Murder Mountain - Humboldt County, CA

chris_girard

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Just got done watching a new docu-series on Netflix about the marijuana industry that has been thriving for decades up in Humboldt county CA. Very interesting show with a lot of history of pot in it as well. Crazy how many murders and missing person cases have taken place up there.

Call me naïve, but I have always thought of Humboldt County as home of the loggers with a rich history of Redwoods and commercial fishing. Nowadays it seems that it is only known for weed. Anybody else watched the series yet?

https://www.netflix.com/title/80217475
 
Watching now.

"Humboldt" has been known to me as a weed for a long time. I gathered its in the redwoods, and some tree folks clear for 'grows'. A guy that worked for me a little bit was from down there. Calling the guy 'chill' was an understatement, ok for a 'helper' but not a groundman. He 'helped a guy maintain his property' down there.
 
I had the release date of Murder Mountain marked on my calendar so we spent that day watching the series. We are very familiar with the area. We travel thru there frequently, not as a destination but as a means of getting to other areas via dirt roads. It's beautiful up there but scary; but so is every dirt road in Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte counties. The series was well done. Lots of missing young people up there, and a small sheriif's department with not enough resources or desire to go up on the mountain and put their lives in danger. As you can tell by the movie, the population is mostly backwoods people, not much education, drugs are a way of life. I don't believe much will change up there with the legalization of pot.

Chris remember when you and Heidi were coming to California and you rented a place out in the country and we recommended you stay away from that area and find something else? That area has a similar reputation as Murder Mountain in terms of the caliber of people who live in the area and the shady things that happen there.
 
It's beautiful up there but scary; but so is every dirt road in Mendocino...the population is mostly backwoods people, not much education, drugs are a way of life. .

I was under the impression Mendocino was a wealthy area? Maybe the town is, the county is not?
 
I've worked fires in the area. We have been advised to just ignore and not enter grows. I was also advised if I found a mine entrance with a generator outside, just keep on moving.

Now in WA, we have to protect the "crops" weird how times change.
 
Cory, the town of Mendocino is wealthy in terms of the extra-high property values and exaggerated tourist industry, which is the only source of revenue for the town. Much like the little town of Carmel in central California. The county of Mendocino has never generated the amount of revenue that it actually could generate if pot growers had always been taxed. It's a fact with all northern California counties. Way too many pot growers...maybe the new laws will help the counties. Maybe. I have my doubts.
 
I watched it last week. Interesting series. Seems like the cops pretty much just left them alone for the most part, either because they were afraid to go up there or they just didn't GAS; let them work out there own problems.
 
Thx for the info, Mrs B!

I hope to watch this weekend. I just found out we subscribe to netflix, doh!
 
Brother in law worked in Humboldt Co. after the medical legalization. He was partially paid in product, for personal use or re-sell. Still seemed to be quite the legacy going on there, so he bailed out pretty quick.
 
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Chris remember when you and Heidi were coming to California and you rented a place out in the country and we recommended you stay away from that area and find something else? That area has a similar reputation as Murder Mountain in terms of the caliber of people who live in the area and the shady things that happen there.

I remember that very well Terri. We were talking about that as we watched the show. So glad you and Jer told us about the potential danger!
 
I watched a bunch of episode one, then read the synopsis of rest of episodes. Seemed to be all about kinda dumb, kinda dirt bag people, not my cup of tea but I appreciate the heads up. The Sheriff seemed like a bright guy.

With all those redwoods and all that vast area of land, where the heck are/were the loggers????
 
Daniel Boone National Forest used to be the biggest, or close to the biggest place for illegal cultivation on federal lands. We went rock climbing at the Red River Gorge in the mid 90's. A guy sitting on a bucket, fishing in one of the Red River tributaries told us...

"You boys stick to the main trails and you'll be ok. If you get off the main trail and end up in someone's marijuana patch, don't touch nothing, go back exactly the way you came, quick, and you'll probably be alright. Ya see, they're on the Guvmint Check and growing the MAriJuana. Couple boys got beat to death out there last year. Sometimes, there's trip-wires on a shotgun."
 
Seems like they should have just hung the dude while they were at it, would have saved a bunch of headaches, and obviously the cops wouldn't have cared. You can't go half vigilante. Compared to Midwest inner city, where i grew up, it also seemed tame as far as crime goes. Most of the so called tough guys there wouldn't last a week here. Also, i would imagine that once it's legalized across the country, there will be no reason to grow there at all. And I'm also surprised that all the "farmers" didn't understand that there would be far less profit in it after it went legal. Basically the whole show was quite confusing, from the cops allowing the violence, to the outlaws that don't take care of shit, to the pity we are supposed to feel for people who did nefarious activity with the completely wrong crowd and ended up dead or in prison.
 
Agreed. I figured there was something about the climate/soil etc that made humboldt so attractive to all those dirt bag growers, but now it will be grown most everywhere, and taxed;)
 
They even said in the show that unlike the napa Valley, where the soil and climate are needed to make the wine, that there is nothing special about growing weed in Humboldt. The only reason it's thrived there is the tough terrain for law enforcement, with huge trees to help hide it. I kinda wonder why it didn't take off in Appalachia, the home of doing illegal shit deep in the woods. Maybe too hard to hide there?
 
I know some guys:/::/:that planted some cash crops on a tree farm in Georgia back in the 70s. They had harvested and replanted trees. Looked like the trees were pretty well established and not much maintanence was going on with them. Around Athens and Lexington.
 
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