Mount Umunhum Additions and Corrections
| Almaden Kid | Untitled Comment | |
Hasn't voted | I lived at Almaden Radar site on the summit of Mt. Umunhum when I was a teenager. My dad was stationed there as the medic in 1971-1972.
It was paradise. There were about 30 families and 150 other personnel stationed there. We had to ride an old Air Force bus down the mountain each day for school. Sometimes we were snowed in and had great fun handing the school attendance office our "snowed in" notes. When they asked where we lived, we would take them outside and point up to the mountain. We also did this with kids we met at school.
The base had a half-court basketball gym that doubled as a theater on Friday and Saturday nights, showing first run movies for a quarter. I saw my first R movie there..."Summer of '42". There was also a 2-lane bowling alley that my dad managed in the evenings....25 for a game and a dime for shoe rental. Summer days were spent at the outdoor pool located next to the gym.
There were miles and miles of fire-roads, I spent many happy hours on my mini-bike exploring these roads. I learned to rappel on the metal framed tower seen in some of the photos. There used to be two of these towers, they had a "rocking chair" looking structure on top of them. These towers were called height finders.
Some of the younger enlisted airmen taught my friends and I how to rock climb on some of the rocks surrounding the base. The best one was 'Big Rock", where after you were done climbing, you slid down the mountainside through the brush at break neck speeds.
The base was closed due to better radars being developed and the smaller sites such as Almaden were no longer needed.
Yes, asbestos and lead-contaminated buildings were left behind. One thing people tend to forget is that at the time of the base's construction asbestos was considered a wonder material, the dangers of prolonged exposure to it were unknown.
Many uses for the base were discussed after the closing. In 1986 the base was purchased by the Mid-Pensuila Open Space District for somewhere around $270,000. Oh, how I wish I would have known it was for sale, somehow I would have raised the money to buy it. I always thought it would have made a great enviromental studies camp.
In 2003 I had the opportunity to revisit the base, it was a very bittersweet experience. So many wonderful memories, yet so sad to see it in it's present condition.
I grew up on Air Force bases all over the United States in the 60's and 70's...Almaden was my favorite.
If anyone has any questions I would be happy to anser them. |
| Posted Aug 2, 2005 3:51 pm |
Santa Cruz Mountains > Mount Umunhum > Additions and Corrections