# The Great Yosemite Gold Rush of Pot

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 13 Oct 2026, 1 h 09 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/c641cb69-ee29-4f65-8fb3-b4e101678a67/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

Last week, Elizabeth shared a story from the Gold Rush. And this week, Zaron brings us a story from the Yosemite Gold Rush. If you've never heard of it, that's when a bunch of dirtbag rock climbers who called Yosemite home learned about a downed pot smuggler's plane that was trapped in a frozen lake not far from the park. That whispered rumour led to a extravganza of amateur pot smuggling as the various climbers attempted to rescue the weed and bring it to market. Ah, the 1970s! It was such a simpler time... for pot smugglers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dutton.
[0:04] Speaker 3: Oh, Zarin Burnett.
[0:06] Speaker 2: How you doing, girl?
[0:07] Speaker 3: I'm well. How are you?
[0:08] Speaker 2: You look like you feel well.
[0:09] Speaker 3: I'm an image of wellness.
[0:11] Speaker 2: Yes. What is your secret?
[0:14] Speaker 3: Wellness.
[0:15] Speaker 2: Oh, that's what I've missed. Okay, I'm going to look
[0:17] Speaker 2: into that. Wellness. I bet I can find some stuff
[0:20] Speaker 2: online about that.
[0:21] Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think there are aisles in various stores.
[0:24] Speaker 2: Really?
[0:24] Speaker 3: You just take everything in there. Huh.
[0:27] Speaker 2: So next time I go to Home Depot, I just
[0:29] Speaker 2: look around for a wellness section. I'm like, where is
[0:31] Speaker 2: your wellness section?
[0:32] Speaker 3: And then chug a lug, Burnett.
[0:33] Speaker 2: And they'll just send me out to the gardening center.
[0:35] Speaker 3: How are you? Wait, how are you?
[0:37] Speaker 2: I plead the fifth. Perfect. So I got a question
[0:42] Speaker 2: for you, though.
[0:42] Speaker 3: Yes.
[0:43] Speaker 2: Do you know what's ridiculous?
[0:44] Speaker 3: I do.
[0:45] Speaker 2: What?
[0:46] Speaker 3: This came to us from a couple people. Now, today
[0:49] Speaker 3: is International Taco Day.
[0:52] Speaker 4: Oh.
[0:52] Speaker 3: In which we are recording this.
[0:53] Speaker 2: Super Taco Tuesday.
[0:54] Speaker 3: It's super, super Taco Tuesday. And I, you know, for
[0:57] Speaker 3: those who celebrate, join with me. It's good times. There's
[1:01] Speaker 3: this thing, the Loco Strikes Back. And this happens the
[1:05] Speaker 3: Saturday before International Taco Day.
[1:09] Speaker 2: Oh, there's International and National Taco Day.
[1:11] Speaker 3: This is International Taco Day. It's an international thing. I
[1:15] Speaker 3: like it. You know what? Tacos know no borders.
[1:17] Speaker 2: No.
[1:18] Speaker 3: Anyway.
[1:18] Speaker 2: Anyway.
[1:19] Speaker 3: So this, it has been described as urban legend.
[1:23] Speaker 4: All right.
[1:23] Speaker 3: And then this thing goes on a little bit more.
[1:26] Speaker 3: As the tale is told, the race began with a
[1:30] Speaker 3: hot tub, a stoic Russian, a short king from New York,
[1:35] Speaker 3: and Susie.
[1:36] Speaker 2: I'm loving this. I thought I was going to not
[1:38] Speaker 2: like this.
[1:38] Speaker 3: Oh, you have no idea how much you're going to
[1:40] Speaker 3: love this. The race has been held annually in Denver,
[1:43] Speaker 3: Colorado in early October, which coincidentally coincides with International Taco Day.
[1:49] Speaker 3: It's a good idea to engage in gastric training. If
[1:53] Speaker 3: you complete the challenge, you will be deemed a survivor,
[1:56] Speaker 3: revered and heckled for life.
[1:58] Speaker 2: Okay.
[1:58] Speaker 3: Zarin, what is this?
[1:59] Speaker 2: What is this, Elizabeth?
[2:00] Speaker 3: This is the International Taco Bell 50K Ultramarathon.
[2:06] Speaker 2: Do you have to, like, eat a taco every kilometer? Yeah,
[2:08] Speaker 2: you do.
[2:09] Speaker 3: Here's the race rules, right? They have a map, and
[2:11] Speaker 3: it goes all through Denver.
[2:12] Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
[2:13] Speaker 3: Be present, number one rule, be present at all 10
[2:16] Speaker 3: Taco Bell stops across the courses.
[2:19] Speaker 2: Okay, 10.
[2:20] Speaker 3: Zero tolerance for course cutting. Two, eat a menu item
[2:24] Speaker 3: from at least nine of the 10 Taco Bell stops.
[2:27] Speaker 2: Okay.
[2:27] Speaker 3: Three, by the fourth stop, all entrants must have consumed
[2:31] Speaker 3: at least one Chalupa Supreme or one Crunchwrap Supreme. Dietary
[2:36] Speaker 3: restrictions will be allowed within reason. Four- By the eighth stop,
[2:41] Speaker 3: all entrants must have consumed at least one Burrito Supreme
[2:45] Speaker 3: or one Nachos Bel Grande.
[2:46] Speaker 2: Okay.
[2:47] Speaker 3: Five, finish in under 11 hours. Six, drinks do not
[2:53] Speaker 3: count as food. Seven, entrants must keep all receipts and
[2:57] Speaker 3: wrappers for confirmation of stupidity at the end of the run.
[3:01] Speaker 2: Yes.
[3:02] Speaker 3: Eight, an off-course bathroom break will be allowed at Wash Park.
[3:06] Speaker 2: Only one?
[3:07] Speaker 3: Only one. Nine, survivors will eventually get a commemorative item
[3:12] Speaker 3: after successful completion of the run. I like eventually.
[3:15] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[3:16] Speaker 3: It's very loose. Ten, if you intend to participate, RSVP
[3:20] Speaker 3: your statement of intent. Once you RSVP, you are in.
[3:24] Speaker 3: This is like the Goblet of Fire. Eleven. No on-course Pepto, Alka-Seltzer,
[3:31] Speaker 3: Pepsid AC, Mylanta will be allowed. Twelve. Additional rules, in quotes,
[3:37] Speaker 3: may be added, amended, or changed to promote the intent
[3:41] Speaker 3: of this run, which is to do something completely stupid. 13. Congratulations,
[3:46] Speaker 3: question mark. Now, the Diablo challenge is an add-on. You
[3:51] Speaker 3: lather all items with Diablo sauce and do a Diablo
[3:55] Speaker 3: shooter at the end. And then there's also the Baja
[3:58] Speaker 3: Blast challenge, and that's drink an aggregate of two liters
[4:03] Speaker 3: of Baja Blast during the run without vomiting.
[4:06] Speaker 2: Now, you say a run. Do I absolutely have to run?
[4:09] Speaker 3: Oh, I don't think there's any running involved.
[4:11] Speaker 2: Like, could I do, like, ride an e-bike?
[4:13] Speaker 3: I think there's runs involved, but there's no running.
[4:16] Speaker 2: No.
[4:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you could probably ride an e-bike.
[4:18] Speaker 2: Can I, like, ride a skateboard? Anything other than running.
[4:21] Speaker 2: Let's walk.
[4:22] Speaker 3: Walk.
[4:22] Speaker 2: Well, I guess I could walk. Maybe get pushed in
[4:24] Speaker 2: a wheelchair.
[4:24] Speaker 3: Or take an Uber from spot to spot. Who knows?
[4:27] Speaker 3: Here's the thing is that we missed this year's, but
[4:29] Speaker 3: I think we need to register for next year.
[4:31] Speaker 2: I think 100%. We get producer Dave to come out.
[4:34] Speaker 3: It could be a whole episode.
[4:35] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[4:35] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[4:36] Speaker 2: Because he's the runner out of the three of us.
[4:40] Speaker 3: Yeah. Good luck. Good luck. So, yeah, the Loco Strikes Back,
[4:46] Speaker 3: this year was the ninth edition of the International Taco
[4:49] Speaker 3: Bell 50K Ultra Marathon.
[4:52] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[4:53] Speaker 3: Let's do it.
[4:53] Speaker 2: 50K Ultra Marathon.
[4:57] Speaker 3: Denver, here we come.
[4:57] Speaker 2: You can get the runs like that woman who had
[5:00] Speaker 2: it running down her legs.
[5:01] Speaker 3: Astronaut diapers, hello.
[5:03] Speaker 2: Oh, right. Look at you. Check out the big brains
[5:05] Speaker 2: on Doug.
[5:06] Speaker 3: I'm about to fill some diapies.
[5:07] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[5:09] Speaker 3: I'm a grown woman, by the way.
[5:11] Speaker 4: You are.
[5:12] Speaker 2: I know. That is ridiculous.
[5:13] Speaker 3: It is. Hooray. Thank you to all the rude dudes
[5:16] Speaker 3: who sent this in, by the way.
[5:17] Speaker 2: Oh, really? Multiple? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Very cool. Well, I
[5:21] Speaker 2: got something for you, Elizabeth.
[5:22] Speaker 3: Yes.
[5:23] Speaker 2: It doesn't involve any diarrhea, though.
[5:24] Speaker 3: Oh, good.
[5:25] Speaker 2: I'm glad. Sorry. You know, there are crime stories, and
[5:28] Speaker 2: then there are crime legends.
[5:31] Speaker 4: Right?
[5:31] Speaker 2: And in many ways, a crime legend is usually more
[5:33] Speaker 2: fun because everyone has their own version of the story.
[5:36] Speaker 3: I love that.
[5:37] Speaker 2: Now, in terms of the story I want to tell
[5:38] Speaker 2: you today, it is a legend, and this legend is
[5:41] Speaker 2: far more well-known than the crime story, like the actual details,
[5:45] Speaker 2: the facts. Okay. But I think you'll enjoy it since
[5:47] Speaker 2: it is a very California crime legend.
[5:50] Speaker 3: I love California crime.
[5:52] Speaker 2: I know you do.
[5:53] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[6:13] Speaker 2: This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
[6:19] Speaker 2: and cons. It's always 99% murder-free and 100% ridiculous.
[6:26] Speaker 3: You said it, sister.
[6:28] Speaker 2: Elizabeth.
[6:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, how are you?
[6:30] Speaker 2: In the whispered mythology of rock climbing, there's one story
[6:34] Speaker 2: that has long begged to be an episode of Ridiculous Crime.
[6:37] Speaker 3: Really?
[6:38] Speaker 2: It's the story of a drug smuggler's plane that crashed
[6:40] Speaker 2: into a frozen lake in Yosemite National Park. Oh. Back
[6:45] Speaker 2: in the super stony days of 1977.
[6:47] Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
[6:49] Speaker 2: Yes, which eventually led to what is called the Yosemite
[6:52] Speaker 2: Gold Rush. Yes, it saw a group of dirtbag rock
[6:55] Speaker 2: climbers strike it rich, or at least rich in their minds.
[6:59] Speaker 2: And that, Elizabeth, is the story I'm going to tell
[7:01] Speaker 2: you today.
[7:02] Speaker 3: I cannot wait.
[7:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, this one, as I said, it's super fun, specifically
[7:05] Speaker 2: for both you and me, because it combines a few
[7:07] Speaker 2: of our great loves into one beautiful melange of a
[7:11] Speaker 2: ridiculous crime. There is the dope smuggling plane I mentioned.
[7:14] Speaker 2: That's right up your alley, yeah. And then this story
[7:17] Speaker 2: takes place in Yosemite National Park. California's finest. That part's
[7:22] Speaker 2: for you.
[7:22] Speaker 3: Listen, that's my ethnicity, Californian.
[7:25] Speaker 2: I know. Now, this also obviously takes place in 1977,
[7:28] Speaker 2: as I said up top, which was a super bizarre
[7:31] Speaker 2: moment in American culture. For those who don't know. That
[7:34] Speaker 2: part is for both of us. Okay. Because I think
[7:36] Speaker 2: we both enjoy the late 70s. It's just like part
[7:38] Speaker 2: of what you describe as peak California.
[7:40] Speaker 3: Yes, most definitely.
[7:41] Speaker 2: Now, when you mix it all together, I think this
[7:43] Speaker 2: will be a super enjoyable one for the rude dudes
[7:45] Speaker 2: as well. So where to begin? Thank you for asking.
[7:49] Speaker 2: Let's start with the plane and the pilots.
[7:50] Speaker 3: I'd like that.
[7:51] Speaker 2: Now, the pilot was this guy named John Scott Gliskey.
[7:54] Speaker 2: He was 28 years old at the time. His passenger
[7:58] Speaker 2: was this guy, Jeffrey Carl Nelson, 29 years old at
[8:01] Speaker 2: the time. So both roughly the same age, young guys. Yeah.
[8:04] Speaker 2: Nelson was either the co-pilot or the dope smuggler in
[8:07] Speaker 2: charge of the load. We can't quite know for certain.
[8:10] Speaker 2: Either way, this... This pair, they're both in the dope
[8:13] Speaker 2: smuggling game. Yeah. Now, Glisky, he would fly typically a
[8:16] Speaker 2: propeller-driven cargo plane, the kind you see in like World
[8:19] Speaker 2: War II era films.
[8:20] Speaker 3: Okay.
