Want to travel back through time? Make the drive from San Francisco to Humboldt.
The first things to go are the corporate towers of downtown, followed by the sprawling industrial and shopping complexes of Marin. Soon, the suburbs fade, replaced by pastures seemingly stretching on forever. After enough hours, even the gas stations and fast-food outlets lining Highway 101 give way to the blur of bark, shadow, and silence.
Standing in a place rich with redwoods reaching to the clouds, it can feel as though you’ve stumbled through a portal into California as it existed 200 years earlier. More overwhelming than ominous, Humboldt County is simply a place where everything is big: the trees, the distance between properties, the feeling of isolation. It’s no wonder there have been dozens of Bigfoot sightings reported in the area.
Humboldt is also, of course, where much of the world’s finest cannabis is grown. That’s why, on a late-September morning, I found myself driving to a hotel in Fortuna, eager to make good on an invitation to take part in Humboldt Seed Company’s fabled annual pheno hunt.
Founded in 2001 by Nat Pennington, Humboldt Seed Company specializes in identifying rare cannabis genetics and selling them for commercial use. The pheno hunt, a multiweek event run by Pennington and his daughter, Halle, happens every September, just ahead of the harvest season, when the Penningtons and a group of invited guests evaluate literal fields’ worth of cannabis crops grown at participating farms.
HSC started hosting pheno hunts in 2018, with participating farms sprouting different cannabis-seed phenotypes that each represent a unique genetic pool, with an eye toward specific traits like disease and pest resistance, smell, plant structure, and coloring. (Phenotypes, by definition, constitute a plant’s physical expressions.)
Each year, right before the plants are ready to be harvested, HSC invites volunteers from near and far (with transportation, accommodations, and meals provided) to join the company for a survey of the farms and their treasured inventory and to help determine which strains are best. To date, HSC’s most popular strain is 2009’s Blueberry Muffin, which manages to convey a flavor of the titular pastry, thanks to a terpene profile heavy in caryophyllene, myrcene, and limonene. (Terpenes are the chemical compounds that inform numerous plants’ aromas and flavors, among other attributes. Limonene, for example, is often associated with citrus and lemon.)
With so many possible combinations still to try, the hunt to find the market’s next favorite strain is always on. “The goal isn’t just about unicorns,” Halle explains, dropping a term reserved for weed specimens that feature exceptionally rare and compelling genetics. “We want unicorns, of course, but what we’re looking for are amazing terps, solid structure, gorgeous colors—all of that.”
This year, the members of HSC’s pheno-hunt party set out to collectively lay eyes on 10,000 plants, representing a staggering array of strains, in order to identify the heartiest, healthiest, “happiest,” and most capable of thriving in a range of conditions across Northern California and beyond.
One attendee on the hunt with me is Machel Emanuel, a lecturer and researcher in the University of the West Indies’ Department of Life Sciences. Emanuel, who has a genial laugh and shoulder-length dreadlocks, tells me that he made the journey to Northern California to seek out cannabis plants capable of flourishing in the Caribbean’s tropical climate.
Also in our hunting party is Ellen Holland, editor in chief of High Times. Exceptionally knowledgeable about all things cannabis, Holland previously collaborated with home-grow author Ed Rosenthal, making her a perfect person to undertake this year’s pheno hunt. (Shortly after the hunt concluded, Holland published a 2,000-word travelogue of her voyage.)
I join Emanuel, Holland, and about a dozen other happy hunters in a Sprinter van driven by Matt Kurth, who can usually be found operating Humboldt Cannabis Tours and is playing chauffeur today.
As we set off, I catch up with the Penningtons, a rare father-daughter duo. Forty-six-year-old Nat sports a lumberjack’s build and boasts an expertise derived from nearly 30 years of cultivating cannabis. Meanwhile, 25-year-old Halle is rapidly making a name for herself as his social-media-savvy successor-in-waiting.
As Kurth navigates along narrow dirt roads that take us through an undulating series of canopy-covered hills, I wonder if we’ll ever emerge from our cocoon of redwoods and shadow. Finally, following a rugged 45-minute drive, we burst from the forest to find that we’ve arrived at a rural oasis of weed, Full Moon Farms.
The lines of history are blurring again, this time courtesy of Full Moon Farms’ owner, Nik Erickson.
Erickson, who grew up in Quincy, a small community in Plumas County in the Sierra Nevada, can still recall the day his father’s cannabis garden was raided by law enforcement. In 1993, three years before cannabis was legalized for medical use, he moved to Humboldt, where he now oversees three distinct grow sites, each representing a different microclimate.
Today, we’re at one of Erickson’s properties in Bridgeville, an unincorporated community off Highway 36 on Humboldt’s eastern border with Trinity County, where the land, as he explains it, was once a rustic retreat that counted the likes of Ronald Reagan among its guests.
