for Rolling Stone

Nestled among thick Redwood trees nearly 300 miles north of San Francisco is one of the most prolific cannabis producing regions in the United States: Humboldt County. Long known for its cultivation of the plant, Humboldt is one-third of the famed “Emerald Triangle” of Northern California (Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity Counties), which together comprise the largest cannabis-producing region in the United States. For decades, the thick cover of trees and seemingly endless rural terrain has made Humboldt an ideal place to covertly grow marijuana. The same conditions make the county an ideal place to disappear. But only Alderpoint, a sleepy area in southern Humboldt, has been given the nickname “Murder Mountain.” (continued)