Ghost Mountain and A Trip to the ER

(Due to the dramatic nature of this post's title, I want to start off by saying, I was not the reason that there was a trip to the ER. I am healthy and happy, and though there was a fairly serious injury sustained by a Green 2 Corps Member, everyone will be a-ok. Read further for more details.)

Thursday Night we watched a film about the "Ghost Mountain Experiment: The First Hippie Family." The Film tells the story of Marshall and Tanya South, who along with their children, lived at the top of Ghost Mountain, secluded out in the desert about a twenty minute drive from where my team in currently camping. Starting in 1932, the family lived a primitive life up there for about 15 years. The film definitely has its strengths and weaknesses. Marshall South was a writer, published in Desert Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post, and there are extremely affected parts of the film with dramatic music of Native American flutes accompanied by sweeping shots of the house ruins that remain and melodramatic voiceovers of Marshall's "diary" entries. Interviews with Julian residents are soaked in disapproval for the family's lifestyle, though readers of Marshall South's romanticized literature cheered him and anxiously awaited his next article. The personal aspects of the family's history is a sad story to hear, but the story as a whole certainly is interesting. Best of all, we could visit the place where it all took place.

(You can check out the trailer, pictures of the family, and other info on the film's website: http://www.ghostmountainmovie.com/.)

Marshall South

On Friday we headed out to hike Ghost Mountain and see the remains of the Marshall South House. The hike was a mile straight up hill and as I we climbed we thought of how it would feel to carry five gallons of water up with us, as the family had to since there was no water to be found at the top. Even more, what if we were doing this hike in the homemade sandals that the family wore.

What remains on top of Ghost Mountain

It was great to see the place we had just learned about. There were empty food cans, the ruined bed frame, crumbling walls, the water cisterns, a sundial, and above all, a wonderful view.

After hiking up Ghost Mountain, there were two other hikes to tackle before the day was done. the first, a very shot hike, would bring us to a site of an old Indian Village of a nomadic tribe of the desert area. The second, about a mile and a half out, was to old Native American pictographs.

The village site had many morteros (as pictured above) that the Native Americans used to grind seeds and grain. We had seen one before at Agua Caliente, but there were tons of them off this trail and the rocks all over the area were great climbing rocks.

Nature's playground was throughly entertaining, until the afternoon took a turn for the worse. We had found one rock that had a very smooth side, perfect to serve as a slide. We all took turns climbing up and sliding down. Marybeth had a small run in with a Cholla cactus (as Maya had two weeks before), but this accident was quite small in comparison to the next one. Brett landed horribly when he came down the slide rock and broke his ankle. Maya caught the whole thing on film (a video I do not care to watch again for quite some time, but Brett is eager to see). As he lands you hear a pop, a few screams, and Maya asking, "What happened! Is it broken?! Did it break?!" From where I was standing, a bush was blocking my initial view of this fall, but as the commotion arose, I walked around to see what had happened. I had never witnessed a bone break before, nor have I ever broken a bone myself. I shuddered at the sight of his foot in such an unnatural position and I could not help but have my first reaction be to turn away from the situation. For pretty much the whole team, it took a moment to react, but then everyone really stepped up and jumped to his aid. Luckily we were not too far down the path. Thank God we were not at the top of Ghost Mountain when this accident occurred! We carried him out and got him to the van. Then we drove two hours to the hospital in Poway. While Brett and Abby were at the emergency room, the rest of us ate and killed time at Barnes and Noble. Brett ended up having to spend the night in the hospital and sadly is still there overnight again tonight. After we left last night he went into surgery. He will not be able to do our work here at Agua Caliente, but for now we are waiting on details about what is going on with our beloved teammate. He has quite a bit of healing ahead of him and we all wish him a speedy recovery!

What was going to be a few hours out on the trail turned into a twelve hour day by the time we finally got back to Agua Caliente last night. Quite the dramatic day.