Hippie Notes: Confessions of an Aging Forest Hippie

Working and playing in the Angeles National Forest for over 30 years has meant that I have seen a seemingly endless parade of outrageous things that people do in the forest, and over the years I have had my fair share of wild animal and wild human encounters that have been mildly disturbing, to say the least.

This collection of short stories and anecdotes recount just some of the incidents I have been a part of, from arsonists setting fires to people with guns shooting within campgrounds, from clothing-optional people urinating on the highway to people hunting snakes with handguns, over the years that I have been hiking and bicycing riding up and down the mountains I have seen and experienced a lot, many things of which few people ever experience.

I have collected these incidents in part so that I may never forget the things I have done, but in part to share these stories with others who might not get the opportunity to walk up a mountain pushing a bicycle at night.

The San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California has a little under 23 million people living pressed up against them, and many of those people come up in to the mountains bringing their turmoil and their lawlessness with them.

Mountain lions call these forests their homes, as do numerous bears, even more numerous deer, and over the years I've managed to avoid serious injury as both the flora and the fauna of the Angeles National Forest has crossed my path even as I sought to avoid them.