[8:21] Speaker 2: And then he'd fly that down to like a place
[8:23] Speaker 2: like Mexico, and then there he would land at some
[8:26] Speaker 2: out-of-the-way airfield, and the cargo plane would be loaded up
[8:29] Speaker 2: with big burly bales of marijuana, which would be secured
[8:32] Speaker 2: for the subsequent flight into the U.S., right? Yeah. Now,
[8:36] Speaker 2: once the pilot was given the go-ahead, the plane would
[8:39] Speaker 2: take off from that makeshift airstrip- and fly back to
[8:42] Speaker 2: the U.S. over Mexico and along the Pacific Ocean, above
[8:47] Speaker 2: the Pacific Ocean. And then once Glisky got the plane
[8:50] Speaker 2: close to U.S. airspace, he'd drop the plane's elevation a
[8:54] Speaker 2: bunch and fly in low underneath the radar net.
[8:57] Speaker 3: Treetop flying.
[8:58] Speaker 2: For real.
[8:59] Speaker 3: Just like Stephen Stills sang about.
[9:01] Speaker 2: Exactly. So now if the operation was well planned and
[9:05] Speaker 2: they could actually put it together, he'd sometimes fly into
[9:07] Speaker 2: the U.S. airspace shadowing a second plane close enough that
[9:11] Speaker 2: it kind of disguised them to look like it was
[9:13] Speaker 2: just one aircraft on the radar screens.
[9:16] Speaker 3: Oh, dang.
[9:17] Speaker 2: Right? And then once they got below radar, then they
[9:19] Speaker 2: would just part, and then the other one would climb
[9:22] Speaker 2: back up and look like he's just continuing on his way.
[9:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
[9:25] Speaker 2: Now, the cargo plane that Galiski flew was a very
[9:27] Speaker 2: specific plane. The original newspaper reporting, which I looked into
[9:31] Speaker 2: on newspapers.com, they always kept saying it was a Lockheed Lodestar.
[9:35] Speaker 2: But then I saw the more modern telling that they
[9:38] Speaker 2: changed it. So I had to look into it. And
[9:40] Speaker 2: I was like, well, which plane is it? Well, the
[9:42] Speaker 2: Lockheed Lodestar, that aircraft first began flying back in 1937
[9:46] Speaker 2: as the Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra. Now this was
[9:50] Speaker 2: a passenger configuration. So that would allow the plane to
[9:53] Speaker 2: hold 10 to 14 passengers. And then there was the
[9:56] Speaker 2: stripped down version that could be used for cargo. And
[9:59] Speaker 2: in that instance, it could hold a huge load of
[10:02] Speaker 2: bales of pot to replace those 10 to 14 passengers.
[10:05] Speaker 2: I'm talking like 6,000 pounds of pot. Whoa. Yeah. And
[10:09] Speaker 2: that's a load so big that if you were to,
[10:12] Speaker 2: you know, squeeze it into that plane, it'd be roughly
[10:14] Speaker 2: worth about $ 1. 5 million at the time.
[10:17] Speaker 3: At the time.
[10:18] Speaker 2: Yes. Now, because I know you're curious, Elizabeth, that same
[10:21] Speaker 2: sum in terms of 2026 money would be worth about
[10:25] Speaker 2: $ 8. 3 million today.
[10:26] Speaker 3: In one flight.
[10:28] Speaker 2: Yeah. So you can clearly see why smuggling pot was
[10:31] Speaker 2: a tempting crime for a pilot like Liskey.
[10:33] Speaker 3: Sure.
[10:34] Speaker 2: Now, modern reporting on this story, I said earlier, it
[10:37] Speaker 2: kind of changes the record or corrects the record. and
[10:40] Speaker 2: insists that the plane was not a Lockheed Lodestar, as
[10:43] Speaker 2: reported in the newspapers of the day, and instead it
[10:45] Speaker 2: was a Howard 500. I thought you.
[10:47] Speaker 3: Were going to say it was the Spruce Goose.
[10:49] Speaker 2: No, that only flew that one time. So the confusion
[10:51] Speaker 2: came down to the simple fact. In the 1950s and 1960s,
[10:55] Speaker 2: Howard Arrow Incorporated took old military surplus planes like the
[10:58] Speaker 2: Lockheed Lodestar And then the aircraft company would perform a
[11:01] Speaker 2: conversion to modernize the former warplanes with updates like a
[11:06] Speaker 2: pressurized fuselage. You get the idea. And that's why the
[11:09] Speaker 2: early reporting was wrong. They were going on the outside
[11:12] Speaker 2: of the plane. Oh, I see. And then once you
[11:14] Speaker 2: get into the plane, you're like, oh, wait, it's pressurized.
[11:17] Speaker 2: This must be a Howard 500. Yeah. So, okay, that's
[11:21] Speaker 2: the plane. That's the pilots. Let's get into the smuggling
[11:23] Speaker 2: that was going on at the time. Let's. Just to
[11:25] Speaker 2: kind of set our table. In 1977, the U.S. drug
[11:29] Speaker 2: war was not going on really at all. I mean,
[11:31] Speaker 2: it was. There was obviously the hangover, but this was
[11:35] Speaker 2: like Nixon era politics. But this was no longer Nixon's
[11:38] Speaker 2: America where like college age hippies were getting popped for
[11:41] Speaker 2: pot possession.
[11:42] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[11:42] Speaker 2: And it wasn't yet Reagan's America where anti-smuggling meant. Teams
[11:47] Speaker 2: of DEA agents battling international cocaine cartels. That hadn't happened yet.
[11:52] Speaker 2: It was in this brief moment between these two periods
[11:55] Speaker 2: where pot smuggling was the smuggling du jour. So this
[11:59] Speaker 2: is this period of time when the U.S. Customs Service
[12:02] Speaker 2: was on the front lines of the drug war.
[12:04] Speaker 3: Oh, right.
[12:05] Speaker 2: Forrest Oro more than, like, say, the DEA, which was
[12:08] Speaker 2: only four years old at the time. The agency was
[12:10] Speaker 2: created in 1973. That's what I was going to ask you.
[12:13] Speaker 3: When did that start?
[12:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, 1973. So this is basically a baby DEA at
[12:17] Speaker 2: the time, right?
[12:18] Speaker 3: Oh, little babies.
[12:19] Speaker 2: So what that means is in 1976, as the front
[12:22] Speaker 2: line against drug smugglers, U.S. Customs Service, on their own,
[12:26] Speaker 2: pretty much, seized 130 airplanes. The agency confiscated 435,000 pounds
[12:35] Speaker 2: of marijuana. What? Elizabeth, that's 217 and a half tons
[12:39] Speaker 2: of pot. Whoa. Yes. That's how much was moving from
[12:43] Speaker 2: Mexico and Colombia into the United States.
[12:46] Speaker 3: That's what we call a lot.
[12:47] Speaker 2: That is a whole hell of a lot. Yeah. And
[12:49] Speaker 2: to put this into further perspective, in 1976, the bicentennial
[12:53] Speaker 2: of the country, the U.S. Customs Service ran a 50-day
[12:56] Speaker 2: long drug interdiction specifically against pot smugglers and their mini planes.
[13:01] Speaker 2: They called it Operation Star Trek.
[13:04] Speaker 3: Oh, cute.
[13:05] Speaker 2: Now, you may be wondering why the feds named it
[13:07] Speaker 2: Operation Star Trek.
[13:09] Speaker 3: I'm wondering.
[13:09] Speaker 2: And that's a fantastic question, Elizabeth. I wish the answer
[13:12] Speaker 2: was wild, but it's actually super straightforward. You see, if
[13:15] Speaker 2: you read the 1976 report of the Secretary of the Treasury,
[13:19] Speaker 2: which I did, you will find the rare mention of
[13:22] Speaker 2: this anti-drug smuggling operation. Yeah. And I quote, Customs Air
[13:27] Speaker 2: Interdiction Program utilized for the first time the NORAD FAA
[13:31] Speaker 2: long-range radar in concert with its own mobile ground-based radars
[13:35] Speaker 2: for detection and tracking of smuggler aircraft along the southern border,
[13:39] Speaker 2: the prime example of this coordination. Operation Star Trek resulted
[13:43] Speaker 2: in 262 aircraft detections and 43 intercepts.
[13:48] Speaker 3: So it's more Star Trek.
[13:51] Speaker 2: No.
[13:51] Speaker 3: But I mean, like, I thought it would be like
[13:54] Speaker 3: they name it that because they're like, look, Nimoy looks
[13:57] Speaker 3: like he puffs. Let's call it that.
[14:01] Speaker 2: Set phasers. It's done.
[14:02] Speaker 3: We're going to catch him. We're going to catch Nimoy
[14:04] Speaker 3: one way or another.
[14:04] Speaker 2: He's Canadian, you know. Right. So the use of that
[14:07] Speaker 2: famous sci-fi franchise actually was in reference to the NORAD
[14:10] Speaker 2: part and how the military used its radar to track
[14:13] Speaker 2: smuggler aircraft.
[14:14] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[14:15] Speaker 2: NORAD being the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Right. So
[14:19] Speaker 2: in 1976, a radar net felt like something from sci-fi,
[14:22] Speaker 2: something from, you guessed it, Star Trek. Thus, Operation Star Trek.
[14:27] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[14:27] Speaker 2: And when Reagan would come along, they would have the
[14:29] Speaker 2: Star Wars Defense Initiative.
[14:31] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that's right. They just love it.
[14:32] Speaker 2: That was in for space. And they're like, well, now
[14:33] Speaker 2: we're in space. That's Star Wars. Yeah. Okay.
[14:36] Speaker 3: Sure.
[14:37] Speaker 2: Anyway.
[14:37] Speaker 3: And it's war.
[14:38] Speaker 2: And we love the war. Love war. So what the
[14:40] Speaker 2: feds were up against was essentially criminal ingenuity, and they
[14:44] Speaker 2: were losing everything.
[14:45] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, totally.
[14:46] Speaker 2: The smugglers would fly twin-engine prop planes and then secretly
[14:49] Speaker 2: land them at out-of-the-way rural airfields in the San Joaquin Valley. So,
[14:53] Speaker 2: Central California. Think of places like Coalinga, Bass.
[14:56] Speaker 3: Lake, Maricopa. Oh, man, you're hitting all the hot spots.
[15:00] Speaker 2: San Joaquin, the town.
[15:01] Speaker 3: Or Riverdale.
[15:02] Speaker 2: Ooh, Lemoore.
[15:04] Speaker 3: Did they go to Lemoore?
[15:04] Speaker 2: Lemoore, Hanford.
[15:06] Speaker 3: Patterson.
[15:07] Speaker 2: So, you picture those rural places you see signs for
[15:09] Speaker 2: on the I-5 freeway.
[15:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
[15:11] Speaker 2: And you're halfway there.
[15:12] Speaker 3: And it sounds like they're— Oh, Fireball.
[15:13] Speaker 2: Fireball.
[15:15] Speaker 3: It sounds like they're more towards the hills than the coast.
[15:19] Speaker 2: Yes, generally speaking. So this made for basically daring refueling
[15:22] Speaker 2: operations and midnight transfers of loads, with the customs officials
[15:26] Speaker 2: playing the role that we would expect of the DEA. Now,
[15:29] Speaker 2: despite having what they considered cutting-edge technology in terms of
[15:33] Speaker 2: NORAD and the radar... When folks from customs tried to
[15:36] Speaker 2: intercept these smugglers' planes, they didn't have space lasers to
[15:39] Speaker 2: shoot them down. So they had to do it the
[15:41] Speaker 2: old-fashioned way, which means they had to fly their own
[15:43] Speaker 2: planes and try to force the smugglers' planes out of
[15:46] Speaker 2: the sky.
[15:47] Speaker 3: Really?
[15:47] Speaker 2: And not shoot them down, like go up there and
[15:50] Speaker 2: not wing tap them.
[15:51] Speaker 3: Like a pit maneuver in the sky?
[15:52] Speaker 2: Basically a sky pit maneuver. So this led to some
[15:55] Speaker 2: memorable air battles between the feds and the smugglers. Air battles?
[15:58] Speaker 2: For instance, there's a story from the July 17th, 1977
[16:01] Speaker 2: edition of the Fresno Bee with the headline, Marijuana Smugglers
[16:06] Speaker 2: Have Their Own Air Force. So in that news story,
[16:09] Speaker 2: the Fresno paper recounts this customs interception that went, well,
[16:13] Speaker 2: it went very poorly, Elizabeth.
[16:14] Speaker 3: A little sideways.
[16:15] Speaker 2: But for our purposes, it was also ridiculously funny.
[16:17] Speaker 3: Love that.
[16:18] Speaker 2: In May of 77, high above Kern County. A customs
[16:21] Speaker 2: aircraft tracks and follows the smuggler's plane that's loaded with
[16:25] Speaker 2: some primo Mexican reefer.
[16:28] Speaker 3: Headed for Nimoy's house.
[16:30] Speaker 2: On the ground. And they're signaling to the aircraft with flares,
[16:33] Speaker 2: like road flares. And then they use a truck's headlights
[16:36] Speaker 2: to illuminate the makeshift airstrip. Yeah. So the smuggler's plane
[16:40] Speaker 2: makes their approach for a landing. Meanwhile, the feds and
[16:43] Speaker 2: the customs plane are trying to rapidly— you know, desperately
[16:47] Speaker 2: contact the land-based law enforcement and get them to triangulate
[16:50] Speaker 2: and show up to bust these people, but they can't
[16:52] Speaker 2: raise them on the radio. Yeah. So they have to
[16:54] Speaker 2: make the brave decision to follow the smuggler's plane down
[16:58] Speaker 2: and land on that same makeshift airstrip. No. And then
[17:01] Speaker 2: their plan is they're going to hop out of the plane,
[17:03] Speaker 2: make the bust. And then, you know, that was the
[17:05] Speaker 2: plan anyway. Then reality stepped in to humble them because
[17:09] Speaker 2: unfamiliar with landing in essentially a rural field. When the
[17:14] Speaker 2: pilots for the customs plane attempted to land on this
[17:16] Speaker 2: makeshift airstrip, they discovered there was no runway. It was
[17:20] Speaker 2: just hard pack dirt. So when the nose wheel at
[17:23] Speaker 2: the front of their plane hit that hard pack dirt,
[17:26] Speaker 2: it immediately collapsed, just exploded.
