Free Love Canyon

In the 1960's a group of travelers stopped their journey within the canyon created by a long abandoned sulfur mining operation. Here amidst bubbling pools of sulfuric acid and the toxic reek of hydrogen sulfide they created a home for themselves: Free Love Canyon they called it.

I first heard about Free Love Canyon from the property manager of the area we were staying at. When I inquired further about its current status, he became evasive and told me not to look around too much there and referred to some trouble they'd had in the area in the past. My curiosity only further piqued, I began my own search for information on Free Love Canyon. Very little turned up and I only heard one other story: that it had once been inhabited by a roving band of hippies in the 1960's and 70's, and that "they weren't your friendly kind of hippies, if you take my meaning."

When my chance came to pay Free Love Canyon a visit finally came I jumped on it. In predictable horror film fashion, dark clouds were gathering over the mountains as I pulled down the dirt into the ghost town. A dilapidated pallisade fence made from sticks surrounded the area and the houses it enclosed were a hodge podge of strange unfamiliar architectures mixed with more modern trailer homes. As my car shut off, the forest and mountains seemed quiet; the slam of the door, the crunch of my boots seemed deafening in the silence.

I told myself that wildlife must have avoided the area because of the sulfurous odors that drifted lazily up from the sickly green pools scattered about. Creeping about a few of the houses near the road's edge I worked up my courage as I made my way further into town. I began to notice things like half used bottles of shampoo, and fresh elk bones, picked clean of meat lying about.

I began to feel a distinct unease as I approached the last row of trailers, no longer visible from the main road. These just seemed too 'lived in' to have been lain abandoned and exposed to the elements for the last 30 years. I stood, facing empty windows, caught in indecision; my desire to know what happened here, to find a clue to the past, fought against an instinctual fear that had welled up inside of me.

As I stood, torn, the first drops of rain began to fall, fat cold drops slapping my skin. In an instant a downpour had started and I hurried back to the car. Free Love Canyon remained a mystery behind me. Was the story I sought hidden in that last row of homes? Or was it something more sinister?

-2016-
bayou goula towhead

-2015-
the sea test

-2014-
the circumnavigator pt5
the circumnavigator pt4
the circumnavigator pt3
the circumnavigator pt2
the circumnavigator pt1
falling dream
the darkness
one hell of a mile 3&4
he will return
the believers
the horror pt2
the horror pt1
traces
death valley
whiteout

-2013-
paradise of outlaws
the mountain climbers 1&2
brought to surface
one hell of a mile 3
primordial
the lost world
inner gorge
a ghost story
the riddle
slaying the minotaur
heart of darkness
bayou
public lands
organ music
two sought adventure
the virgin river
the road north
preparations

-2012-
steal the world
the end of the world
el dorado
the valley of the kings 2
the valley of the kings 1
one hell of a mile 2
one hell of a mile 1
the mountain climbers rr4
heroes rr3
rainy roadtrip 2
rainy roadtrip 1
the transgression
sandstorm
sinister 2
sinister 1
dehydrated
anatomy
sleepwalking
new chapter

-2011-
like sedona?
torn in two
blink
bridge to nowhere
the door
hitting the wall
elusive 2
elusive 1
harquahala
hole
pick up lines

-2010-
revisited 2
revisited 1
which way?
lost mines
chute
monolith
freeze
slice
in their footsteps
a dance with death

-2009-
goodbyes
undercurrents
casting the bones
mountain thief
the deer hunter
strange temple
sanctuary
burial pt. 3
burial pt. 2
burial pt. 1
the apparition
return to hell
forsaken
the lower depths
underground lake
stretch sewer
the hidden lab
shadow movements
meager rations
sw8: the conclusion
sw7: lost gold mines
sw6: the big tubes
sw5: gold!
sw4: el calderon
sw3: redondo
sw2: ghosts
sw1: westward bound
leviathan
formaldehyde dreams
the underdark
in the beginning