420 ON SPY ROCK ROAD
Maybe you’ve heard of Spyrock (Spy Rock is how I've always spelled it)? Perhaps it’s from the elusive Spyrock OG? Or was it Larry Livermore’s iconic punk novel “Spyrock Memories” that recounts his stint on Iron Peak? Or even more likely, the somewhat baffling but not entirely inaccurate “Sasquatch” TV series from a while back that seems to have ridden the coattails of “Murder Mountain”?
It has a lot of fame for a small, remote community made up of back-to-the-landers (these are the old timers that showed us the ropes), green-rushers (we’d fall into that first wave in the aughts), ranchers (that all secretly grew as well) and everyone else that passed through to trim, plant, or otherwise get a little weird out in the hills.
The road signs to Spyrock have been stolen so many times that the county has stopped trying to replace them. Still, even then, if you’ve driven the 101 close to the Humboldt line, you’d never even know that a community of hundreds of households and their own elementary school (sadly now closed) rest in the hills up long winding dirt roads that extend for hours and hours. This is the community where it all started for us, and that we returned to a decade later to call our home, and ultimately rode out the first few years of Prop 64.
It’s bittersweet to think back on all the good times on Spyrock. There would be massive parties multiple times a year (we would cover the 4th of July typically) where the whole neighborhood would show up in the hundreds, weekly Volleyball game pot-lucks during the growing season on a neighboring property, folks always popping by, the Spyrock School plant sale, pop-up farm stands, yoga groups, cattle brandings, trail riding, pool parties, secret swimming holes, and I even would quad 30 minutes down RGR for private pilates instruction. Not to mention all the events at the Benbow, Black Oak, the Peg House, and Boomers on a Friday night. There was a lot of community support and being so far away from the convenience of towns, it was a necessity to make our own fun. There is no end to the stories that could be told- good, bad, and some almost unbelievable.
But truly Spyrock was thriving because Mendocino County was thriving. During harvest season Laytonville would be bustling with people from all over the world looking for seasonal work. Families lived here working their properties and having plenty of extra with a bump from a few plants. It’s so strange even to remember what it used to be like in what now are sleepy, half-empty towns in the wake of legalization. It’s been a few years since we left Spyrock for the bright lights of the Ukiah Valley (this is a joke), but we continue to farm in our Laytonville gardens and I often think about what it would be like if the laws had never changed and what it would be like still in our little oasis high in the hills.
So as we take this 420 to look back on the legacy of Mendocino cannabis, we wanted to reference our sweet Spyrock. Our limited edition 4/20 1g pre-rolls reference the Spy Rock petroglyphs carved in 100 BC by the ancient Cahto peoples. It’s one of many examples of ancient stone carvings in this area long occupied before the ranchers, loggers, and hippies claimed their pieces of the hill.
If you are interested in learning more about life on Spyrock I would suggest the following books-