[17:28] Speaker 3: Oh, you're kidding.
[17:28] Speaker 2: The plane noses down, crashes into the earth, and it
[17:31] Speaker 2: just eventually skids to a stop. Fire and smoke erupt
[17:35] Speaker 2: from the crashed plane. So while these two customs pilots try, like,
[17:40] Speaker 2: first they got to regain consciousness and then free themselves
[17:43] Speaker 2: from their wrecked and now burning plane. Meanwhile, the smugglers,
[17:46] Speaker 2: who landed successfully, use that same time to unload their
[17:50] Speaker 2: plane's load into the waiting truck's Once they're all done,
[17:53] Speaker 2: they hop in the trucks, they drive away. But first,
[17:55] Speaker 2: the smugglers set their plane on fire, and then they
[17:57] Speaker 2: all escape into the darkness of the rural night.
[17:59] Speaker 3: I thought they would have just taken off again.
[18:02] Speaker 2: No, they were like, burn the plane.
[18:04] Speaker 3: I love that they unloaded.
[18:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, they totally unloaded.
[18:07] Speaker 3: But you know, it's these Central Valley boys. You know,
[18:10] Speaker 3: they've cropped dust in. They know how to fly a plane.
[18:12] Speaker 2: You have essentially a bunch of like Vietnam-era trained pilots. Yeah.
[18:16] Speaker 2: Some Korean War era pilots, maybe some World War II
[18:19] Speaker 2: pilots who really need that retirement money set aside. But
[18:23] Speaker 2: you got some guys who are used to like, and
[18:24] Speaker 2: then you got these young customs guys who basically have
[18:26] Speaker 2: learned to like land on clean airstrips where they've been swept,
[18:30] Speaker 2: you know, before they take off. Now they're trying to
[18:32] Speaker 2: land in the dirt and. It did not go well.
[18:34] Speaker 3: No, it doesn't sound like it.
[18:35] Speaker 2: That, Elizabeth, is a highlight from what had followed on
[18:38] Speaker 2: the heels of Operation Star Trek. So this should give
[18:41] Speaker 2: you a pretty good idea of what the Mexico to
[18:43] Speaker 2: California pot smuggling pipeline was like in 1977. Yeah, I
[18:46] Speaker 2: got a good idea now. And keep in mind, this
[18:48] Speaker 2: was just before, like I said, cocaine changes everything and
[18:51] Speaker 2: the DEA receives the billions and becomes the international drug
[18:54] Speaker 2: fighting force that we know today. This was the Wild
[18:57] Speaker 2: West days of drug smugglers. Yeah. Okay, now that we've
[18:59] Speaker 2: set the stage, let's take a little break. Okay. And
[19:01] Speaker 2: after these messages, we will dip down to Yosemite and
[19:03] Speaker 2: get to better know the pilot, John Gliskey, and of course,
[19:06] Speaker 2: the dirtbag climbing community, which is the other half of
[19:09] Speaker 2: this story. Nice. Back in two and two. And we're back, Elizabeth. Howdy-do.
[19:34] Speaker 2: You ready to visit Yosemite and get to know the
[19:36] Speaker 2: early rock climbing scene?
[19:38] Speaker 3: I love Yosemite. Let's go.
[19:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, the scene was just taking shape in the late 1970s. So, yeah,
[19:44] Speaker 2: it's some pioneering, interesting California history for you. But first,
[19:48] Speaker 2: we do need to get the smuggled pie. into place.
[19:51] Speaker 2: So for a moment, let's return our attention to our
[19:53] Speaker 2: two pot smuggling pilots or, you know, co-conspirators, John Gliskey
[19:57] Speaker 2: and Jeff Nelson. Gliskey, as I kind of hinted at earlier,
[20:00] Speaker 2: was a Vietnam veteran. He flew choppers during the war.
[20:04] Speaker 2: And apparently he looked the part. He was six foot
[20:06] Speaker 2: two with brown hair and all American look to him.
[20:10] Speaker 2: He had what writer Gregory Nicholas described as, quote, his
[20:13] Speaker 2: John Wayne jaw. Oh. Yeah. And his really excellent long
[20:17] Speaker 2: form article on this whole dope smuggling business and the
[20:20] Speaker 2: Yosemite rock climbing community that Nicholas titled Dope Lake. The
[20:24] Speaker 2: journalist brings this pilot Gliskey to full life. And as
[20:28] Speaker 2: Nicholas explains how in the days and hours before the
[20:30] Speaker 2: plane crash, Gliskey had been in Las Vegas. That's where
[20:34] Speaker 2: he called his wife the night before his fateful smuggling run.
[20:37] Speaker 2: He also mailed a toy tea set to his six-year-old daughter.
[20:41] Speaker 2: And Glisky was very much a family man, but he
[20:43] Speaker 2: was also a man who'd been shaped and haunted by
[20:46] Speaker 2: the war.
[20:46] Speaker 3: He's seen some stuff. Totally.
[20:48] Speaker 2: And he's still a young guy, so he has to
[20:50] Speaker 2: live with it. And thus he was now open and
[20:53] Speaker 2: willing to do illegal things like fly contraband by for
[20:55] Speaker 2: Mexico and smuggle to a rural airstrip.
[20:58] Speaker 3: It's not like these guys are flying it in and, like,
[21:01] Speaker 3: making people smoke it.
[21:02] Speaker 2: No, exactly. They're just meeting a demand.
[21:04] Speaker 3: They're meeting a demand.
[21:06] Speaker 2: Yeah. So, you know my thoughts on this. Even when
[21:10] Speaker 2: this pot was illegal, I had the same thought on this. Yeah. So,
[21:13] Speaker 2: that fateful night, Glisky ran into an old war buddy,
[21:16] Speaker 2: and together they drank scotch deep into the night at
[21:19] Speaker 2: some Vegas steakhouse. You can kind of imagine it, right?
[21:22] Speaker 4: Totally.
[21:23] Speaker 2: And the two laughed about their times back in Nam
[21:25] Speaker 2: as they drank like they were still in country.
[21:28] Speaker 4: Yeah. Right.
[21:28] Speaker 2: And then the following morning, Glisky's like Howard 500 airplane,
[21:32] Speaker 2: it climbs into the sky. I imagine he's like nursing
[21:34] Speaker 2: a hangover.
[21:35] Speaker 4: Sure.
[21:36] Speaker 2: Once airborne, they turn south for Mexico and then the
[21:39] Speaker 2: retrofitted cargo plane, it flies to Baja, California. The pilot
[21:43] Speaker 2: then searches for a signal flare that indicates where he
[21:46] Speaker 2: should land. Once Gwisky catches sight of the flare, he
[21:49] Speaker 2: sets his plane down at some rural airstrip in Baja, Mexico,
[21:52] Speaker 2: which sounds like a hell of a good time to me.
[21:55] Speaker 3: Me, count me in.
[21:56] Speaker 2: How do I get this as a job? Now, obscured
[21:59] Speaker 2: by the cover of Dark of Night, a crew of
[22:01] Speaker 2: dope smugglers meets the plane. They load it up with
[22:03] Speaker 2: an estimated 6,000 pounds of, like, primo Mexican sensimia. And
[22:08] Speaker 2: the journalist Nichols claims it belonged to an American crime syndicate.
[22:12] Speaker 2: They called their weed Mota Magic, a.k.a. Magic Pot.
[22:16] Speaker 3: Right.
[22:16] Speaker 2: Now, however, due to the years we're talking about, 1977
[22:19] Speaker 2: in particular, end of 76.
[22:20] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[22:22] Speaker 2: I have to assume Glisky was ultimately flying for Miguel
[22:27] Speaker 2: Angel Felix Gallardo and his OG Mexican cartel.
[22:30] Speaker 3: Oh, right, right, right.
[22:31] Speaker 2: The one that series Narcos Mexico is about.
[22:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
[22:34] Speaker 2: By the way, fantastic series. I highly recommend it. In fact,
[22:36] Speaker 2: both me and.
[22:37] Speaker 3: Producer Dee loved it. I was going to say, how
[22:38] Speaker 3: many times do you think you guys have watched that series?
[22:41] Speaker 2: Me, multiple times. I think he's like you where you
[22:43] Speaker 2: only watch something once and he's good. I'm like, let's
[22:45] Speaker 2: do it again. Well, that whole series basically shows how
[22:49] Speaker 2: the Mexican cartels rose to prominence, and it was off
[22:51] Speaker 2: of the backs of smuggling prima mota. Anyway, down in Mexico,
[22:55] Speaker 2: once the plane gets loaded with the 40-pound bales of pot,
[22:59] Speaker 2: 150 of them to be exact.
[23:01] Speaker 3: That's heavy because I get 40-pound bags of dog food
[23:04] Speaker 3: for the intern.
[23:04] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[23:06] Speaker 3: So it's not an HR violation.
[23:08] Speaker 2: Because pot's kind of light, unlike dog food. So these
[23:10] Speaker 2: are like big square bales. They're big, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[23:13] Speaker 2: Bigger than like hay bales, right? Right. So anyway, so Gliskey,
[23:17] Speaker 2: he's got the now 40-pound bales of pottles stuffed in
[23:20] Speaker 2: the back of the cargo hold, all 150 of them.
[23:22] Speaker 2: He takes off, and just before dawn breaks on December 9th, 1976,
[23:27] Speaker 2: for his return trip, the Howard 500 follows the California
[23:31] Speaker 2: coastline north mingling with like the private air traffic that's
[23:35] Speaker 2: like ferrying executives and the wealthy between San Diego, Los Angeles,
[23:39] Speaker 2: and San Francisco. Right. Or maybe to Napa or, you know,
[23:42] Speaker 2: Santa Rosa, wherever they're going north.
[23:43] Speaker 3: Wherever the day takes you.
[23:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe Seattle or Portland.
[23:45] Speaker 3: Who knows?
[23:46] Speaker 2: Who's to say?
[23:47] Speaker 3: Maybe heading out to Honolulu.
[23:48] Speaker 2: There we go. So when his plane reaches the middle
[23:51] Speaker 2: of the state, Gliskey flips off the plane's lights, drops
[23:54] Speaker 2: down below NORAD's radar net, and then turns hard right
[23:58] Speaker 2: for the Central Valley of California. It wouldn't take long
[24:01] Speaker 2: for that Howard 500 to reach the Sierra Nevada mountains
[24:04] Speaker 2: that separate California from Nevada. But in those early morning hours,
[24:07] Speaker 2: Gliskey's plane would never make it that far. Instead, his
[24:11] Speaker 2: plane went down. There's a possibility the plane had been sabotaged.
[24:14] Speaker 2: We don't know. But when it crashed, the Howard 500
[24:18] Speaker 2: left a debris trail that was nearly three quarters of
[24:20] Speaker 2: a mile long.
[24:21] Speaker 3: Oh, gosh.
[24:22] Speaker 2: At the end of the trail was Lower Merced Pass Lake.
[24:25] Speaker 2: That's where the pressurized fuselage of the plane ran smack
[24:29] Speaker 2: into a frozen lake. Yeah. But first, the plane cartwheeled
[24:33] Speaker 2: through the snow-covered woods that surrounded the lake, spreading pot
[24:36] Speaker 2: through hill and dale.
[24:37] Speaker 3: Oh, no.
[24:38] Speaker 2: And that's also how, like, one wing of the plane
[24:40] Speaker 2: wound up high in the branches of pine trees and
[24:43] Speaker 2: a part of the tail. It was a crazy scene, right?
[24:46] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[24:46] Speaker 2: Now, that same morning, his wife, Pam Gliskey, wakes up
[24:49] Speaker 2: from a dream. It's a bad one, Elizabeth, a nightmare.
[24:51] Speaker 2: She imagines that her husband is upside down, strapped into
[24:54] Speaker 2: his seat in the cockpit of his plane. What? And
[24:56] Speaker 2: that he's underwater.
[24:57] Speaker 3: What?
[24:58] Speaker 2: Which is pretty much exactly where he was.
[25:00] Speaker 3: What?
[25:00] Speaker 2: Yes. The nightmare leaves her shook, right? She's terribly shaken
[25:04] Speaker 2: when her husband doesn't call her to check in after
[25:06] Speaker 2: his latest smuggling run. So she goes to the police.
[25:09] Speaker 2: She tells them everything she knows, that her husband's a pilot,
[25:12] Speaker 2: he's flying contraband Mexican pot into America, and that his
[25:15] Speaker 2: plane likely crashed in rural California.
[25:18] Speaker 3: Well, you don't have to tell them everything.
[25:20] Speaker 2: Well, also keep in mind that Pam is like the wife.
[25:23] Speaker 2: She is a bit of an acid-loving hippie herself.
[25:26] Speaker 3: Oh, Pam.
[25:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is not an easy choice for Pam
[25:29] Speaker 2: to go to the police. Yeah, yeah. But you see,
[25:31] Speaker 2: she knew why her husband John was smuggling pot. Their
[25:34] Speaker 2: daughter was chronically sick and needed cautiously costly medical attention.
[25:39] Speaker 2: And she had been like this since she was born.
[25:41] Speaker 2: And so that's why the Gliskys needed the money. And
[25:43] Speaker 2: that's why her husband flew smuggling flights. But now the
[25:46] Speaker 2: illegality didn't matter. Pam just wanted the authorities to find
[25:49] Speaker 2: her husband.
[25:50] Speaker 3: Well, and it's better to get that out of the way. Totally.
