EISPIRATEN

I made it to West Mermaid/Peak 4654 yesterday, trip report forthcoming.

A couple miles upstream from where West Fork Bear Creek joins Bear Creek I found five large bundles of irrigation tubing clearly taken out there for an illegal grow operation. I marked the location and continued to the peak cautiously, imagining hearing people at a few points and keeping my eyes out for any other signs. There was a faint but visible foot path along much of the creek, with some prints that weren't fresh, but didn't seem as old as I would have liked! On the way back down I found two more old green hoses running up the slope of the canyon that were clearly old and hadn't been in use for a long time (holes etc).

I figured the tubing was likely abandoned, but I was doing ok on time on my return so I spent 30 minutes giving myself a blister and consolidating and then cutting through all the tubing to render it useless in case it was being staged for future use.



After that I continued downstream and came across an abandoned camp that was clearly for a grow op. Hard to tell how long it has been there, but it seemed like maybe last year. There were sleeping bags and tarps, propane tanks, cooking pots, food packaging, hand tools (including a nice pick I considered taking with me but figured it was probably contaminated), lots of cups and plastic bags, and a pesticide spray tank.


I was looking around once I found the tubing, but didn't see any signs of cleared or cultivated land. I mostly stuck to the canyon and I think they usually plant hillsides around here. I was surprised this stuff was so obvious. Clearly there isn't a trail this way, but it was only about 2 miles from the Bear Canyon trail and anyone that happened to decide to explore the rather easily accessible West Fork would be pretty much guaranteed to run into it.

I will be reporting the location to the Forest Service. Anyone know what the actual grow season is and when people are most likely to be out there working on this stuff?

You're officially not on their Christmas card list this year. lol

Season is April planting-August harvest. I reported one active location awhile back and supposedly it was passed onto the DEA. Honestly there are so many sites to raid I wouldnt count on this to make any action list....plus they only remove the plants....not the trash.

Looking forward to your tr!

I sent the pictures and location info to the Forest Service, they replied and said they were passing it along to their law enforcement people. I know LE isn't going to worry about trash, but perhaps they'll send somebody else out for some cleanup due to pesticide contamination since it's right next to a waterway. If not, well at least I put it on their radar.

It was gutsy to spend time cutting the tubing. Well done.

I've encountered active or attended sites three times higher up in those drainages, always in mid to late August. I wonder if there are more sites than before or if there are just more folks like us exploring those areas and bumping into them.

Good job reporting it.
Thanks.

tekewin wrote: It was gutsy to spend time cutting the tubing. Well done.

+1 on this.

You're my hero.

Yeah, I was a little nervous hanging around but was feeling spiteful over the damage they do to nature and public lands! If I had found the camp before the tubing I would have been a little less nervous as that part had clearly been abandoned for a while. Still no telling if/when they'll be back to plant another crop though...

I doubt the black market will ever fully go away, but hopefully legalization in CA and increasingly elsewhere will make this kind of thing less profitable and thus less common in the future.

What I hear a lot is that the taxes are fairly high, and illegal grows are still profitable. Are black-market cigarettes still a thing?

It's hard to compete with stolen free land, water and sometimes compulsory labor.