Thinking bout the time this random hippie I met and I hitch hiked from Boulder to Nederland and didn’t get there till like 1am so we just rolled out our sleeping bags behind this little gas station and woke up to this dude sitting maybe like 15 feet away just looking at us. Big, tall native American dude.

I’m barely awake and moving and he comes over and just says “I didn’t want to wake you up.” I was like, “yeah good call dude, why tf were you just sitting there?”

Him: “I was waiting for you to wake up”

Me: “…Why?”

Him: “Do you have any glass?”

Me: “Dude I just left Denver to get away from all the fking tweakers. I don’t have any of that shit.”

Him: “Tweakers? No. Do you have glass to smoke out of…”

Then he proceeds to pull a giant mason jar of weed out of his backpack.

Him: “your woman looks a hippie. I thought you smoked.”

Dude I hitched there with: (Still in his sleeping bag) “I’m a fucking DUDE”

After a few minutes of unpleasant pleasantries and getting our bags packed up, dude tells us his name is Lobo and if we wanted to smoke, he knows a good spot overlooking the quarry.

So we start walking. He took us into the timber to this spot where the roots between three trees had grown together, making a perfectly symmetrical bench in the hillside about two feet off the ground. The view was absolutely gorgeous.

So we proceed to sit and get stoned and Lobo starts telling us a story about a clairvoyant magic man who he referred to as a wizard. According to the story, the wizard wasn’t a native and didn’t belong to either of the two predominate tribes who lived there. Which allowed him to intermingle between the tribes and act as a middle man for trade deals as well as keep peace between the two tribes.

The wizard was more or less a nomad. He lived in the woods, never staying in one place. He didn’t keep a shelter but slept in caves and continually moved all around the surrounding mountains, blessing the land and and offering gratitude, insuring it would continue to prosper and provide for all it inhabitants. Animals, trees, plant life and humans.

The wizard would wade out into the water that would eventually become the quarry we we’re looking out on, measuring the depth of the water with his staff and prophesied over the land according to where the water came up to certain markings on his staff.

The story was vague and didn’t really connect from one part to the next but it was a bad ass story nonetheless.

Long story short the three of us got on pretty well so we invited lobo to hike up to the mountain with us and spend a few days camping. It was still cold out and snowy and none of us had tents so we so we built a fire and gathered these big rocks to heat up in the fire during the day and buried them at night to heat the ground and slept on top of them. I was surprised at how comfortable I was.

So after a few days we needed to hike into town for water and food supplies and booze so off we went.

Just as we were getting into town, a cop cruises past us and stops a little ways up the road and gets out of his car a with a visibly concerned, bordering fearful demeanor. It was obvious that he was approaching the situation extremely cautiously. He stayed by his car rather than approaching us, so there’s a good 20+ feet of space between us and it was immediately clear the Lobo and the cop were familiar with each other.

Cop: “Lobo… Who let you out?”

Lobo: full on thousand yard stare directly passed the cop. Says nothing

Cop: “Lobo, did somebody let you out?”

Lobo: “it’s fine. I am ok to be out. I am ok.” Almost as if he was honestly trying to put the cop at ease.

So, finally the cop walks over.

The interaction felt way more like small talk than an integration. It couldn’t have been more obvious this cop was trying to play it cool. He asks Lobo how long he’d been out. Lobo says a few days and assures the officer that he’s fine to be out.

After a few minutes, backup arrives with an even more uneasy demeanor. The two cops go and talk quietly amongst themselves at which point Lobo hands us his backpack and says he’ll meet us back up on the mountain that night.

The cops come and in the most beat-around-the-bush way, basically ask Lobo if it would maybe be ok if he rode down to the station with them to make sure everything was on the up and up. Lobo was reluctantly cooperative and got in the squad car.

The cops come back to dude and I and asks if we’re ok. We said yes, confused as to why they would ask. They exchange a look, visibly relieved.

These cops were straight shook. Like literal sweat on the brow shook.

With as few details as possible they tell us that Lobo is a life long resident of an institution for the criminally insane with a history of violence and being a flight risk. Apparently he’d escaped in a bunch of different ways, some of which they still hadn’t figured out how.

Basically the cops are baffled and astonished that we spent that much time with him without incident. They didn’t run our names and just let us on our way. They were both looking at each other, absolutely dumb founded. All raised eyebrows and shaking their heads like they dodged some serious shit.

In the end, we hike back up and wait around for a week for Lobo to come back. He never did. After a week passed we decided to tap into Lobos herb. My hippie dude shakes his head and pops the top off the jar and holds it out in front of him…

Hippie: “Thanks Lobo. Wherever you are.”

And that’s the story of the chillest criminally insane person I’ve ever met.