[25:52] Speaker 3: They're going to.
[25:53] Speaker 2: Find out when there's all the pots. Anyway, days pass.
[25:56] Speaker 2: The customs folks and the DEA agents, they have no
[25:59] Speaker 2: info for her on her missing husband. So Pam takes
[26:01] Speaker 2: things into her own hands. She charters a plane to
[26:04] Speaker 2: flies down to Baja, Mexico. Along the way, she's stopping
[26:08] Speaker 2: at all these rural airfields going, have you seen this man?
[26:11] Speaker 2: Did my husband come through? Oh, yeah. Hardcore.
[26:14] Speaker 3: I take back my Pam and I go, Pam.
[26:17] Speaker 2: And then when she's back in the sky, she's looking
[26:19] Speaker 2: down for spots where she's worried that John may have
[26:21] Speaker 2: crashed his plane because she knows the route he's taken. Yeah.
[26:23] Speaker 2: She never sees anything. Instead, weeks later, someone from the
[26:26] Speaker 2: DEA finally contacts her and they say John's plane has
[26:29] Speaker 2: been found in the woods. It crashed near Yosemite. Yeah. Elizabeth,
[26:34] Speaker 2: this brings us to the strange young folks who called
[26:37] Speaker 2: Yosemite home.
[26:39] Speaker 4: Okay.
[26:40] Speaker 2: So at the Yosemite National Park at this time, there
[26:42] Speaker 2: was the Awani Hotel.
[26:44] Speaker 3: Yeah, Awani.
[26:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, Awani Hotel. It's a big, like, famous wood lodge.
[26:48] Speaker 2: You know it, right? So this is where young locals
[26:50] Speaker 2: would work. Some worked at the hotel. Others worked at
[26:53] Speaker 2: the restaurants. A large percentage of those waiters were not locals,
[26:57] Speaker 2: but they were like these young post hippies, like folks
[27:00] Speaker 2: who were too young for the 60s and yet shared
[27:02] Speaker 2: many of the same values and drug choices as the
[27:05] Speaker 2: flower children of the Summer of Love.
[27:07] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[27:07] Speaker 2: So these folks called the woods of Yosemite their like playground.
[27:10] Speaker 2: They came for the mountains. They worked only to afford
[27:14] Speaker 2: their time that they could spend hiking and climbing the
[27:16] Speaker 2: mountains of Yosemite National Park. They were essentially the pioneers
[27:21] Speaker 2: of a new sport called rock climbing.
[27:22] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[27:23] Speaker 2: Now, this is when the outdoors company Patagonia was just
[27:27] Speaker 2: three years old. It was founded in 1973. The other
[27:30] Speaker 2: big outdoor West Coast outfitter was North Face. They had
[27:33] Speaker 2: been founded years earlier in 1966.
[27:35] Speaker 3: Named after Half Dome.
[27:37] Speaker 2: Exactly. Thank you. So to save money, these young pioneering
[27:41] Speaker 2: rock climbing waders, they don't rent apartments since they're kind
[27:45] Speaker 2: of scarce in Yosemite. And also the rooms that are
[27:48] Speaker 2: available are expensive due to the fact that middle-class tourists
[27:51] Speaker 2: would pay far more than they could for a rental.
[27:53] Speaker 2: So instead, these rock climbing waiters stayed in tents, like
[27:57] Speaker 2: in like little tent cities. And they're like camp one,
[27:59] Speaker 2: camp two, camp three, camp four, you get the idea.
[28:01] Speaker 2: So they're camping with other young folks who work at
[28:04] Speaker 2: the parks. like park rangers, tour guides, so forth. Together,
[28:08] Speaker 2: they form this community of dope-smoking, acid-loving, shroom-tripping, back-to-nature types. Yeah.
[28:14] Speaker 2: And their number would swell when their friends from college
[28:17] Speaker 2: towns like Berkeley or my hometown of Davis, along with
[28:21] Speaker 2: the post-hippies from San Francisco or L.A., you know, like
[28:24] Speaker 2: the The scenes down there, they would all come up
[28:26] Speaker 2: to visit or come down to visit. So it's this
[28:28] Speaker 2: tight-knit community of offbeat types. Yeah. One day, one of them,
[28:32] Speaker 2: this cat named Ron Likens and his buddy, they got
[28:35] Speaker 2: done with their work at the Awani Hotel and Lodge.
[28:37] Speaker 2: And importantly, this is January of 1977. Okay. California, by
[28:42] Speaker 2: the way, was in a super mega drought in that year.
[28:46] Speaker 2: So there's light snowfall throughout Yosemite and the Central Valley Mountains.
[28:50] Speaker 2: So there hadn't been as much snow that winter because
[28:53] Speaker 2: of the drought, right? So this means many of the
[28:55] Speaker 2: backcountry trails are unexpectedly available to hike in December and January.
[29:01] Speaker 2: So these two rock climbers, they plan to meet up
[29:02] Speaker 2: with friends and explore the backcountry via snowshoes. So that day,
[29:06] Speaker 2: Ron Likens and his buddy, they strap up their snowshoes,
[29:09] Speaker 2: they get to hiking, they follow a trail. One that
[29:12] Speaker 2: is like marked on the trees, like head height. You
[29:15] Speaker 2: got like a little diamond or whatever. You're following that, right?
[29:18] Speaker 2: So after about eight miles of following this trail into
[29:20] Speaker 2: the back country, they reached the edge of Lower Merced
[29:24] Speaker 2: Pass Lake. And it wasn't a big lake. It's roughly
[29:27] Speaker 2: like six acres of water in the middle of these woods.
[29:30] Speaker 2: Like most maps of the area didn't even include it.
[29:32] Speaker 2: So for sense of scale, since I've covered this in
[29:35] Speaker 2: a previous episode, I have personally started wildfires that were
[29:39] Speaker 2: seven times the size of this so-called lake. Seven times, Elizabeth.
[29:44] Speaker 2: If you ask me, it was more like a big pond. Well, whatever. Anyway,
[29:47] Speaker 2: Ron Likens, he's looking around at the lake and the
[29:49] Speaker 2: surrounding woods, and he sees this shiny metal above him
[29:52] Speaker 2: suspended between two pine trees. He hikes over to get
[29:55] Speaker 2: a better look, and he realizes- That's the wing of
[29:58] Speaker 2: a plane, right? So the plane crash was still so
[30:01] Speaker 2: fresh in January that the wing is still leaking hydraulic fluid.
[30:06] Speaker 3: You're kidding.
[30:06] Speaker 2: Yes. And so Ron and his buddy, they see that
[30:09] Speaker 2: the sun would set soon. So they build a camp
[30:11] Speaker 2: for the night. The next day in the morning, the
[30:13] Speaker 2: two friends who'd planned to meet him out there in
[30:14] Speaker 2: the backcountry, they finally arrive. Both of them are wearing snowshoes. Oh,
[30:18] Speaker 2: and they're also flying high on acid.
[30:21] Speaker 3: Well, of course.
[30:22] Speaker 4: Right?
[30:22] Speaker 2: This is the scene. So there's now four of them.
[30:26] Speaker 2: Imagine just hiking out in the woods on acid. You
[30:28] Speaker 2: have to be pretty confident and comfortable in the woods.
[30:30] Speaker 2: You're like, I know what I'm doing. And there's snowshoeing.
[30:33] Speaker 2: It's like, okay. Anyway, there's now four of them. They
[30:36] Speaker 2: march off further into the woods on the hunt for
[30:38] Speaker 2: new rock climbing spots, places like virginal spots no one's
[30:41] Speaker 2: been to. So basically like surfers. You're trying to find
[30:44] Speaker 2: a break nobody's ever surfed. And later on, when they
[30:46] Speaker 2: eventually return to the Awani Lodge, Ron drops by the
[30:50] Speaker 2: park ranger station and tells them about the wing from
[30:52] Speaker 2: a plane crash he'd seen. The park rangers then go
[30:55] Speaker 2: and they meet with the search and rescue folks and
[30:57] Speaker 2: they try to figure out where on the map this
[30:59] Speaker 2: plane crash might be. The search and rescue crew, they
[31:02] Speaker 2: were known as the Danger Rangers.
[31:04] Speaker 3: That's so cute.
[31:06] Speaker 2: I thought you'd like that.
[31:06] Speaker 3: The Banger Rangers.
[31:08] Speaker 2: And as the journalist Nichols puts in his story, they were, quote,
[31:11] Speaker 2: trained in everything from reconnaissance and undercover work to traditional
[31:15] Speaker 2: coroner's duties. Oh. It's quite a range of job skills.
[31:18] Speaker 3: That really is. A lot of other duties as assigned.
[31:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, they have like some wig play. And then also
[31:23] Speaker 2: they're like, let me put on my doctor's whites and
[31:28] Speaker 2: I'll be the coroner.
[31:29] Speaker 3: And put the VapoRub under my nose and get to work.
[31:31] Speaker 2: Exactly, that's what I was trying to think of. You
[31:32] Speaker 2: could see my wheels spinning. But not getting purchased. Anyway,
[31:36] Speaker 2: the park rangers are technically federal law enforcement, right? So
[31:39] Speaker 2: they report the crash plane to other federal authorities. They
[31:42] Speaker 2: contact the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and they report
[31:46] Speaker 2: this downed plane, the call number from the plane wing
[31:49] Speaker 2: that Ron Likens had jotted down. And when that number
[31:52] Speaker 2: hits federal reporting, it triggers the DEA and customs officials
[31:56] Speaker 2: to get involved. They're like, what was that number? Because
[31:59] Speaker 2: you see, they'd been tracking that same Howard 500 airplane
[32:02] Speaker 2: for drug smuggling. And that would explain the plane crash
[32:05] Speaker 2: in some rural location. They're like, we know what that's about. Right.
[32:09] Speaker 2: Soon enough, the feds are all over the crash site.
[32:12] Speaker 2: They keep the park rangers and the rock climbers at bay.
[32:15] Speaker 2: It's this major operation. It's like total alphabet soup. There
[32:18] Speaker 2: are folks from the FAA, the NTSB, the DEA, Customs.
[32:23] Speaker 2: There's even a military feel to the operation because, for instance,
[32:26] Speaker 2: you got like Vietnam era Huey choppers. ferrying agents out
[32:30] Speaker 2: to the crash site. Yeah. And then the helicopters obviously
[32:33] Speaker 2: draw a lot of the hippies' eyes in the Yosemite Valley.
[32:36] Speaker 2: They're like, what is going on?
[32:37] Speaker 3: What are the feds doing?
[32:38] Speaker 2: Right. So after their investigation, the DEA, then they contact
[32:42] Speaker 2: Pam Gliskey and they give her the bad news about
[32:44] Speaker 2: her husband, John, and his doomed plane. They say, we
[32:46] Speaker 2: found it. And he did not survive. And her story
[32:49] Speaker 2: about the pot smuggling gets confirmed by the 40-pound bales
[32:53] Speaker 2: of pot that the feds discover. Just strewn about the
[32:56] Speaker 2: crash site. All over the place, yeah. Because remember, they're
[32:57] Speaker 2: playing cartwheels. So it was just tossing pot out of it.
[33:00] Speaker 2: At this point, the park rangers and the DEA agents,
[33:03] Speaker 2: they're being also, by the way, guarded by gunpacking customs agents.
[33:08] Speaker 2: Because they're like the real frontline fighters, not the DEA guys.
[33:11] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
[33:12] Speaker 2: So they're working all together to recover. But they managed
[33:14] Speaker 2: to pull about 2,000 pounds of the contraband pot out
[33:17] Speaker 2: of the woods. And then they chopper that out in
[33:20] Speaker 2: the pockets collected at the Yosemite jail as evidence. And
[33:23] Speaker 2: this Kim Tucker, this woman from the Office of Law
[33:26] Speaker 2: Enforcement for Yosemite Park, she recalled, and I quote, We
[33:30] Speaker 2: closed down one side of the jail and put these
[33:32] Speaker 2: bags of marijuana in a cell. They came in like
[33:35] Speaker 2: giant ice cubes with all that vegetable material and green
[33:38] Speaker 2: leafy substance just frozen. Over time, the bagel started to
[33:42] Speaker 2: thaw and become runny, just like if you take a
[33:45] Speaker 2: package of spinach out of the freezer.
[33:48] Speaker 3: Oh, my God, the smell.
[33:49] Speaker 2: Can you imagine? See, now you've got this wet, green
[33:51] Speaker 2: mess of melting pot, and it soon becomes a hazard
[33:54] Speaker 2: because eventually the Yosemite Fire Department's like, they order that
[33:58] Speaker 2: the pot be removed from the jail. They're like, look,
[33:59] Speaker 2: it's clogging sewer lines. This is going to be a problem. Meanwhile,
[34:03] Speaker 2: this leaves the majority of the pot, some 4,000 pounds,
[34:07] Speaker 2: still in the plane in the lake. The lake is
[34:10] Speaker 2: frozen over. So that means extreme tools like chainsaws are
[34:14] Speaker 2: needed to cut holes in the ice in order for
[34:16] Speaker 2: the search and rescue folks to dive into these icy
[34:19] Speaker 2: waters and see what pot they can, like, you know,
[34:21] Speaker 2: float to the surface. So they get full-on scuba divers
[34:25] Speaker 2: to go into this icy lake. And the lead diver
[34:28] Speaker 2: for the park rangers is a cat named Butch Farabee.
[34:31] Speaker 2: He told the journalist Nichols that, and I quote, The
[34:34] Speaker 2: water was murky because of the aviation and hydraulic fluids.
