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.
It's a good story.
Remembering the time it rained 6k pounds of marijuana on Yosemite (2019)
21–30 of 47 posts
Re: Remembering the time it rained 6k pounds of marijuana on Yosemite (2019)
#22rumor 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.
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.
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...
Re: Remembering the time it rained 6k pounds of marijuana on Yosemite (2019)
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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...
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
Re: Remembering the time it rained 6k pounds of marijuana on Yosemite (2019)
#24What 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.
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 som…
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.
Re: Remembering the time it rained 6k pounds of marijuana on Yosemite (2019)
#25John Long wrote a great story about this, which got optioned and eventually became the movie Cliffhanger.
Re: Remembering the time it rained 6k pounds of marijuana on Yosemite (2019)
#26John Long wrote a great story about this, which got optioned and eventually became the movie Cliffhanger.
I remember seeing that movie in the 90s, it was terrible. Ripe for MST3K terrible.
Re: Remembering the time it rained 6k pounds of marijuana on Yosemite (2019)
#27That 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.
Looks fine in mobile safari using the Wipr content blocker, I didn’t see any ads.
Re: Remembering the time it rained 6k pounds of marijuana on Yosemite (2019)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 som…
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…
This is an excellent reply - thanks for sharing it!
I think my favourite Yvon Chouinard/Tom Frost story is from the dawn of the Hexentrics path of innovation. They came to realize that pitons, which was their cash cow, was damaging rock. So they innovated against themselves and changed climbing!
That's the hacker of my dreams - they're so driven by moving their passion forward that they'll innovate against themselves. :)
Re: Remembering the time it rained 6k pounds of marijuana on Yosemite (2019)
#29In 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!
Re: Remembering the time it rained 6k pounds of marijuana on Yosemite (2019)
#30What 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.
Well, it fell from the sky into Yosemite. I feel like it's an appropriate headline, even if it's not literally true.
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.