“Before it got subdivided, this whole area was called Deerfield Ranch,” Erickson tells me. “The original sign is still right across the street. Back in the 1950s, it was a dude ranch and they’d bring people up from Hollywood to ride horses.”
The horses are gone, but the vast sloping fields are now dotted with cannabis plants. With a steady dose of sunlight throughout the growing calendar, the neatly labeled and organized rows have plants that can grow to five feet or higher at the peak of their maturation. Any plants we find looking exceptionally happy this afternoon will be of special interest to farmers working with similar land.
We gather in a circle around Erickson, who offers the assembled group some final instructions.
“We’re not THC hunters,” Erickson tells us. “We’re just looking for really positive expressions: wild colors, amazing terps, impressive structures.”
THC, of course, cannot be determined without a lab test, but Erickson’s words echo those of Halle Pennington, who told us that the act of pheno hunting is, in essence, simply informed observation based on physical plant characteristics.
Relying on 10 equally weighted categories, we are tasked with making assessments of every relevant plant on the Bridgeville property before we lose the light. Later, once all the fieldwork is complete, these numbers will be tabulated to determine which specimen, if any, can be classified as a fabled unicorn.
For the next three hours, each of us strolls the fields, examining plants with white binders in hand. Though no specimens under consideration can be smoked quite yet, plenty of product from earlier harvests is within arm’s reach. It’s an exceedingly mellow way to spend a day.
To the shock of no one, most of us partake, channeling our elevated mindsets as we evaluate strains with names like Blueberry Gelato, Forbidden Grapes, and Chicken and Waffles.
In some cases, it’s staggering to see how prominently one plant looms over another, the difference measurable not in inches but in feet. Elsewhere, insects devour the leaves of a given plant, while its ostensible twins on either side remain entirely untouched. It opens my eyes to another benefit of this unusual quest: the chance to provide observations that would be impossible to infer from cannabis in its dried and cured form.
Slightly stoned but seriously fascinated, we pass the hours quickly. I mark botanical tallies and confer notes with the team. Eventually, the setting sun provides our cue to gather back in the van.
Our venue for the evening is a spacious house overlooking Humboldt’s unspoiled splendor on all sides. Perched on a property recently acquired by Full Moon Farms for greenhouse use, it’s a few miles down Highway 36.
When we arrive, it’s immediately clear that the night’s activities are destined to feature dancing, dinner, and dabs—highly potent vapor consumed by heating concentrated cannabis oils. Thankfully, there is also plenty of food, including a make-your-own-burrito station and various baked goods. Everyone, it seems, is really hungry.
Indoors, Kurth and Emanuel chat about the day’s discoveries as other guests admire the stockpile of botanical refreshments laid out on the home’s centerpiece: a reclaimed bowling-alley countertop that runs the length of a massive kitchen island. On it, homemade edibles sit next to an array of jars overflowing with freshly harvested buds as well as a few gummy treats originating from the fungi family.
Throughout the space are trophies, plaques, and commendations awarded to Full Moon Farms over the years, reminding me that I’m in the presence of people who take their profession seriously, even as they occasionally enjoy the fruits of their labors.
As Nat Pennington plays DJ, Erickson joins me on the patio to reflect on our day’s adventure and its potential to change the ways users will enjoy cannabis going forward.
“It’s so interesting to get feedback from people with an outside perspective,” he says. “I love the fact that Emanuel is trying to breed a plant that can thrive in the tropics. I’ve got other friends who live in the tropics, and the nugs out there are all one-trick ponies. There are only a few strains that can make it in an environment like that. Opening that world up to options and choices…it’s all fascinating to me.”
At some point, exhaustion takes hold, and Kurth shepherds us back into the van to return to civilization. It’s a sleepy ride, the day’s excursions and recreational supplements combining to make us all exceptionally eager for our hotel beds.
The next day, I leave the hunt, a little tired but a lot more informed. As my new colleagues gather in the lobby to begin a new, two-hour drive to the next farm, I marvel not only that they’ve all managed to rouse themselves at the proper hour but also that they all seem genuinely excited to do it all again.
As I merge onto the 101 for the drive back to San Francisco, I wonder whether the hunters will find their unicorns—and whether it matters in the end. Being elusive, it seems, is a way of life among the redwoods. If Big Foot can find a home here, why couldn’t a unicorn or two?•
Zack Ruskin is a freelance reporter living in San Francisco. His regular beats include weed, music, literature, comedy, and drag. He’s written the cannabis column “Chem Tales” for SF Weekly since 2016 and reviews new music releases for Variety. His byline has also appeared in Vanity Fair, Merry Jane, the San Francisco Chronicle, Alta, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, Cannabis Now, and Marin Magazine.