[34:37] Speaker 2: Visibility was pretty minimal. When the plane went into the water,
[34:40] Speaker 2: all these bits and pieces of aluminum broke off and
[34:43] Speaker 2: floated to the surface. They got frozen in place, so
[34:46] Speaker 2: now you had a couple feet of metal hanging down,
[34:49] Speaker 2: and you had stuff on the bottom as well. So basically,
[34:51] Speaker 2: it's just this nightmare spot for scuba diving.
[34:53] Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like it. It sounds like it.
[34:55] Speaker 2: You want to know a quick way to cut your tubes?
[34:57] Speaker 2: Go swimming around here. So then comes this weather report
[35:00] Speaker 2: that a major winter storm front is on the way.
[35:03] Speaker 2: So the feds decide, look, I shut it down. So
[35:05] Speaker 2: they suspend their operation, and they're just going to wait
[35:08] Speaker 2: for the spring thaw and then just collect the rest
[35:10] Speaker 2: of the pot. Sure. Meanwhile, Pam Gliske, the grieving wife
[35:13] Speaker 2: of the pilot— She still doesn't have her husband. He
[35:16] Speaker 2: doesn't have his body, right? So he's still in the
[35:18] Speaker 2: plane trapped under the ice of the lake. And she
[35:21] Speaker 2: isn't wholly sure that that's the case. Maybe it's the
[35:24] Speaker 2: other guy. I don't know. So she believes that perhaps
[35:27] Speaker 2: he survived the crash and he's in some local hospital
[35:29] Speaker 2: under an assumed name. Or maybe he's hiding in the
[35:32] Speaker 2: woods and he's cold and injured, right? It's a vain hope, admittedly.
[35:35] Speaker 3: Yeah, but you want to keep up that hope.
[35:37] Speaker 2: Totally. She clings to it. So she contacts her husband's lawyer,
[35:40] Speaker 2: who also happens to be her ex. Oh, yeah. Keeping
[35:44] Speaker 2: it close.
[35:45] Speaker 3: Pam. I'm going to go back to Pam.
[35:47] Speaker 2: And she asks her ex to do her a favor
[35:50] Speaker 2: for his client.
[35:51] Speaker 3: That is so messy.
[35:52] Speaker 2: Go out and find what happened to John. So the
[35:54] Speaker 2: lawyer flies down from Seattle. He rents a car, drives
[35:57] Speaker 2: out to Yosemite to investigate this crash. And over about
[35:59] Speaker 2: three days time, he gets to know the scene in Yosemite.
[36:03] Speaker 2: He gets friendly with those same waiters who are rock
[36:05] Speaker 2: climbers whenever they have a free moment. He also listens
[36:08] Speaker 2: in to the federal agents, many, many federal agents as
[36:12] Speaker 2: they complain about this slow going freezing cold operation. And
[36:16] Speaker 2: for what he gleans from just kind of eavesdropping is
[36:19] Speaker 2: he figures out that John Gliskey is most likely still
[36:21] Speaker 2: on the plane under the ice of the frozen lake.
[36:24] Speaker 2: And he's buried there with a couple tons of pot.
[36:26] Speaker 2: that are basically impossible to recover so far. So one
[36:30] Speaker 2: night the lawyer, he steps out of the lodge and
[36:32] Speaker 2: he visits the campsite where these waiter rock climbers gather
[36:36] Speaker 2: and smoke pot and play their guitars and whatnot by
[36:38] Speaker 2: the campfire. The lawyer, he sits down with him. He
[36:43] Speaker 2: has his own pot. So he like rolls a joint
[36:45] Speaker 2: to get friendly with him. He smokes with them. And
[36:47] Speaker 2: then this lawyer for a drug smuggler decides to blow
[36:50] Speaker 2: their minds with what he's learned from the feds. He
[36:53] Speaker 2: tells these rock climbers the story of the plane crash
[36:56] Speaker 2: and how much more pot is sitting there in that
[36:59] Speaker 2: frozen lake. And as the lawyer later told journalist Nichols,
[37:03] Speaker 2: I knew John Glisky and Jeff Nelson were dead. I
[37:06] Speaker 2: just had this romantic notion that someone should smoke that
[37:10] Speaker 2: beautiful weed those guys were bringing back from Mexico.
[37:13] Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
[37:14] Speaker 2: Total, like, mafia lawyer.
[37:15] Speaker 3: Well, I guess, yeah.
[37:17] Speaker 2: Right? But, you know, in this case, drug smuggling lawyer. Anyway,
[37:20] Speaker 2: after that night, over the next few days, rumors of
[37:23] Speaker 2: this pot buried in the frozen lake ping pongs through
[37:26] Speaker 2: Yosemite Valley, right? Everyone's talking about it. Word spreads through
[37:30] Speaker 2: that dirtbag community of rock climbers. Their main campsite was
[37:34] Speaker 2: called Camp 4. It was home to about 20 rock climbers.
[37:37] Speaker 2: All of them broke. So among these rock climbers, folks,
[37:40] Speaker 2: they often dreamed about making what they called the big score, right?
[37:44] Speaker 2: For folks who live off of tips and like the
[37:46] Speaker 2: five cent deposits that they would get from recycling an
[37:49] Speaker 2: aluminum can, the big score is pretty much a nightly
[37:53] Speaker 2: campfire talk. And Now they have a legitimate big score
[37:57] Speaker 2: sitting there just miles away, hidden in the woods. All
[38:01] Speaker 2: they need to do is do what they do best.
[38:03] Speaker 2: Hike out there, run some ropes, swing some ice axes,
[38:07] Speaker 2: and retrieve it. And that's how and why those same
[38:11] Speaker 2: dirtbag rock climbers start to call their surprise good fortune
[38:15] Speaker 2: the Yosemite Gold Rush. Now, the only major obstacle is
[38:19] Speaker 2: how to cut through the two to three feet of
[38:21] Speaker 2: ice that seals the lake. So according to a contemporaneous
[38:25] Speaker 2: article I found from the December 77, January 78 edition
[38:29] Speaker 2: of Mountain Gazette magazine, which is like one of the
[38:33] Speaker 2: Bibles for early rock climbers, two of the first climbers
[38:36] Speaker 2: to trek out into the woods and see what was
[38:38] Speaker 2: up with the rumors were this pair of dudes named
[38:40] Speaker 2: Craig and Nick. Okay. No last names. Now, they hear
[38:43] Speaker 2: about the big score of frozen pot from a park ranger,
[38:45] Speaker 2: and so they decide to see if they could grab some,
[38:47] Speaker 2: dry it out, and maybe just go sell it somewhere
[38:49] Speaker 2: like Los Angeles. Luckily for them, they have ice axes.
[38:53] Speaker 2: They have ropes and rigging. They have snowshoes. They have
[38:56] Speaker 2: just about everything they'll need to go rescue some pot
[38:59] Speaker 2: from a frozen lake. And so they invite a third friend,
[39:01] Speaker 2: this dude named Jackson, to hike to the crash site
[39:04] Speaker 2: with them. Jackson's like, word, I'm down, guys. Let's do this.
[39:07] Speaker 2: This is going to be super groovy.
[39:09] Speaker 3: If you're going to sell it, you've got to give
[39:10] Speaker 3: a cut to Pam's kid.
[39:12] Speaker 2: One would hope.
[39:13] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[39:13] Speaker 2: Right? Now, they all hike about 18 miles out into
[39:16] Speaker 2: the woods, and they camp in the backcountry area. They
[39:18] Speaker 2: work at the crash site, wielding their ice axes against
[39:21] Speaker 2: this two to three feet of ice, separating them from
[39:23] Speaker 2: the big score. Their tools fail them and splinter and
[39:26] Speaker 2: break against the thick ice. They're out there cursing Yvonne
[39:31] Speaker 2: Chouinard and his new brand of Patagonia gear. They also
[39:35] Speaker 2: brought North Face gear, which is fitting since the company
[39:37] Speaker 2: obviously was, as you pointed out, named for the North
[39:40] Speaker 2: Face of Half Dome. Yeah. this famous Yosemite climbing spot.
[39:43] Speaker 2: So these guys also, they got gear from REI. So
[39:45] Speaker 2: basically all of the best West Coast Outfitters gear and
[39:48] Speaker 2: all of it's breaking against the ice.
[39:50] Speaker 3: Oh God.
[39:51] Speaker 2: Because they're not using it how it's supposed to be used.
[39:53] Speaker 3: Right, right.
[39:53] Speaker 2: So as Craig later tells their story in Mountain Gazette Magazine,
[39:57] Speaker 2: and I quote, it was cold, hard work, and we
[40:00] Speaker 2: weren't really sure we'd find anything. The ice was two
[40:03] Speaker 2: feet thick and we were dang and totally at random.
[40:05] Speaker 2: I was thinking that the bales were probably on the
[40:07] Speaker 2: bottom anyway, if they were there at all. So at
[40:10] Speaker 2: this point, exhausted, growing disillusioned, Nick gets lucky and he
[40:15] Speaker 2: finds some pot. But it was just by the lakeshore.
[40:18] Speaker 2: It had been dropped by the feds.
[40:20] Speaker 3: Oh.
[40:20] Speaker 2: So the three guys, they make a campfire to warm
[40:23] Speaker 2: their hands and to also dry out this pot. So
[40:27] Speaker 2: once the pot is dry enough, they put it in
[40:28] Speaker 2: a pipe and they smoke it. And the three guys
[40:30] Speaker 2: are toking it up. And Craig says they called it
[40:33] Speaker 2: dynamite smoke. Because that's basically for how it tasted and
[40:38] Speaker 2: for how high it got them.
[40:39] Speaker 3: It was dynamite, man.
[40:40] Speaker 2: So later on, others would call that same pot airplane.
[40:44] Speaker 3: Oh, God.
[40:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, and over time, that nickname kind of stuck for
[40:47] Speaker 2: this unique strand. So everybody in California starts hearing about airplane.
[40:51] Speaker 3: You gotta smoke some of that airplane.
[40:51] Speaker 2: You smoking that airplane, bro? Anyway, after getting high and
[40:55] Speaker 2: their hands warm, these three guys get back to work
[40:57] Speaker 2: on the lake ice, and Jackson manages to punch a
[40:59] Speaker 2: hole in the ice. Not with his fist, you know,
[41:02] Speaker 2: with a tool. Darn it. He'd taken some debris from
[41:05] Speaker 2: the plane crash, and he bent it into shape, and
[41:07] Speaker 2: he beats a hole. Anyway, Nick and Craig rush over,
[41:10] Speaker 2: and as the storied Mountain Gazette tells it, Black plastic
[41:13] Speaker 2: and sod and burlap buoyed up by the air bubbles inside.
[41:16] Speaker 2: They poked at the bundle and it quivered as if alive.
[41:19] Speaker 2: It seemed substantial. Shouts and whistles echoed off the granite
[41:23] Speaker 2: cliffs above the lake's east end. The men were grabbing
[41:26] Speaker 2: one another, yelling and babbling insanely. So Jackson is the
[41:32] Speaker 2: first to say it. He just shouts, we're rich, we're rich. Elizabeth,
[41:37] Speaker 2: these dudes had hit the big score. Oh, sure. So
[41:39] Speaker 2: for the next half hour, they haul burlap-wrapped 40-pound bales
[41:43] Speaker 2: of pot up and out of the lake, and they
[41:45] Speaker 2: rest it on the thick ice. They can still see
[41:48] Speaker 2: all the red hairs that coat this. Primo Mexican Sensamilla,
[41:52] Speaker 2: aka seedless pot. And by the way, this is all colas.
[41:56] Speaker 2: It's just the tops of the pot plants. The best
[41:59] Speaker 2: cuts of the harvest. The stickiest of the icky.
[42:01] Speaker 3: The sticky. Now these guys- They have like crystals on them.
[42:04] Speaker 2: Exactly. The trichromes, baby. So these guys, they keep working.
[42:08] Speaker 2: They rescue three more bales of pot. They now have
[42:11] Speaker 2: like 120 pounds of pot between them.
[42:14] Speaker 3: And that's just a fraction of what's there.
[42:16] Speaker 2: Totally. But they're exhausted, right? So the guys return to
[42:19] Speaker 2: their campsite. You know, and then they rest, they eat dinner,
[42:22] Speaker 2: they dream of what they'll do with all the pot
[42:24] Speaker 2: and all the money they'll get for it. And then
[42:26] Speaker 2: they make plans for how they're going to carry all
[42:28] Speaker 2: this pot out in their rucksacks and perhaps with tree
[42:31] Speaker 2: limbs as pole arms.
[42:32] Speaker 3: You gotta get some burros, bro.
[42:35] Speaker 2: Totally. They debate what route to take to avoid park
[42:38] Speaker 2: rangers because this is a class one felony.
[42:40] Speaker 3: And it's federal land.
[42:42] Speaker 2: It's federal land. Right, exactly. So the three debate making
[42:45] Speaker 2: a second trip back, maybe a third. That's Jackson's idea.
[42:47] Speaker 2: But then Nick speaks up. He's like, We might not
[42:49] Speaker 2: be able to make it back up here. The word
[42:51] Speaker 2: will be out. We should get it while we can.
[42:53] Speaker 2: Get as much as we can and get the hell out.
[42:56] Speaker 2: I'll take my chances walking back to the valley tomorrow, bro.
[43:00] Speaker 2: So pulling on a big fat joint that he's rolled,
[43:03] Speaker 2: Jackson relents and he imagines how they'll explain their find
[43:06] Speaker 2: if they do run into any like pain in the
[43:08] Speaker 2: neck park rangers. And he jokes, Well, Mr. Ranger, we
[43:12] Speaker 2: just happened to run across all this here illegal contraband
[43:16] Speaker 2: and we thought we'd better get it down to the
[43:18] Speaker 2: valley straight away and turn it into the proper authorities, man.
