I Took Acid and Walked the Entirety of Golden Gate Park

Original photo of the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park by David Vives

Kayla, Alex, and I were standing in front of the Rideout Fountain in Golden Gate Park’s Music Concourse as the world vibrated around us. Children chased each other screaming, teenagers canoodled on park benches, dogs wore tuxedos for their peoples’ wedding photos, tourist families scuttled between museums — and we stood there absolutely peaking on acid, giggling at the absurd statue in the middle of the fountain.

“It has like…the body of a man, the paws of a jungle cat, the face of a panther, but then big-ass saber-tooth tiger teeth. And why is it fighting a very surprised-looking snake?” Alex told us. “Apparently, the sculptor set out to make a mountain lion, but had never seen one, so made this instead.”

Zoom in to see how odd the statue really is.

We were only a couple of hours into our long, hilarious, LSD odyssey through Golden Gate Park, and this hideous fountain was just one of the many mysteries we’d discover that day.

*  *  *

I’d been wanting to ramble the entirety of the park, from the Panhandle to the beach — tripping balls — ever since my friend Josiah had mentioned it being one of his favorite things to do a few years back. And now on this strangely foggy, humid, and warm, September day, the game was finally afoot.

We met at the William McKinley statue at the tip of the Panhandle at noon, and each put a gel tab of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) under our tongues. The goal was to make it to Ocean Beach for the sunset at 7:15. In normal circumstances, the four-mile walk would only take about an hour and a half, but with the grass breathing and the leaves shimmering in wild shapes, the real question was if we’d make it at all.

Acid is a hell of a drug. It can make you feel euphoric, see colors and patterns much more intensely, hallucinate things, and roll on the ground laughing at the stupidest shit. And since I didn’t know how hard I was gonna trip, I tried to dress incognito. (It would be kinda weird to have someone stop and want to take a pic with me if I was seeing trails everywhere.)

Wearing a ballcap and a hoodie, I thought I wouldn’t be as recognizable but of course as we made it to the Conservatory of Flowers the guy checking vaxx and ID cards said, “I thought it was you!” and my cover was blown. I probably should’ve worn a MAGA hat or something but I didn’t want to give everyone a bad trip.

We meandered, and the acid started to come on right about when we entered the Conservatory of Flowers. The only thing I’ve never really enjoyed about psychedelics is the body high. It makes me feel like I can’t get physically comfortable and can give me mild anxiety. Considering how hot and humid it already was outside, entering the tropical environs of the Conservatory gave me an almost freak-out moment. But looking at all the strange and bulbous plants that hung like fuzzy alien sex organs helped a lot. The real key to getting over the body high though was getting a few drinks in me, so we hopped outside of the park to what felt like the hinterland of the Richmond to find some beer and White Claws.

Fuzzy alien sex organ, am I right?

It was at this point that things got weird. For some reason (read: drugs) we didn’t think to look at Google Maps for a liquor store until we’d been wandering for ten minutes. “Are we in the Excelsior?” Kayla asked.

“No love, we’re still in the Richmond,” I said, “but also, I’m not really sure I’m feeling anything yet. Are you all?”

They were definitely feeling it, and I was too — I just didn’t realize it yet. I even considered taking another half a tab, but am REALLY glad I didn’t.

After lumbering into Denhard’s Market on 10th Avenue to grab drinks, we knew it was time to get out of the concrete weirdness and get back to the more vibrant green weirdness of Golden Gate Park.

Which is how we ended up at the Rideout Fountain. The White Claws had taken the edge off my trip and we were sitting on a bench in the Music Concourse cackling about the things we thought we saw, but were probably mis-seeing. “I’m pretty sure that’s an entire choir sitting on that bench practicing.”

No dear reader, it was not. I think it was people just having lunch.

Walking through the Richmond totally thinking I’m incognito.

Alex got up for a closer look at the statue.

“I just looked at that fountain up close,” he said. “Some fountains are meant to be admired from afar.”

And we soon found out he was entirely correct.

A strange thing that happens when you’re on psychedelics is that bizarre phenomena inexplicably occurs. For example, the last time I did acid was up in the Santa Cruz mountains at a friend’s wedding (this kind of thing was encouraged and about 20 of us took it). At one point, someone came over and said, “Hey come check this out! There’s a zebra next door!” There were in fact two zebras…and a bunch of peacocks, emus, and other unexpected animals. Apparently, the neighbor rescues them and has something like 27 species.

While this kind of stuff doesn’t seem to happen when you’re just going through regular life, it often does while on mind-altering substances. It was this point, at the peak of our trip when we decided we needed to venture further into the park. We did have another 40 or so blocks to go.

*  *  *

Continuing west, we skirted the Botanical Garden, marveling at all the humans cramming in for the Flower Pianos. I don’t know about you, but psychedelics make me extra mischievous, so when we saw a place in the fence where it would be easy to hop, we almost did. Then one of us realized that the festival was free to S.F. residents anyway, so what was the fun of crashing something that we were invited to?

Skipping Stow Lake — because “Whoa… there are so many people,” and having no desire to climb Strawberry Hill because “Fuck climbing hills right now” — we found ourselves at 19th Avenue, once again looking for booze.

If zigzagging through the sleepy Richmond felt a little eerie, coming out onto 19th Ave. felt like Carmageddon. Acid tunes up your senses, so you’re more sensitive to sights, sounds, and ambient feelings. But we had The Thirst! Thus, we trudged on.

