Was the tree fort that you mention comprised of three tiangular platforms in a small grove of redwoods on the ridge between the Baltimore Canyon in Larkspur and Blythedale Canyon in Mill valley?
Back in the late 60's and early 70's after Cascade was shut down and when we started owning vehicles , we used to swim in Alpine Lake . One day Aldo and I were swimming , we stashed our clothes up the hill under some trees and went in " skinny dipping " I was out in the water and I saw 2 rangers in the distance walking toward us. I started paddeling furiously toward the shore and Aldo asked What's Wrong ? I yelled " RangeBo " what we called rangers. So we shot up the hill and didn't have time to grab our clothes , but cilmbed up a tree and hid. The rangers were right below us and I almost burst out laughing , but I was also afraid of them finding our clothes , so the fear helped squelch the laughter. Those rangers were totally perplexed as to where we went to and looked for an hour or more. Finally they gave up and left. We climbed down , put on our clothes and drove my VW bus to Fairfax to get some cold biers from Perry's deli ( they never asked me for ID ) so when in Fairfax , that was the preferred place to shop.
In the late 70's there was a rather sophisticated treefort up on Gold Hill beneath the radio tower in the Dominican area in San Rafael. It had a large glass window with a beautiful view of San Rafael. Whoever built it installed a tarp to cover the window so the no one could see the sun reflecting off of it during the day. Pretty smart. I hiked up ther a few years ago and found it. Part of it had fallen off the tree. ( It wasn't very high ) There were San Miguel and Tuborg beer bottles still there !! What a blast from the past. If anyone knows who built it I'd be interested. R.
Above the Strawberry shopping center, where that new office building is up on the hill, there was a sort of level ledge with bushes in front of it. Someone managed to drag a couch up there.
There was also a meadow somewhere way out on Lucas Valley Rd., where carloads of kids would stop to party. I don't remember where it was, though.
Another good hideaway was above the brick kiln at Larkspur Landing. You go up the little hill that has the high voltage electrical tower and sit right underneath it.
There was a couple of places up Madrone Canyon. I remember the fairy ring. It was up the canyon on the left side, a ring of redwood trees with nothing in the middle.
There's the inkwells out by Samuel P. Taylor for swimming, haven't been out there in decades. Do people still go there?
I lived in Stinson Beach and there were several bunkers near White Gate Ranch out overlooking the ocean. The last time I was up there , probably around 1968 , we went into one and saw a bunch of Satanic symbols and wierd evedence of animal sacrifices inside. We never went back.
When I was a kid we would hang out at the old army base on the hill between Tiburon and Corte Madera. In the fifties the army would have war games up there once a year. When the left every kid was up there looking for the brass casings and unfired blanks. If you found a machine gun nest you could assemble the casings and clips and have a bandoleer a couple of feet long. There is a bunker on the hill between Muir and Stinson beach that we would go to in high school to drink beer play loud music. Nobody new we were there.
Thanks for the update Paul and I'm glad you got my humor. The Pizzio in the Jackson's ads must be one of the kid's kids, not Jim who would be about 55.
Pizzio works at Jackson,s hardware. Zuffinetti ( Fredrico Luigi Goofinetti ) was recruited into the army by his parents , the Feds came to his house on Leyton Ct. and hauled him off to Texas for boot camp. He got into some trouble in the Army for marijuana and did a few years in prison. He later went to Sonoma to to take care of his father and brother John who got MS at an early age. He married Debbie from Larkspur and has a son , Anthony. Fred called me out of the blue last summer and Aldo and I talked to him. He is staying in San Mateo with his son . He said he got into some more trouble , I won't elaborate. Did you ever go to the parties that were held at Bootjack Meadows , peolple from M.V. had a couple of all nighters up there , great parties. We used to listen to XERB everywhere , because the broadcast studio was in San Diego and the transmitter was in Mexico , there was no limit on the power output of the transmitter , at night they would crank it up to a million watts AM , and would welcome listeners in Canada. Most of us were good kids and hardly ever did anything illegal , at least we never got caught. We were just a bunch of kids that made the most out of our youth and freedom , because we knew we would have to work when we got older , and we all do now. Steve C I know who you are now.
Pirates Cove out by Tennesee Cove built by Barnaby A , Vian C. , Larry S. and others. Club Med on Bolinas-Fairfax Rd. The huge tree fort above the Alto bowl near Taralara. I never knew who built it , either M.V. or C.M. peolple. Was it you Rich ? The Alto bowl before Cal-Fong developement built it out was one of the Alto gangs favorite " seshposishes" Ron S., Greg B. , Fred Z. , John Z. , Charlie S. , Dale T. , Bruce M. (who we later renamed Aldo Baldocci ) and myself would go up there to boast. Across the bowl ran a Bell System phone trunkline. I knew it was not a high tension electric transmission line because of it's thickness and height. We started a macho thing of walking on the wire across the bowl. There was 2 guy wires about 4 feet above the main trunkline so it was actually easy. One day Aldo and myself were walking on the wires when a family came hiking up and exclaimed " Look , they're on the wires themselves " ! We quickly scrambled off the wire and started ambushing them with dirt clods. We succeded in running them off and we bailed also. The Ralston L. White retreat had a wonderful creek fed swimming pool, no pinche chlorene. We used to swim up there and one day the caretakers caught us in the pool , they were hip and we made friends with them and they gave us a tour of the retreat , it's a beautiful estate that is still there. The Bung Hole in Stinson Beach : was in the old rain forest that is part of the North end of the park. That whole area has been totally hacked down now but in the 60's it was thick with all kinds of little trails and some people from Stinson hacked out a secret fort to hide from Col. George White , the Fire Warden. There were runaway girls living in it and we partied there for a summer , but eventually it was discovered. There is more on my list but dinner is ready , so in the meantime everybody from all over Marin try to remember your classic places away from the FEDS.
