in the bright daylight. When clouds covered the sun, it was easier. And at night, the flicker of flashlights were there, but you couldn't really focus on them. Still....
So we dug a hole two feet deep and 18" wide and had our night-time campfire in the bottom of that hole. Standing 50 feet away you could barely see any glow unless you looked from a certain angle and saw light reflecting off the nearby shrubs which were 6 feet tall anyway. From the canyon rim above, the campfire was not visible at all since it was under tall 30'-40' Sycamore and Cottonwood trees that lined the creek as well as well onto the immediate alluvial flats. And unless you were immediately above that tiny fireplace hole, like in a helicopter, you would be looking at it from a side angle and see no glow.
During the growing season, except at planting and harvest, we spent one night a week at each of our two garden camps that were a mile apart. Over the years we had all sorts of visitors. One was the stereotypical Ring Tail, full of its legendary fearlessness and curiosity. It once actually walked onto one of our fireside sitting logs, even with me sitting on the other end of the log and the fire going 4 feet away, and stared at us. If you moved suddenly it would spin around, ready to leap away, but didn't move if you didn't come toward it. Their tails are usually bushier and fatter than their entire little bodies. We've had a Ring Tail go through a day pack by climbing into it and search for food. Beautiful colors, too, and big-ass eyes. Only the Coatimundis of the canyons had bigger bug-out eyes. They aren't as beautiful as Ring Tails, but they definitely take the award for weird.
One week when I returned alone to do the weekly inspection and water the garden, I noticed that our tent was open as I approached our campsite to leave my gear. It's actually quite freaky when something out of the ordinary appears when you carefully walk into your camp or garden and least expect it, even though you are on Ninja alert the whole way.....we never left footprints along the creek or in any alluvial flat leading up to the immediate area so that we could instantly tell if someone else had been in our beloved canyon while we were gone. In 5 years we only saw three sets of footprints pass through that canyon. Remote? Especially... and difficult to enter when it's 95-105 degrees throughout the summer and you have a 1500 foot drop down a boulder-strewn wash at an approximate 50 degree slope with thick brush growing in it the entire way.
Note: small circle at center left in photo;
the hidden clearing that was used as a heli pad
Two sets of prints lead 1/4 mile to a small clearing that was 100 feet from the creek in dense, thick brush taller than a man. We had no idea that that clearing was even there until we freakily followed the invasive footprints to its location. In the middle of the clearing were two helicopter skid mark impressions pressed into the loose dirt with the two sets of footprints starting right next to it. I even got down on my knees and found tiny aluminum paint marks on some of the rocks that bruised the helicopter's landing skid's paint. That really set us off because we had no idea, no idea.....and to make things even more difficult to theorize, the prints stopped along the creek immediately below our garden's alluvial flat that was situated immediately above and 35 feet higher than the creek.
The other set of footprints went the entire length of the canyon bottom for miles and appeared to be those of a through hiker. As luck would have it my partner actually met the guy who left those prints when he picked up a hitch-hiker in the neighboring town a day later and listened to his tale of an amazing hike that he had just done. Unbelievable synchonicity, just wild.
I had seen no footprints on my way in. I knew that I had zipped the tent closed when we left 5 days earlier. Alarms went off. A wave of paranoia shoots through you so fast that you cannot even clock it because your awareness has pumped up so incredibly and Adrenaline is flooding your nervous system, yes, like its on steroids, because in fact, it is in a sense.
As I walked the last few nervous feet to the tent I noticed that I had been mistaken. The tent door wasn't open, there was a giant slit or cut in the tent's side. Shit! WTF? Looking all around in angst I took another closer glance through the opening and saw that my Holubar down sleeping bag cover had a rip in it as well. Suddenly something clicked inside my burning brain and I knelt down and checked out my bag in detail. Amazingly, I quickly ascertained that a bear had neatly dissected the bag's protective, waterproof cover without harming the bag itself in any way. This invisible surgeon bear had also perfectly slit the Coleman Classic tent in one apparently deft move, too, and stepped inside to do probably look for food. We never kept food in the tent for this exact reason but bears are damn curious, I've come to realize. Anything odd that appears in their territory will eventually get examined.....closely.
Once, at another garden, I saw a gigantic Black Bear, with a beautiful light brown color as if it was impersonating a Grizzly, lift a 5-gallon gas can out of its half-buried position in the ground and carry it a few hundred feet. This Cinnamon Bear as they are called in Arizona where there are no longer any Griz in the wild, suddenly smelled the leaking gas as he carried it and dropped that stinky can, leaving it to drain out as he high-tailed it out of there.
I kept that can, with its deep claw marks that went right through both sides, for many years....
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There is still some out here, maybe not exactly intact, but very skunky, genetics going back over 30 years, and maybe soon some real deal skunk.
Thanks for sharing Madjag!
Thanks for sharing Madjag!
PrimalHaze
Member
Thanks for the memories MadJag! I have roots in AZ and love the hearing the stories.
The ringtail is a pretty special creature. He's like the counter culture raccoon.
The ringtail is a pretty special creature. He's like the counter culture raccoon.
Thanks for sharing MadJag! Always enjoy your posts!
Vibes
Vibes
Another secret to our Skunky success:
we used a "taxi service" back and forth during our 2rd and 3rd years and never left a vehicle parked on any of our Jeep trail access roads.