And that’s when everything got really weird.

Walking out of the liquor store that we finally found around 19th and Kirkham we came across a true oddity: a duck in a diaper. He was straight up chilling on the sidewalk, like “What, you don’t have ducks in diapers in your neighborhood?”

I turned to the lady loitering outside the store and said, “Is that really there? I mean I’m on acid, but I’m not that high.”

The duck wasn’t alone, though. Her owner was there too, wearing a shirt with a duck on it. I guess some folks are dog people, some are cat people, and apparently, others are duck people.

“Why does that kind of shit only happen when you’re on drugs?” I asked.

Look at the little brown diaper the duck is wearing!!!

“What are you talking about? You just saw a guy walking a chicken on a leash in the Tenderloin like a month ago,” Kayla reminded me.

I like doing psychedelics outside. I like looking at the magnificence of nature, ruminating on concepts I haven’t had time to concentrate on, and having the ability to roam around. And San Francisco is a fantastic place to do this. There are nearly 250 parks in San Francisco if you consider the federal, state, and city levels. And each one has something different to explore. That said, Golden Gate Park is probably the most interesting. Sure, Dolores Park is a great place to buy drugs, but maybe not the best place to take them.

Escaping the concrete jungle and re-entering the Eden that is Golden Gate Park, we eventually made it to Hellman Hollow — where finally, thankfully, we were not the most fucked-up people around. We grabbed a seat on the grass and watched a bunch of college kids play a very competitive game of Sloshball, by which I mean, a race to the bottom of sobriety.

From there, we bumbled by the Polo Fields which were somehow covered in thousands of birds…at least we were pretty sure they were. Then our titanic meandering and staring led us accidentally to stand directly in the way of a frisbee-golf tournament.

Somewhere along the way, Kayla had decided that we weren’t leaving until we saw the bison. We of course managed to go the long way and stopped by a part of the park I didn’t even know existed.

*  *  *

The Golden Gate Park Dog Training Area is like the Chase Center of dog parks. Under normal circumstances, Kayla and I sometimes find ourselves the creeps who hang out at dog parks unaccompanied by a furry friend, but this was something different. Dozens of dogs chased each other, shitting everywhere. We sat down to rest our legs, choosing a bench that seemed to have a great view. Unfortunately, it was just on the other side of the fence from where every dog within a 10-mile radius must come to shit. There was so much shit, in fact, that we decided the bison pen must smell better.

I can now report that the bison are underwhelming even when you’re on acid — but we did get to see a hawk swoop down and snatch a mouse straight out of the bison paddock. We cheered that hawk on like fucking psychopaths.

You can’t tell by the pic, but they look pretty small in person.

We trudged on like champions and found a little lake none of us had ever been to. To be honest, I don’t even know if I could find it again. We immediately came across a few families of raccoons and thus named the place Raccoon Lagoon. The little bandits were obviously used to people because they were playing up their cuteness but we still didn’t trust them. The journey continued.

By now, we were five or six hours into our expedition. Our legs were tired, and our sides hurt from laughing, but we could not stop. Even though it had been incredibly foggy and humid all day, we could feel the ocean getting closer by the salinity in the air. Plus, we’d just stumbled upon Chaparral Ranch, so we got to murmur endearing things to the horses we found there. That is, until we noticed there were other people around and realized how weird we were being.

Stumbling through the underbrush, we exited the shrubbery into civilization…or whatever you’d call several dozen teenagers playing soccer while grown-ass adults yell crazy shit at them. The Beach Chalet Fields meant we were almost at the Beach Chalet, which, in turn, meant we were almost at the beach. We had an hour or so before sunset when we stopped at the Park Chalet for a bite and a beer. Sitting there, snickering about all the ridiculousness of the day we acknowledged that a) we were indeed still quite high and b) we had one last thing to do.

*  *  *

I’d love to tell you that the sunset was magnificent. That my LSD vision helped emblazon the luminous sky to bring me tears of joy and beauty. But it would be a lie. We couldn’t see shit. There essentially was no sunset. It might honestly be one of the thickest fogs I’ve ever seen. The sky went from hazy grey flannel to hazy black bed sheets. Not an ounce of color in the sky. But that’s OK because what we encountered was even more fascinating.

Standing on the sidewalk above the beach, peering at the dozens of bonfires dotting the Great Nothing ahead of us, we learned what teenagers do for fun in San Francisco. There were literally hundreds of them clumped together on the beach like penguins clustering together for warmth. That is, if penguins gossiped loudly and snuck sips of booze from under their hoodies. As we approached the wall above the sand, three teenage boys furtively shoved bottles under their garments and shuffled away from us because to them, we probably looked like narcs. Little did they know!

So many kids and so much fog.

“This is awesome,” I told Alex and Kayla. “It reminds me of growing up in San Diego. This is exactly what we did as teenagers.” And I dwelt upon the circle of life. In the semi-near future, some of these youngsters would be embarking on their own voyages of psychedelic discovery.

I wondered how many of them would inherit the tradition of the Grand Tour (a term I just made up) of taking acid and rambling through Golden Gate Park.

Then again, I also wonder, after reading this article, how many of you might also do the same.

This piece originally appeared on the Bold Italic.