BY: Victoria Heath
In 1977, a mysterious plane crash in California’s Yosemite Valley became an infamous climber’s tale; one that fits so perfectly with 1970s’ America that it almost seems fictitious.
1970s’ America, and its ‘Dirtbags.’
The 1970s was an interesting time in American cultural history. Many Americans found themselves adapting to the immense social changes of the 1960s by marching in the streets to the tune of “Machine Gun” by Jimi Hendrix, protesting for an end to the Vietnam War, and fighting for social equality. They clashed with a revitalized (conservative) “New Right,” also known as the ‘silent majority.’ This group embraced conservative populism and revolted against “spoiled hippies and whining protestors.” The group was responsible for Nixon’s election in 1968. Sound familiar?
Although Nixon’s government would collapse in spectacular fashion in 1972, thanks to Watergate, many young Americans were already disillusioned with the system and searched for alternative ways of life.
Some found it in the ancient rock-walls of Yosemite Valley, scaling high in central California for peace. These weren’t your stereotypical 1970s Americans, however, wearing bell-bottoms and listening to disco, these youngsters were obsessive climbers, sleeping illegally in the Valley’s caves, and foraging for food from the leftovers of tourists. Most, though, were high school dropouts who had no desire to do anything “normal.” They conquered the steep faces of the Valley—and smoked a little weed.
These young climbers joined the group known collectively as the ‘Dirtbags’ (also referred to as ‘Valley Rats’ by locals), which occupied Yosemite Valley ever since the end of World War II. Petter Hoffmeister, the author of the novel Graphic the Valley and a 1990’s era Dirtbag, said these individuals lived illegally in the Valley in ‘Camp 4’ for years, realizing “they could hike in the mountains, swim in the rivers, and rock climb, without worrying about money.”
However by the 1970s, the park’s rangers were wising up to the Dirtbags’ ways and began pushing them out of Camp 4. So, like the ingenious beings they were, they retreated into the bear caves behind the park’s hotels and continued inhabiting the park, climbing the walls and hiking all season long.
The day marijuana fell from the sky.
The plane, believed to be on a drug run from Colombia to the American North-West, crashed into a frozen, Lower Merced Pass Lake, located just outside of Yosemite Valley, in the dead of winter. There are a few different stories explaining how the climbers found out about the crash, but one of the most cited is that a climber’s girlfriend overhead the news on the Park Service Radio and informed the Dirtbags. Within hours, several of the climbers had made it up the snowy cliffs to the crash site; only days after Federal Customs had halted their mission to recover the plane’s cargo due to bad weather. Fortunately for the Dirtbags, The Yosemite Park Service still didn’t know about the “lakeful of marijuana,” and the Feds didn’t recover it all.
Noticing dark objects beneath the ice close to the nose of the plane, the climbers broke through and discovered every weed connoisseur’s dream—high-grade, red-haired Colombian weed, hundreds of bails of it marked with the word, Qualidad.
The Yosemite Gold Rush was born.
Eventually, hundreds of climbers rented scuba equipment and chainsaws from the local town in order to excavate the site. They pulled out the bales of weed and reveled in the fruits of their labor by doing what’s expected—smoking it. They soon found out, however, that it was drenched in airplane fuel, which, for some unlucky Dirtbags, led to scorched eyebrows and 1st degree burns. Apparently, the extra ‘kick’ was worth it though.
There was so much weed—an estimated 10,000 lbs of it—that many of the Dirtbags also sold it across California in order to fund their Yosemite lifestyle. A few made so much money they even bought cars and houses. “Nobody knew how much money anyone made on the Lodestar crash,” Hoffmeister recalled, “But I know a few world-famous climbers who supposedly lived for more than a decade off that money. Duffle bags full of good weed are worth big, big money.”
The exact circumstances around the crash still remain a mystery, but the legend lives on. The 2014 documentary “Valley Uprising,” recently made available on Netflix, chronicles the story alongside other tales of the climber subculture in the Yosemite Valley.
Since that winter’s day in 1977, no other such incidents have occurred there, but who knows, some of this era’s Yosemite Dirtbags may still be watching the sky.