Ranchers, even back then, along with forest service personnel, would get suspicious if the same vehicle was parked along a Jeep trail week after week. Hell, they were used to lots of hippies invading the woods, canyons, and other remote areas for hiking, exploring, and especially swimming. If a canyon had year-round water and some sort of established trail access, you could bet some hippies would be living there for weeks at a time. Many hippies in fact, as if they were on shifts, so when these 3 left five more would show up and stay a bit.
Planting weed crossed more than one hip mind and some were 3 cans short of a 6-pack and would plant right along a creek edge because in their mind it was soooooo far away. I guess that meant "safe" to them. Lots of mini-busts and mistakes ensued...
One memorable group from Jerome had a nice hidden camp and garden in West Clear Creek which a few short years later became the most famous swimming and exploring canyon, next to Sycamore Canyon, in the entire Verde Vallley. This group of guys would sit in the Spirit Room or Paul & Jerry's in Jerome and brag about their work....haha, yes, you could get away with that back then in the late 70's, but you still couldn't safely or intelligently park a truck at the end of a Jeep trail week after week for the entire spring, summer, and fall. But they did.
Eyes befell them. LEO ran their plates and lo and behold, registered in Jerome, the hippie capital of the Verde Valley. A few watchful forest service undercover guys saw them going in and out, went in after they left and found their garden, and incredibly, let them go for the whole season. They waited until these dudes brought their entire harvest back to Jerome, something close to 100 pounds, and busted them holding the bag(s).
The Sinsemilla Taxi went like this: our driver, of which there were two, both women, would come over to our house and we'd set off from there. When we went through the closest town to our drop point, we guerrillas would lay down on the seat or crouch down on the floor so any neighbors would just see a lady driving by. Once off pavement and onto dirt road, she would get us to where the 4x4 trail left the road, we'd jump out in a well-rehearsed speed drill kind of move, and be in deep brush before any other vehicle could ever come around that bend in the dirt road. After she continued on, we'd walk up a brushy wash (arroyo) and join the Jeep trail far enough away so that no one could see us from the access road should they be passing by.
Hunting season required more precision and awareness since hunters frequently were out for days on 4x4 trails like the one we used primarily as our hiking trail. Once we made it to our steep rock wash that would take us down 1500 feet to the bottom of Madjag Canyon, we were in our element and knew that no one would get the best of us unless it was sheer luck on their part. We had escape routes anyway and could find our way back to the only pay phone within 50 square miles if it was an emergency evac.
Taxi anyone?
we used a "taxi service" back and forth during our 2rd and 3rd years and never left a vehicle parked on any of our Jeep trail access roads.
Ranchers, even back then, along with forest service personnel, would get suspicious if the same vehicle was parked along a Jeep trail week after week. Hell, they were used to lots of hippies invading the woods, canyons, and other remote areas for hiking, exploring, and especially swimming. If a canyon had year-round water and some sort of established trail access, you could bet some hippies would be living there for weeks at a time. Many hippies in fact, as if they were on shifts, so when these 3 left five more would show up and stay a bit.
Planting weed crossed more than one hip mind and some were 3 cans short of a 6-pack and would plant right along a creek edge because in their mind it was soooooo far away. I guess that meant "safe" to them. Lots of mini-busts and mistakes ensued...
One memorable group from Jerome had a nice hidden camp and garden in West Clear Creek which a few short years later became the most famous swimming and exploring canyon, next to Sycamore Canyon, in the entire Verde Vallley. This group of guys would sit in the Spirit Room or Paul & Jerry's in Jerome and brag about their work....haha, yes, you could get away with that back then in the late 70's, but you still couldn't safely or intelligently park a truck at the end of a Jeep trail week after week for the entire spring, summer, and fall. But they did.
Eyes befell them. LEO ran their plates and lo and behold, registered in Jerome, the hippie capital of the Verde Valley. A few watchful forest service undercover guys saw them going in and out, went in after they left and found their garden, and incredibly, let them go for the whole season. They waited until these dudes brought their entire harvest back to Jerome, something close to 100 pounds, and busted them holding the bag(s).
The Sinsemilla Taxi went like this: our driver, of which there were two, both women, would come over to our house and we'd set off from there. When we went through the closest town to our drop point, we guerrillas would lay down on the seat or crouch down on the floor so any neighbors would just see a lady driving by. Once off pavement and onto dirt road, she would get us to where the 4x4 trail left the road, we'd jump out in a well-rehearsed speed drill kind of move, and be in deep brush before any other vehicle could ever come around that bend in the dirt road. After she continued on, we'd walk up a brushy wash (arroyo) and join the Jeep trail far enough away so that no one could see us from the access road should they be passing by.
Hunting season required more precision and awareness since hunters frequently were out for days on 4x4 trails like the one we used primarily as our hiking trail. Once we made it to our steep rock wash that would take us down 1500 feet to the bottom of Madjag Canyon, we were in our element and knew that no one would get the best of us unless it was sheer luck on their part. We had escape routes anyway and could find our way back to the only pay phone within 50 square miles if it was an emergency evac.
Taxi anyone?
Is that bushweed? He's a lot shorter than I imagined.
HB.
HB.
We have those ring-tailed critters in our mountains in so cali
Robert Verde
Member
Hey Jaggy,
Bob Green here checking inn. Figured I would drop you a line on my new screen name.
Beautiful thread as always brother, Kings of the Southwest!
Bob Green here checking inn. Figured I would drop you a line on my new screen name.
Beautiful thread as always brother, Kings of the Southwest!
