How the Raccoons got High

On Sunday, my first time as a solo facilitator with No More Deaths, I selected the South Growler Mountains for our water drop. We packed up the truck with water, beans, blankets, trail snacks and socks, checked the maps and GPS and drove down into the desert.

We made easy going of the first mile and half, straight out across the gravelly sand, across a few shallow washes and through a grove of cholla. As we neared the foothills of the mountains the terrain became rockier, the washes deeper and the cholla were replaced by a mix of organ pipe cactus, palo verde and creosote.

On dropping down into a particularly deep wash we found an evident migrant rest stop with blankets, clothing, used tins of food and empty black water bottles, which are issued to migrants in Mexico. As we searched the area, we spotted a trail of ATV dust headed straight for us. Quickly climbing out of the wash we set ourselves up behind a palo verde tree and took out our snacks and personal water bottles. We discussed how to handle the coming interaction. The only question from Border Patrol that you legally have to answer is “Are you a US citizen?” We agreed that we would not answer any other questions.

The ATVs came closer and we could hear the Border Patrol agents shouting to each other as they looked for us on the other side of the wash. Finally, one agent called out, “I got eyes on them!” and drove through the wash to where we were sitting. “What are you doing out here?” He asked. We sat silently for a couple of minutes, he waited. “Are you all US Citizens?” While I could probably get away with saying “yes” to the citizenship question, I always answer “no” because I want in some small way to challenge the assumption that all white people in the desert are US citizens. He asked about my documents, then got back on his ATV and left. We sat for a few minutes, waiting for them to be far enough away that we considered it safe to return to the water drop.

After making our first drop we continue to follow the wash up into the mountains and found a well-used trail, with historic and recent trash of all kinds, winding up a saddle. At the top of the saddle we reached the Cabreza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge fence. There was no sign of the previously established water drop, based the strong signs that the trail was being used regularly, we decided to place an experimental drop just below the saddle and check on it in a couple of weeks.

The sun came out as we made our way back down to the pass, following a different wash from the one we had made the first drop in. As the sunlight filtered through the mesquite it glinted off something metal. IT’S A 20 POUND BRICK OF WEED! A very old, very moldy and much chewed upon brick of weed, but still a brick of weed! The buds were tightly packed together and wrapped in tin foil, which had been torn open and the brick chewed at, likely by a combination of raccoons, rodents, birds and insects. Judging by the amount of weed that had been eaten, there were some very stoned animals in the Growlers.

We had a good day. It had everything you could ask for in a day, good exploration of trails, a worthwhile water drop and a little desert surrealism….as the sun set we left the remainder of the brick for the raccoons so they could “wake and bake.”