High Ground

In December 1976, a plane carrying three tonnes of Mexican marijuana crashed into a frozen lake deep inside Yosemite National Park, killing both pilots. When the wreck was discovered weeks later, rangers assumed the remote winter conditions would keep the cargo secure until spring. They underestimated Yosemite’s climbers.

Young, broke and hungry for adventure, climbers from Camp 4 made the brutal journey to the lake, hacked through the ice and began hauling out bales of marijuana. What followed became one of the wildest legends in climbing history.

Fifty years later, HIGH GROUND brings together the climbers, rangers, federal agents and families who actually lived it to uncover what really happened. A true story of climbers, smugglers, three tonnes of weed, and a legend 50 years in the making.