[43:21] Speaker 2: So this is all part of the long hangover of
[43:24] Speaker 2: Nixon's America, right? Because then they all start imagining that
[43:27] Speaker 2: the feds have, quote, Left hidden cameras in the trees,
[43:30] Speaker 2: mics in the pine cones, man. They're probably watching us
[43:33] Speaker 2: right now, listening, writing down everything we say. When we
[43:37] Speaker 2: get down to the valley tomorrow night, they're all like,
[43:39] Speaker 2: we're going to get busted.
[43:40] Speaker 3: That's prescient.
[43:41] Speaker 2: Right, exactly. So after this moment, the three men, they
[43:44] Speaker 2: puff some more. They talk about how some of the
[43:49] Speaker 2: rescued airplane pot really sizzles and pops when you smoke
[43:51] Speaker 2: it because of all the airplane fuel.
[43:54] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
[43:54] Speaker 2: Yeah. And so then they go back to imagining what
[43:56] Speaker 2: they're going to do with their share of the big score,
[43:58] Speaker 2: how many mountains they'll climb, what trips they'll take, what
[44:01] Speaker 2: new gear they can buy. And the next morning, the
[44:03] Speaker 2: three load up all their contraband pot. They leave behind
[44:07] Speaker 2: all the gear they can spare. Like they basically, they're
[44:10] Speaker 2: pulling their sleeping bags out of like their stuff bags
[44:12] Speaker 2: and then filling the stuff bags with pot.
[44:14] Speaker 3: Okay, yeah.
[44:15] Speaker 2: And then once they have all that they can carry,
[44:16] Speaker 2: they hike back to the lodge. The three get back
[44:19] Speaker 2: around nightfall, thoroughly exhausted. They walk to the cabin of
[44:22] Speaker 2: a friend that's like maintenance man who works at the lodge.
[44:25] Speaker 2: And when they walk in, Nick tells them, what we've
[44:27] Speaker 2: got here are our three very sore backs, three pairs
[44:32] Speaker 2: of aching shoulders and about 200 pounds of pot, man. Okay. So,
[44:37] Speaker 2: of course, the three rock climbers and the maintenance man,
[44:39] Speaker 2: they light a bowl, pass it around. Of course, of course.
[44:42] Speaker 2: And then the three recount what all they've just seen,
[44:44] Speaker 2: what all they've left behind, and then they go to sleep, right?
[44:47] Speaker 2: The next day, when the three exhausted guys wake up,
[44:49] Speaker 2: they find that their friend, the maintenance man, is gone,
[44:52] Speaker 2: like long gone. Oh. He apparently called in sick to
[44:55] Speaker 2: work and then trekked off into the backcountry all by himself.
[44:58] Speaker 3: Oh, to get his own.
[44:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, I'm going to give you some of
[44:59] Speaker 2: that airplane. Oh, man. So, Elizabeth, word is now officially out. Yeah.
[45:03] Speaker 2: And so that same morning, three rock climbers take a
[45:06] Speaker 2: shuttle bus over to Camp 4 and they tell the
[45:08] Speaker 2: others what they found, where it's located. And, you know,
[45:11] Speaker 2: when you get lucky and it's more than you can carry,
[45:13] Speaker 2: you might as well share the big score. Yeah, exactly.
[45:16] Speaker 2: This is a good rule of thumb for crime. Never
[45:18] Speaker 2: get too greedy.
[45:18] Speaker 3: That's true.
[45:19] Speaker 2: And be ready to share some good fortune.
[45:21] Speaker 3: That's true.
[45:21] Speaker 2: Before we get into all that, let's take another little break.
[45:24] Speaker 2: And after these messages, we'll hear how these dirtbag mountain
[45:27] Speaker 2: climbers go gaga in the Yosemite Gold Rush. And also,
[45:31] Speaker 2: how the feds reenter the picture.
[45:33] Speaker 3: Oh, no.
[45:54] Speaker 2: And we're back, Elizabeth.
[45:55] Speaker 3: Hello.
[45:56] Speaker 2: So, you ready to hear how the Bruce gets loose?
[45:58] Speaker 3: Yes.
[45:59] Speaker 2: And by Bruce, I mean all the weed trapped under
[46:01] Speaker 2: the lake ice.
[46:02] Speaker 3: Let's call it Bruce.
[46:03] Speaker 2: I just made that up.
[46:04] Speaker 3: I like that.
[46:04] Speaker 2: People are making up terms here.
[46:06] Speaker 3: Why not?
[46:06] Speaker 2: I'm going to make up one.
[46:08] Speaker 3: I would have been like, who wants to get in
[46:09] Speaker 3: on some of this kind Bruce?
[46:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, right?
[46:12] Speaker 3: And that sounds amazing. I don't know what that is,
[46:15] Speaker 3: but I'd like in on that.
[46:16] Speaker 2: I can actually tell you what that is. When I
[46:18] Speaker 2: was a kid, they had a talking Christmas tree in the...
[46:22] Speaker 2: one of the department stores in downtown Atlanta, and he
[46:24] Speaker 2: was named as Bruce the Spruce. And so when I
[46:27] Speaker 2: was imagining these trees, I'm like, I'm going to smoke
[46:29] Speaker 2: some of that Bruce.
[46:30] Speaker 3: Oh, you're kidding me.
[46:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I pulled that out. Anyway, at this point,
[46:35] Speaker 2: word had gotten out, and all the dirtbag climbers in
[46:38] Speaker 2: Yosemite Valley now know about the nearly two tons of
[46:41] Speaker 2: weed trapped under the lake ice, some 18 miles or
[46:44] Speaker 2: so away from the park. And these, as I pointed out,
[46:47] Speaker 2: these are experienced outdoorsmen. They all have the tools and
[46:50] Speaker 2: the gear you need. They have a healthy appetite for pot. And,
[46:54] Speaker 2: you know, they also have a hunger for a big score. Yeah.
[46:57] Speaker 2: So I think you can guess what happens next.
[46:59] Speaker 3: I think so.
[47:00] Speaker 2: The Yosemite Gold Rush is on like the OG Gold Rush.
[47:03] Speaker 2: It's a total free-for-all.
[47:06] Speaker 1: Right?
[47:06] Speaker 2: So people start to grab whatever tools they can, and
[47:09] Speaker 2: they just hike out to this lake and test their luck.
[47:11] Speaker 2: One local guy named Vern Clevenger, he shows up with
[47:15] Speaker 2: five friends eager to work the crash site, right? Okay.
[47:18] Speaker 2: And as Vern tells it, we had heard there wasn't
[47:21] Speaker 2: a lot of dope sitting on top of the lake anymore.
[47:23] Speaker 2: My girlfriend's father was head of the road crew, so
[47:26] Speaker 2: we stole his chainsaw and carried it up there, and
[47:29] Speaker 2: we took turns sawing through the ice. That's how we
[47:31] Speaker 2: got a lot of marijuana from the lake.
[47:33] Speaker 3: Oh, no.
[47:34] Speaker 2: You got guys with, like, stolen Caltrans tools just cutting
[47:38] Speaker 2: into the ice. So when my dudes, Craig, Nick, and Jackson,
[47:41] Speaker 2: the original three, they make their way back to the
[47:44] Speaker 2: crash site later on. They are stunned to see all
[47:47] Speaker 2: the action from all the other rock climbers who are
[47:50] Speaker 2: just now smashing their way through the ice.
[47:53] Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
[47:53] Speaker 2: At one count, they see like 30 other dirtbag rock
[47:56] Speaker 2: climbers on the ice-covered lake, all just using whatever they can,
[48:00] Speaker 2: a hammer, a crowbar, a pickaxe. As Craig told Mountain
[48:03] Speaker 2: Gazette magazine, it was insane. People were falling on all
[48:07] Speaker 2: the time because the ice was really broken up by then.
[48:10] Speaker 2: No one was bothering to dry the pot out. Some
[48:13] Speaker 2: people just filled their packs and left an hour after
[48:16] Speaker 2: they got there. They're just running up, grabbing some, and
[48:18] Speaker 2: taking off, right?
[48:19] Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
[48:20] Speaker 2: So as the crowd swells, some bad actors enter the scene.
[48:24] Speaker 3: Oh, no.
[48:24] Speaker 2: Folks desperate for their chance at a big score. Back
[48:28] Speaker 2: to old Vern Clevenger. As he recalls it, by then
[48:31] Speaker 2: there was a lot of shit. people up there drug
[48:33] Speaker 2: dealers low-life types from the central valley some guy came
[48:38] Speaker 2: over and started to take our stuff and one of
[48:40] Speaker 2: my friends who was a real hard held this saw
[48:43] Speaker 2: out about three inches from the guy's neck and he
[48:46] Speaker 2: was saying i'm gonna with you don't come any closer
[48:50] Speaker 2: so that was the end of that and honestly by
[48:51] Speaker 2: then we had too much to carry out anyway Wow. Yeah. See,
[48:55] Speaker 2: now you got just like- This is horrible. A crazy
[48:59] Speaker 2: bro down going on.
[48:59] Speaker 3: Yeah, right?
[49:00] Speaker 2: And so it's like locals versus rock climbers and there's
[49:03] Speaker 2: all sorts of dynamics. Anyway, so this pot that these
[49:06] Speaker 2: lucky ones are able to fish out of the lake,
[49:08] Speaker 2: it comes in at least two different qualities.
[49:11] Speaker 3: Okay.
[49:11] Speaker 2: Some of the bales are labeled in Spanish, especial. Others
[49:15] Speaker 2: are labeled cualidad. So the cualidad bales are obviously quality.
[49:19] Speaker 2: They are the better pot. The especial is lower grade reefer.
[49:23] Speaker 3: Oh, interesting.
[49:24] Speaker 2: Okay. So plenty of the especial... gets left on the
[49:27] Speaker 2: lake shore alongside the pot that's too saturated with aviation
[49:32] Speaker 2: fuel that pops and sizzles when you smoke it. So
[49:35] Speaker 2: when the various cruiser rock climbers and locals make it
[49:37] Speaker 2: back to Yosemite with their wet pounds of weed, they
[49:40] Speaker 2: typically would, you know, climb aboard like shuttle buses in
[49:43] Speaker 2: the park to get around to get out to like
[49:45] Speaker 2: the lodge. And within minutes, that whole bus would smell
[49:48] Speaker 2: like a marijuana grow house.
[49:49] Speaker 3: Oh, sure.
[49:50] Speaker 2: And you've smelled that like that That buttery smell of
[49:52] Speaker 2: drying pot. Yeah, yeah. So then you got these giggling
[49:56] Speaker 2: stoned rock climbers who would eventually always get off the
[49:59] Speaker 2: shuttle bus at Camp 4. Oh, who knew? So soon enough,
[50:02] Speaker 2: people started to figure out something was afoot at Camp 4. Yeah.
[50:05] Speaker 2: And the straight as an arrow hikers, like typically older couples, right?
[50:08] Speaker 2: They started asking questions to the park rangers like, what's
[50:10] Speaker 2: going on with the boys?
[50:12] Speaker 3: Oh, you're kidding.
[50:13] Speaker 2: Around that same time, others in the Yosemite Lodges take notice.
[50:16] Speaker 2: For instance, there's this another story from the Mountain Gazette
[50:20] Speaker 2: records a scene that I just enjoyed. And I quote,
[50:23] Speaker 2: There were countless steak dinners in the restaurants and endless
[50:26] Speaker 2: rounds of drinks in the Mountain Room Bar. People made
[50:29] Speaker 2: the switch from Bud to Becks, from Becks to Chivas.
[50:33] Speaker 2: One night at Yosemite Lodge, a table full of airplane
[50:36] Speaker 2: millionaires traded toast with a nearby gathering of curry company executives.
[50:41] Speaker 2: A few weeks ago, you guys were scarfing in the cafeteria,
[50:44] Speaker 2: one of the more amiable company men called out. Now
[50:47] Speaker 2: you're leaving $ 10 tips in the broiler room. The Camp
[50:50] Speaker 2: 4 crowd raised glasses of champagne and offered noisy cheers
[50:55] Speaker 2: to the laughing businessmen. But what happens when the money
[50:58] Speaker 2: runs out, someone asked. If you've got the luxuries, you
[51:01] Speaker 2: don't need the necessities. A drunken climber responded, and both
[51:06] Speaker 2: tables applauded wholeheartedly.
[51:08] Speaker 3: Oh, man.
[51:09] Speaker 2: You can kind of picture the scene, right?
[51:10] Speaker 3: I can totally picture the scene.
[51:11] Speaker 2: So as the formerly dirt poor dirt bag climbers begin
[51:14] Speaker 2: to show up at campsites with brand new vans and
[51:17] Speaker 2: camper trucks.
[51:18] Speaker 3: Have they been selling this stuff or is this all speculative?
[51:21] Speaker 2: Early on. Yes, early on. So throughout February and March,
[51:25] Speaker 2: they're selling stuff.
[51:26] Speaker 3: So like they're going into like the Central Valley and.
[51:28] Speaker 2: Wherever they can. It doesn't matter. Some are going to LA,
[51:31] Speaker 2: some are going to San Francisco, some are going to Berkeley,
[51:32] Speaker 2: some are going to Monterey, wherever there is somebody they
[51:34] Speaker 2: know who will take some- Pounds of pot.
[51:36] Speaker 3: Right, right.
[51:37] Speaker 2: And then they go back and they buy themselves a
[51:39] Speaker 2: new camper truck.
[51:40] Speaker 3: Amazing.
[51:40] Speaker 2: Right? So, yeah, they're really living it up. And then
[51:43] Speaker 2: the park rangers, who are mostly also about their age,
[51:46] Speaker 2: have to, like, pretend not to notice this sudden good fortune.
[51:49] Speaker 2: But eventually the good times are bound to end.
[51:52] Speaker 3: Isn't that always the truth?
