Welcome,

To Saturday Wharf to Barf. Normally, such a momentous occurrence would be termed the Crown Jewel of W2B but after perusing the pictures taken and having hashed the trail, I must sadly deem this the Clown Jewel of W2B.

I intend to provide evidence supporting my supposition. Let’s begin at 11 minutes before 11. I arrived on my bike only to find co-hare Dung-Fu Grip’s method of personal conveyance already firmly ensconced at Forty Thieves Picnic Area. I could not help but concluded some major pre-lay was in progress. Dung-Fu did not return to the scene of his future crime for a number of hours.

It was quite a while until other hashers began to arrive and offload copious quantities of food and kegs of ales. In order of importance, much effort was expended in assembly the two kegs and making sure they operated correctly. Co-GM Broke Bench Mountain felt it incumbent upon him as GM to insure everything was copacetic with the apparatus. By-the-by, this also allowed him to drink without having to wait for others to fill their drinking vessel.(Not that I would ever accuse him of an ulterior motive) While BBM was playing beertender, co-GM Cumz Out My Nose was manning check-in and trying to snare sneaky dogs that attempted to circumvent paying up. A rather unenviable task but she showed little sympathy for those thieving dogs that tried to sidestep her. Meanwhile, on the field of battle, socializing was especially fierce as many of us have been separated from each other lo these two years of the pandemic.

This portion of today’s festivities occupied a great expanse of our time here today which is exactly as it should be. The action kicked off around noon and was only interrupted by Dung-Fu Grip(finally on-in from pre-lay) announcing Instructions of Trail. After hearing what Dung-Fu had to say, I found his exaggerations, possibly just blatant lies, qualify him to run for political office, possibly even rising to the level of being Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate in 2024. We’ll save that discussion for another time though, there’s a trail to be hashed!

Trail began innocently enough but within minutes coerced the clan into crossing a creek. This was an iffy crossing as no stable means of keeping our rear paws dry existed. Two hashers went for a swim, details during Religion recap. We’re now on Branciforte Creek Trail and would take it’s winding way on-up to Top of The World which is also Hole 26a on the Disc Golf Course. We’ve just gained almost 300 feet of elevation from Forty Thieves. Yikes!

This proved to be Liquor Check as well as a sight-seeing stopover. The skies were crystal clear and Monterey appeared to be almost close enough to reach out and grab…if that’s a place you aspire to touching. Bailas Con Burros and Oral Lickstation went exploring the small abandoned building on this hilltop but soon discovered they were but members of a long line of people who have been here and were saddened to find nothing of value unless you are a collector of beer bottles and used condoms.

After concluding our business here we headed on-down to Upper Park Road and peeled off on-left just prior to the road leading to the clubhouse. At a split in the sidewalk, the first of the two promised Turkey/Eagle splits was observed. It’s a beautiful day, too nice to miss the sights so let’s fly with the Eagles. Trail, now using the golf cart sidewalk, proceeded beside Hole 9 over 400 yards, before curving on-right to parallel Hole 8. However, not far past the tee trail took an on-left onto a (barely) maintained trail that led on-down to a water tank. Once we were tanked, we were pointed on-right onto Old Vineyard Trail.

Old Vineyard Trail would be traipsed until Parkway Trail where an on-right would yield onto a trail of questionable maintenance. We would eventually curve on-right and be spit out into the Rangeside Bar beside the driving range and rejoin the Turkeys. This was a welcome respite from what has up to now been a somewhat challenging trail. Little did we know what awaited us on the second leg of our journey. Upon completion of our task here the pack outed through the parking lot and viewed the second promised Turkey/Eagle split. It’s still early, let’s fly with the Eagles again. What could possibly go wrong by now?

We proceeded all 400 yards of Hole 9 and then curved on-right and started alongside Hole 8. However, not far past the tee, a hare arrow pointed the pod on-left to begin a steep on-down through some serious shiggy.

A semblance of a trail eventually became evident and we even passed a long abandoned bike pump track. The reason it was abandoned some became evident.

