The Plane Full of Marijuana That Crashed in Yosemite

In December 1976, a twin-engine Howard 500 carrying roughly 6,000 pounds of Mexican marijuana crashed into a frozen lake deep inside Yosemite National Park, killing both men aboard. The wreck wasn’t discovered until weeks later, when Yosemite employees stumbled across the crash site. Rangers recovered some of the cargo, but thousands of pounds remained trapped beneath the ice. Then word spread through Yosemite’s legendary Camp 4 climbing community.

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Among those who made the brutal trek to the remote crash site was 18-year-old Ken Yager. Three feet of snow covered the backcountry, and the wreckage was scattered through the trees. “There was a spooky feeling, you know?” Yager told SF Gate. “You could just feel death.” Climbers hacked holes through the ice, eventually pulling out bales of marijuana and hauling them back toward Yosemite Valley. The cargo was soaked with water and aviation fuel. “It’s cold, windy, you could smell airplane fuel,” Yager said.

The climbers eventually took some of the marijuana to Los Angeles, where they spread it across a motel room to dry. But the operation quickly became too risky. “I just said, ‘Hey, we’re going to get busted if we stay here. We need to get out of here,’” Yager recalled. The episode became known as “Dope Lake,” spawning stories of climbers returning with scuba gear and turning the remote crash site into an unlikely treasure hunt before authorities finally shut it down. “We underestimated the entrepreneurial spirit of certain members of the community,” Yosemite Park Ranger Tim Setnicka once told to Men’s Journal. Check out photos from the event below.

Now, 50 years later, High Ground brings together the climbers, Yosemite rangers, investigators and families connected to the crash to revisit what really happened. For Yager, the experience remains one of the strangest adventures of his life. “I got to go on an adventure that I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” he said.

High Ground Documentary

Story as seen in film Valley Uprising

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