[51:53] Speaker 2: Yeah. So one Monday morning in April, right around Easter,
[51:57] Speaker 2: a young park ranger passes the word that the feds
[52:00] Speaker 2: are expected back soon. The young park ranger tells Craig
[52:03] Speaker 2: and Nick, Now, this is strictly off the record, and
[52:06] Speaker 2: you understand I can't tell you if there's going to
[52:09] Speaker 2: be a raid or when it might be, but I
[52:13] Speaker 2: have a feeling that Wednesday won't be a good day
[52:17] Speaker 2: to be on the Mono Meadow Trail.
[52:21] Speaker 3: Wink, wink.
[52:22] Speaker 2: And this message obviously is self-evident, but for dramatic effect,
[52:26] Speaker 2: the young park ranger then scans the cloudless sky above
[52:30] Speaker 2: them and says, Looks to me like there's a storm
[52:34] Speaker 2: front coming in. A wink, a wink.
[52:36] Speaker 3: Oh my God, he's been practicing that in the mirror.
[52:39] Speaker 4: Totally.
[52:39] Speaker 2: So after this, word now spreads through Camp 4 from
[52:43] Speaker 2: dirtbag climber to dirtbag climber. It's time to take whatever
[52:47] Speaker 2: they've salvaged and get the hell out of the national
[52:49] Speaker 2: park before the feds arrive.
[52:51] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[52:51] Speaker 2: When it all comes to an abrupt close, they call
[52:54] Speaker 2: it Big Wednesday. Oh. Just like the.
[52:57] Speaker 3: Surfers, right?
[52:57] Speaker 2: Yeah. So out of nowhere, the feds rush back in. Suddenly,
[53:01] Speaker 2: signs are posted on the trailheads. Lower Merced, past Lake,
[53:04] Speaker 2: closed due to law enforcement emergency. Oh. Above the woods,
[53:08] Speaker 2: a park service helicopter is constantly spotted. So another Vietnam-era
[53:12] Speaker 2: Huey chopper. Windows open like it's a war movie.
[53:16] Speaker 3: The Supremes is just blaring out of it.
[53:18] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[53:18] Speaker 3: You get it.
[53:19] Speaker 2: And you got also, by the way, six armed park
[53:22] Speaker 2: rangers scanning the ground below like they're Marines.
[53:25] Speaker 3: They're a parade. Put down the pot, GI.
[53:28] Speaker 2: So this now leads to a steady stream of rock
[53:31] Speaker 2: climbers just fleeing the scene. As one park service worker recalled,
[53:35] Speaker 2: by all reports, it was like ants scattering.
[53:38] Speaker 4: Oh.
[53:38] Speaker 2: Yeah. So the folks who make it out are eager
[53:40] Speaker 2: to escape with their salvaged contraband pot and go sell
[53:43] Speaker 2: it back in places like we said, Berkeley, San Francisco,
[53:45] Speaker 2: maybe down in L.A., It's Santa Barbara. At the time,
[53:48] Speaker 2: a pound of the so-called airplane strain of especial Mexican
[53:52] Speaker 2: pot was selling for $ 400 a pound. Okay. The primo
[53:56] Speaker 2: Mexican pot called cualidad.
[53:58] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[53:58] Speaker 2: The colas, that was selling for $ 650 a pound. Oh, wow.
[54:02] Speaker 2: So folks from the Yosemite Park Service estimated that all
[54:05] Speaker 2: in all, between 3,100 to 4,500 pounds of pot was
[54:07] Speaker 2: salvaged from the frozen lake. Now, if you split the difference,
[54:13] Speaker 2: and let's just call it 3,800 pounds, right? Sure. And
[54:16] Speaker 2: if you calculate it out, since there was more cualidad
[54:18] Speaker 2: than especial in the load, let's divide it up 60-40,
[54:22] Speaker 2: cualidad to especial.
[54:23] Speaker 3: Okay.
[54:24] Speaker 2: And if we calculate it out, it's 650 for the
[54:26] Speaker 2: cualidad and 400 for the especial. The combined sum for
[54:30] Speaker 2: all of this, street value.
[54:31] Speaker 3: Street value, okay.
[54:32] Speaker 2: $ 2, 090, 000. Oh, man. In 2026 money, that'd be roughly $ 11.
[54:32] Speaker 3: 5 million.
[54:33] Speaker 4: Wow.
[54:41] Speaker 3: Wow.
[54:41] Speaker 2: So you can see how they afforded those new camper trucks.
[54:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
[54:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can also see why they called it
[54:46] Speaker 2: the Yosemite Gold Rush.
[54:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, it really was.
[54:48] Speaker 2: So the tricky part is now getting all that pot
[54:50] Speaker 2: out of Yosemite past the feds and the park rangers
[54:52] Speaker 2: and out to the markets of dope buyers to get
[54:54] Speaker 2: your last score. Yeah. And this is the challenge that
[54:57] Speaker 2: faces Chuck Strader, a 17-year-old kid from near Sacramento area. Chuck.
[55:02] Speaker 2: Who'd recently graduated from high school. He'd taken the high
[55:06] Speaker 2: school equivalency exam. Then he and his two friends, I guess,
[55:09] Speaker 2: to celebrate, they decided to try to smuggle out some
[55:11] Speaker 2: pot that they'd salvaged from the lake. Strader had gone
[55:14] Speaker 2: down to Yosemite with his parents and his two friends
[55:17] Speaker 2: for an Easter trip.
[55:18] Speaker 3: Okay.
[55:19] Speaker 2: Spring break. Yeah, spring break. We're going to take you
[55:21] Speaker 2: guys down to Yosemite. Because he was a rock climbing kid, right?
[55:24] Speaker 2: So he planned to climb mountains with his rock climbing heroes.
[55:27] Speaker 2: But then he gets down there and the Yosemite gold rush.
[55:30] Speaker 2: is going and all of his mountain climbing heroes are
[55:32] Speaker 2: busy pulling pot out of a frozen lake. So he's like,
[55:36] Speaker 2: let's hike out to this crash site guys. And they
[55:38] Speaker 2: will see, maybe we can grab some pounds of pot. Right.
[55:41] Speaker 2: And so they do. And these kids indeed get lucky
[55:44] Speaker 2: by the way, they're doing this in like tennis shoes.
[55:46] Speaker 2: They are so not prepared. They don't have weather. There's
[55:49] Speaker 2: still snow on the ground, even though it's April. They
[55:51] Speaker 2: don't even really bring enough food for the trip. They're
[55:53] Speaker 2: just like hustling out there. Like only 17 year olds Right, exactly. Obviously,
[55:58] Speaker 2: they can't smuggle pounds of wet weed in the family van.
[56:01] Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess.
[56:02] Speaker 2: So when they do manage to pull some pot out
[56:04] Speaker 2: of the lake, old Chuck Strader then borrows a VW
[56:08] Speaker 2: Bug from one of their heroes from the rock climbing
[56:10] Speaker 2: crew known as the Stone Masters. They're like the cool
[56:14] Speaker 2: dudes of Camp 4, right? Like the inner bros, like
[56:18] Speaker 2: the big kahunas. Right. Anyway, so along with his two
[56:21] Speaker 2: friends and a veteran climber that he barely knows who's
[56:24] Speaker 2: You know, they all decide, you know, let's escape from
[56:27] Speaker 2: Yosemite with our contraband and go sell it in L.A.
[56:29] Speaker 2: And the older guy's like, I know a guy we
[56:31] Speaker 2: can sell it to. They're like, cool, we'll drive.
[56:33] Speaker 3: And the parents are just sitting there.
[56:35] Speaker 2: Parents are like, yeah, I guess we're going to drive
[56:37] Speaker 2: back up to Folsom or wherever they're from.
[56:39] Speaker 3: Oh, man.
[56:40] Speaker 2: But rather than me tell you about this trip to L.A., Elizabeth,
[56:42] Speaker 2: close your eyes.
[56:43] Speaker 3: My eyes are closed.
[56:44] Speaker 2: I want you to picture it. It's a bright spring
[56:54] Speaker 2: morning in April 1977, and at the moment you are
[56:57] Speaker 2: in Yosemite Park. You are a bit nervous because you
[57:00] Speaker 2: are 17-year-old rock climber and amateur pot smuggler Chuck Strader.
[57:04] Speaker 2: You and your two friends and an older guy you
[57:06] Speaker 2: barely know are all busy loading a borrowed VW Bug
[57:10] Speaker 2: with what looks like sleeping bags and backpacks, but is
[57:13] Speaker 2: actually pounds and pounds of wet pot. You open and
[57:16] Speaker 2: close car doors as you try not to let anyone
[57:18] Speaker 2: see what you're doing. With contraband weed filling every available
[57:22] Speaker 2: space from inside the car to the trunk, you and
[57:24] Speaker 2: your two friends and the older cat you barely know
[57:27] Speaker 2: load into the VW Bug and then fire up that engine.
[57:31] Speaker 2: It's go time. You say a silent prayer that you
[57:34] Speaker 2: don't get caught by any park ranger or prowling fed,
[57:37] Speaker 2: and then you smash that gas pedal, you hear the
[57:39] Speaker 2: four cylinders hum, and that VW Bug roars off, headed
[57:43] Speaker 2: for L.A. As you drive, someone turns on the car radio,
[57:46] Speaker 2: you listen for news of federal drug agents in the area,
[57:50] Speaker 2: but you all eventually settle on a pop radio station
[57:52] Speaker 2: playing the hits of 1977. The back roads are empty,
[57:56] Speaker 2: and when you reach the highway, the traffic is still sparse.
[57:59] Speaker 2: That's good for traffic, but it also makes you and
[58:02] Speaker 2: your borrowed VW Bug stand out for anyone looking for
[58:05] Speaker 2: dirtbag climbers fleeing Yosemite. And then you hear it. That distinctive,
[58:10] Speaker 2: rhythmic sound of a flat tire. You mutter to yourself, Ssss,
[58:13] Speaker 2: hard work. But you then quietly, calmly inform the others
[58:17] Speaker 2: you're going to need to pull over. You have a
[58:19] Speaker 2: flat tire. After groans from the crowd, you limp along
[58:22] Speaker 2: on the flat tire until you reach a gas station
[58:25] Speaker 2: in the tiny town of Oakhurst, about 50 miles from Yosemite.
[58:29] Speaker 2: Not far enough to feel safe from the feds. The
[58:32] Speaker 2: gas station attendant jogs out to your car, all friendly-faced,
[58:35] Speaker 2: and asks what you all need. He quickly spies the
[58:38] Speaker 2: flat tire and asks if you want him to replace it.
[58:41] Speaker 2: As he speaks, you can see his face begin to
[58:43] Speaker 2: change as he's overwhelmed by the thick smell of wet
[58:46] Speaker 2: pot emanating from the VW Bug. But he says nothing.
[58:50] Speaker 2: You ask the gas station attendant to change the tire
[58:53] Speaker 2: and hope like hell he's cool with weed. You all
[58:56] Speaker 2: open the doors and step out of the car. As
[58:58] Speaker 2: the gas station attendant works, you guys buy some cold
[59:01] Speaker 2: drinks from a soda machine. You pop the tops and
[59:04] Speaker 2: guzzle soda as you scan the rural scene. That's when
[59:07] Speaker 2: you spot a local police cruiser approaching. You try to
[59:10] Speaker 2: signal the others, but still act casual and cool. Instead
[59:13] Speaker 2: of acting cool, all four of you turn your heads
[59:16] Speaker 2: and watch the police cruiser pull right into the gas station.
[59:19] Speaker 2: You can hear your heart pounding in your chest since
[59:23] Speaker 2: the VW Bug is not only borrowed, but it's loaded
[59:25] Speaker 2: down with enough Class 1 drug felonies to put you
[59:28] Speaker 2: all behind bars for decades. You wonder if the gas
[59:31] Speaker 2: station attendant called the cops. Meanwhile, the police cruiser's wheels
[59:34] Speaker 2: crush the gravel of the gas station, but thankfully, the
[59:38] Speaker 2: patrol car doesn't stop. Instead, the police cruiser uses the
[59:41] Speaker 2: gas station to turn around, then pulls back out and
[59:44] Speaker 2: drives off in the other direction. You wipe nervous sweat
[59:48] Speaker 2: from your brow. Soon enough, the gas station attendant is
[59:50] Speaker 2: done changing the tire. He tells you the price for
[59:53] Speaker 2: the new tire and wishes you guys luck getting to
[59:55] Speaker 2: wherever you're going. You all crawl back into the VW Bug,
[59:59] Speaker 2: wave goodbye to the gas station attendant, and continue on
[1:00:02] Speaker 2: your way to L.A. The radio plays a familiar song,
[1:00:05] Speaker 2: and perhaps it's your nerve needing some sort of release.
[1:00:09] Speaker 2: But you all sing along to the mindless pop song.
[1:00:11] Speaker 2: You're young, you're free, and you're on your way to
[1:00:13] Speaker 2: make a small fortune. Your group of amateur dope smugglers
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: does eventually make it to L.A. sometime around midnight. Now
[1:00:20] Speaker 2: before you left Yosemite, the veteran rock climber had set
[1:00:24] Speaker 2: up a meetup with a buyer he knew in downtown L.A.
[1:00:27] Speaker 2: But when you park and wait for him in the dark,
[1:00:30] Speaker 2: the guy never shows. And so you guys drive around
[1:00:33] Speaker 2: downtown L.A. in the borrowed VW Bug until you spot
[1:00:36] Speaker 2: a place that looks like maybe a good spot to
[1:00:39] Speaker 2: camp out in L.A. You lay out your sleeping bags
[1:00:42] Speaker 2: near a stand of bushes and shrubs, and as the
[1:00:45] Speaker 2: adrenaline drains away, you finally give in to sleep and
[1:00:48] Speaker 2: you catch 40 Winks. When you wake up, you hear
[1:00:52] Speaker 2: it before you see it. The sounds of children playing.