This trail passes Audrey Stanley Grove Trail, the locals-only entrance to the Shakespeare Santa Cruz venue. Then we passed the entrance to the long gone DeLaveaga Zoo and popped out onto DeLaveaga Park Drive and on-left to Pacheco Avenue and on-right past the dog park and on-down. That shiggy wasn’t so bad, now was it?

A shortcut through a church parking lot placed our rear paws on Goss Avenue and, at least ostensibly, heading on-in. Little did we know… Goss was used until an on-right onto Carol Avenue was indicated. Carol was abused until North Branciforte Avenue. Once there, marker made the menagerie motivate directly across and onto Old Sheriff Posse Cabin Road. It’s been years since we challenged this trail and I hope it’s years before we do so again. It steep and treacherous. Were the sheriff’s posse to breach this trail now, they would be as surprised as us to find a homeless encampment far, far off the road.

We struggled on-up through some serious shiggy until emerging into a small field. This soon became field of screams though as marker completely vanished. Ramrod, assisted by Crumple Zone, tried every possible avenue of exit…multiple times. Eventually, having been through here many years prior, we took the most well defined of the trails as we used years ago. Some distance along, marker was found. Probably too many hounds’ rear paws obliterated marker for those of we DFL’s. This trail eventually ejected us back onto the golf course along the fairway for Hole 3 and on-left. The golf cart path curves on-right and continues along towards Hole 2 but soon a hare arrow led the litter on-left and on-down a short distance onto DeLaveaga Upper Loop Trail.This was followed by a series of quick on-lefts that would bring us back to DeLaveaga Park. A easy crossing of Branciforte Creek deposited us back at Forty Thieves where the found the Turkeys asking, Where the hell have been? We chose to not scare them by answering their query. Next up was face-feed time and was quite welcome after the horror we had just been subjected to. After sating ourselves, Accuprick fired up his Religion machine. This was an extended Religion with almost no one being able to avoid Accuprick’s fickle finger of fate. Here is an abbreviated list of down-downs issued this day: Leaky Rubber for bragging about performing karaoke; auto and short-cut hashers were punished; those that went for an unplanned swim in Branciforte Creek; those that performed a hare-snare…by hashing trail backwards; two harriettes for using words no one else knew; the hasher that won the impromptu disc toss from Top of the World. I’d like to skip mentioning our hares again but they, too, were awarded punitive down-downs. Now for what everyone waits for at W2B: the awarding of the Watermelon Head Award. This goes to someone who has made an outstanding contribution to the degenerative behavior W2B has come to signify. There were a number of outstanding examples but the one that sang the loudest to us was…Ramrod. Just prior to opening the nomination process, a song was being sang to a down-down recipient and each and every time we tried to end the song and get along with the proceedings, Ramrod added yet another verse. I doubt he truly ran out of verses, I think someone just stuck a beer in his face and while he was drinking it, the RA was finally able to move on. Anyway, in the end it was Ramrod who donned the highly-coveted Watermelon Head Award.

This pretty much finished off W2B Saturday. There was some more food munching as well as continued imbibing but events(and hashers) were beginning to move considerably slower than they had a few hours earlier. Let’s adjourn the party until tomorrow.

The preceding was a factual accounting of actual events though possibly not as they actually occurred. One should never allow the facts to stand in the way of a good story. Do not allow the profound to be the enemy of the interesting.

A Scribe’s sole purpose is to provide entertainment to their kennel mates. Whether or not they are successful in this endeavor is still a subject open to debate.

I chose not to complicate this Hash Trash with facts thereby allowing me to extract almost any end I desired. It was with this end in mind that I recounted the events that comprised Hash Twelve-Oh-1.

By Special Appointment of His Royal Majesty ‘G’, this Hash Trash has been compiled and printed by permission of no one other than the author at Santa Cruz, Ca., or elsewhere if need be, on this, the third day of August in the year of our Hash two-thousand twenty-two.

Submitted with all respect due,

Puff

the

Magic Drag Queen

Surf City H3 Scribe