Long before its preservation, Sempervirens Fund heard rumors that the Grateful Dead had “jammed” somewhere on the Lompico Headwaters property back in the day. Although there is no evidence the Grateful Dead ever played Lompico, the truth of the rumor is far stranger.

Garcia’s family owned a house in Lompico. While vacationing in the redwoods in 1951, Garcia’s older brother Clifford accidentally lopped his 4-year-old brother’s right-middle finger off at the knuckle while chopping wood. Even more macabre is the fact that the finger of the boy who would grow up to find international fame as a psychedelic icon and Hall of Fame guitarist…was never found. Time in the Lompico redwoods quite literally shaped Jerry Garcia.

Since then, 60% of the Lompico Headwaters’ 425-acre forest was slated to be cut down until Sempervirens Fund preserved the land and made it the site of another legendary occurrence—the Lompico Forest Carbon Project.