[1:00:56] Speaker 2: When you open your eyes, you look up from your
[1:00:58] Speaker 2: sleeping bag to find a group of school children staring
[1:01:01] Speaker 2: back down at you. Some of the kids gasp. They
[1:01:04] Speaker 2: look surprised that you are indeed alive. Turns out the
[1:01:07] Speaker 2: spot that you picked for your urban camping is a
[1:01:10] Speaker 2: school playground. You quickly wake up the others and tell them,
[1:01:13] Speaker 2: you guys need to get moving. So there you go, Elizabeth.
[1:01:17] Speaker 2: That is a pretty good example of how the dirtbag
[1:01:20] Speaker 2: rock climbers escaped Yosemite with their contraband weed. And that
[1:01:24] Speaker 2: all happened, by the way. That is the story Chuck
[1:01:26] Speaker 2: Strader tells to the detail.
[1:01:27] Speaker 3: Amazing.
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: Eventually, Chuck Strader and the others managed to unload their pod,
[1:01:31] Speaker 2: but they have to drive back up to the Bay
[1:01:33] Speaker 2: Area to sell it. They never get to sell it
[1:01:35] Speaker 2: in LA. Oh, really?
[1:01:36] Speaker 3: Okay.
[1:01:36] Speaker 2: From there, Strader then catches a Greyhound bus back to
[1:01:39] Speaker 2: his hometown in the Sacramento area and and his days
[1:01:42] Speaker 2: as an amateur drug smuggler are now behind him.
[1:01:45] Speaker 3: Wow.
[1:01:45] Speaker 2: Elizabeth, you remember the local Vern Clevenger? Yeah, yeah. The
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: one with the chainsaw? Yeah. So, well, ultimately, he and
[1:01:51] Speaker 2: a buddy are the only two guys to get busted
[1:01:54] Speaker 2: by the feds.
[1:01:54] Speaker 3: Oh, really?
[1:01:55] Speaker 2: Apparently, they went back one too many times. Oh, boy.
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: So they're both arrested, but the next day a federal
[1:01:59] Speaker 2: magistrate overturns their arrest on grounds of an illegal search
[1:02:03] Speaker 2: and seizure.
[1:02:03] Speaker 3: Oh, nice.
[1:02:04] Speaker 2: It seems like everyone, particularly the locals, just want this
[1:02:07] Speaker 2: crazy scene to go away.
[1:02:08] Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
[1:02:08] Speaker 2: It's not good for the tourists.
[1:02:09] Speaker 3: Exactly.
[1:02:10] Speaker 2: So a few armed feds get posted up to turn
[1:02:12] Speaker 2: away any latecomers who've not heard that the lake is
[1:02:15] Speaker 2: now a closed crime scene. Yeah. And by June, the
[1:02:18] Speaker 2: lake ice finally melts away to the point that a
[1:02:20] Speaker 2: salvage operation can be initiated. And on June 16th, the
[1:02:23] Speaker 2: plane's fuselage is pulled from the water. The smuggler, Jeff
[1:02:27] Speaker 2: Nelson's body, is easily recovered from the water. The folks
[1:02:30] Speaker 2: from the salvage company also find the pilot, John Gliskey.
[1:02:34] Speaker 2: He's still seat belted in the cockpit, just as his wife, Pam,
[1:02:38] Speaker 2: dreamed it.
[1:02:38] Speaker 3: That is incredible.
[1:02:39] Speaker 1: Right?
[1:02:39] Speaker 2: Isn't that wild?
[1:02:40] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:02:41] Speaker 2: Years later, Pam would find a positive side of the
[1:02:43] Speaker 2: plane crash and the resulting Yosemite Gold Rush as much
[1:02:46] Speaker 2: as one can. As she told a high school friend
[1:02:48] Speaker 2: named Rick Schloss, who wrote a book about the events,
[1:02:51] Speaker 2: and I quote, the climbers got a chance to push
[1:02:54] Speaker 2: the limits of their sport. John would have loved that.
[1:02:59] Speaker 2: So yeah, I thought that was nice. Now, if you'd
[1:03:01] Speaker 2: like to hear more about this story, there is a
[1:03:02] Speaker 2: 2014 documentary called Valley Uprising. I did not watch it
[1:03:06] Speaker 2: for this story, but I watched it a long time ago.
[1:03:07] Speaker 2: And it focuses on the Yosemite climbing scene and it
[1:03:10] Speaker 2: covers this chapter. There's also a newer documentary coming out
[1:03:13] Speaker 2: soon called Dope Lake. It focuses on the Yosemite gold rush.
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: So check that out when it drops.
[1:03:18] Speaker 3: Sounds good.
[1:03:19] Speaker 2: And now Elizabeth, I need to ask you, what's the
[1:03:21] Speaker 2: ridiculous takeaway?
[1:03:22] Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, Pam. This is really, I like her,
[1:03:27] Speaker 3: her viewpoint on it. I mean, you gotta, you can't
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: carry that bitterness. I mean, you can carry the grief,
[1:03:32] Speaker 3: but like, um, that's really, it's an interesting.
[1:03:35] Speaker 2: But she's honoring the spirit of her husband.
[1:03:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And the, you know, I guess they're inherent
[1:03:40] Speaker 3: risks to everything. And so, you know, that's just the,
[1:03:44] Speaker 3: The truth of the matter. But yeah, I think it's
[1:03:48] Speaker 3: a very Wild West gold rush is exactly what it was.
[1:03:51] Speaker 2: Right? Isn't that kind of a fun one?
[1:03:53] Speaker 3: What's your takeaway?
[1:03:54] Speaker 2: Whoa, I didn't have one ready. I didn't think you
[1:03:56] Speaker 2: were going to ask me since you never do.
[1:03:58] Speaker 3: Sometimes I actually can.
[1:03:59] Speaker 2: But I'm glad you did. Yeah. So there was another
[1:04:02] Speaker 2: guy who I found who tells a story, but it
[1:04:05] Speaker 2: wasn't terribly dramatic, so I didn't include it. But he
[1:04:07] Speaker 2: was from Davis. And I was like, oh, nice. Represent.
[1:04:11] Speaker 3: There it is.
[1:04:12] Speaker 2: I'd always heard about this era of these guys because
[1:04:14] Speaker 2: these obviously they're like, you know, my parents age. So
[1:04:17] Speaker 2: it's like when they were out there and like, you know,
[1:04:21] Speaker 2: hanging out and doing like their thing. They're probably a
[1:04:24] Speaker 2: little bit younger than my parents. But the idea is
[1:04:26] Speaker 2: that I would hear about these people from like older
[1:04:28] Speaker 2: guys in Davis who knew this crowd of mountain climbers.
[1:04:31] Speaker 2: And they always wanted to be like, oh, I knew
[1:04:32] Speaker 2: the stone masters or whatever. And so I was like, oh, wow. Like,
[1:04:36] Speaker 2: you know, you don't understand what the scene was like, man,
[1:04:39] Speaker 2: in the valley in the late 70s.
[1:04:40] Speaker 3: It was a whole vibe.
[1:04:42] Speaker 2: Totally.
[1:04:43] Speaker 3: It was a whole vibe.
[1:04:43] Speaker 2: I appreciate it. I've never really wanted to go rock climb.
[1:04:46] Speaker 2: And I have friends who rock climb like really hardcore.
[1:04:48] Speaker 2: They're instructors. Like they do. They're about this life. Yeah.
[1:04:52] Speaker 2: And I've often been like, yeah, it's great. Send me
[1:04:54] Speaker 2: the pictures. Totally. If I'm going to get up and
[1:04:57] Speaker 2: get high, I either want it to be on pot
[1:04:59] Speaker 2: or I want to be in a plane. I don't
[1:05:00] Speaker 2: want to be on the side of a mountain being like, oh,
[1:05:02] Speaker 2: I'm sleeping in a sleeping bag.
[1:05:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, no.
[1:05:04] Speaker 2: In a hammock.
[1:05:04] Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
[1:05:05] Speaker 2: And I got to remind myself, Zarin, do not get
[1:05:06] Speaker 2: up to go to the bathroom or whatever.
[1:05:08] Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
[1:05:09] Speaker 2: It's not my bag. Yeah, yeah. But from the serving community,
[1:05:13] Speaker 2: I understand the stoke of going out and finding something
[1:05:16] Speaker 2: that there's nobody out there. It's just you guys in
[1:05:18] Speaker 2: nature doing your thing.
[1:05:20] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:05:20] Speaker 2: So it was really fun reading these guys' takes about
[1:05:22] Speaker 2: like basically inventing a sport and doing it in a lovely, beautiful,
[1:05:26] Speaker 2: one of the most beautiful places on earth. I mean,
[1:05:28] Speaker 2: like imagine.
[1:05:28] Speaker 3: I mean, definitely one of the most beautiful places.
[1:05:31] Speaker 2: So there you go. That's my ridiculous takeaway. How much
[1:05:33] Speaker 2: fun it is to invent a sport in one of
[1:05:34] Speaker 2: the beautiful places in the world. So you in the
[1:05:37] Speaker 2: mood for a talk back? Now we can wash this
[1:05:39] Speaker 2: one down. No, you know I am. Make it official.
[1:05:44] Speaker 2: Oh my God. Did he just say that?
[1:05:50] Speaker 3: I love Kate.
[1:05:55] Speaker 4: Hi, Zarin and Elizabeth. My name's Kate. I'm from San Antonio, Texas,
[1:05:59] Speaker 4: and I was just listening to your episode on the
[1:06:02] Speaker 4: Newton Gang, and my brother goes to school in San Marcos,
[1:06:06] Speaker 4: so I told him about the plaque that's there, and
[1:06:10] Speaker 4: he told me that there is a club nearby it
[1:06:13] Speaker 4: called The Vault. Also, you guys inspired one of my
[1:06:19] Speaker 4: term papers in college class with your episode on the
[1:06:23] Speaker 4: doll woman.
[1:06:24] Speaker 3: No way. Wow.
[1:06:26] Speaker 2: That's cool.
[1:06:27] Speaker 1: Wow.
[1:06:27] Speaker 3: That's awesome.
[1:06:28] Speaker 2: I hope you got a good grade on that.
[1:06:30] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. If not, I'll talk to him.
[1:06:33] Speaker 2: I'll take the credit. Blame me.
[1:06:35] Speaker 3: That's awesome.
[1:06:36] Speaker 2: Thank you for leaving that talk back. If you would
[1:06:38] Speaker 2: like to leave a talk back, we'd love to hear them.
[1:06:41] Speaker 2: So go to the iHeart app, download it, leave us
[1:06:42] Speaker 2: a talk back. Maybe you'll get to hear your voice here.
[1:06:45] Speaker 2: We'd love to hear it. Or you can reach out
[1:06:48] Speaker 2: to us via... Email, you can go to ridiculouscrime at gmail.com.
[1:06:51] Speaker 2: And if you do, please start your email, dear Terry.
[1:06:55] Speaker 2: Or if you'd like, you can find more from us
[1:06:57] Speaker 2: online at ridiculouscrime at Instagram. That's where we have pictures
[1:07:02] Speaker 2: of all this stuff so you can see what these
[1:07:03] Speaker 2: dirtbag climbers look like. Or you can go to Blue
[1:07:06] Speaker 2: Sky and you can see links to all the episodes
[1:07:07] Speaker 2: you may have missed. And we also have our website, ridiculouscrime.com.
[1:07:11] Speaker 2: That's where there is gifts and merch and all sorts
[1:07:15] Speaker 2: of other fun stuff to enjoy. Elizabeth. Big news. Our website, RidiculousCrime.com,
[1:07:21] Speaker 2: was recently nominated for Popular Mechanics Best Drill Bit Set
[1:07:25] Speaker 2: for 2026.
[1:07:25] Speaker 3: Oh, thank God.
[1:07:27] Speaker 2: Yes. They said that we can get the screw job done.
[1:07:30] Speaker 2: So I was like, nice.
[1:07:31] Speaker 3: Nice. We really can.
[1:07:32] Speaker 2: So there you go. As always, thank you for listening.
[1:07:35] Speaker 2: We will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted
[1:07:43] Speaker 2: by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett. Produced and edited by
[1:07:47] Speaker 2: the Yosemite Sam to our Bugs Bunny, Mr. Dave Kustin.
[1:07:51] Speaker 2: Our ridiculous assistant, whose dirtbag mountain climbing nickname is Pat Agonia,
[1:07:56] Speaker 2: is Terry Maldonado Fong. Research is by our resident historian
[1:08:00] Speaker 2: of strands of Mexican marijuana, Marissa Brown. Our theme song
[1:08:04] Speaker 2: is by our house band, Ice T. Brickell and the
[1:08:07] Speaker 2: New Bohemians, Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Host wardrobe provided
[1:08:12] Speaker 2: by Botany 500. Producer Dave's wardrobe provided by Mr. Guy
[1:08:15] Speaker 2: of Beverly Hills. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkle Shock
[1:08:19] Speaker 2: and Mr. Andre. Executive producers are Ben. Have you ever
[1:08:23] Speaker 2: wondered about how much pot you would get in a lid? Bowling?
[1:08:27] Speaker 2: And no, not really, because I used to buy my
[1:08:31] Speaker 2: weed from teenagers in the park. Brown.
[1:08:39] Speaker 3: Ridiculous.
[1:08:41] Speaker 4: Crime.
[1:08:42] Speaker 3: Say it one more time.
[1:08:43] Speaker 2: Ridiculous crime.
[1:08:45] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
[1:08:49] Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever
[1:08:52] Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.

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