Carolyn Garcia

Carolyn Elizabeth Garcia
Born	(1946-05-06) May 6, 1946 Poughkeepsie, New York, U.S.
Other names	Mountain Girl, Carolyn Adams
Occupation	Merry Pranksters icon

Carolyn Elizabeth Garcia (née Adams; born May 6, 1946), also known as Mountain Girl, is a former Merry Prankster and a former wife of Jerry Garcia.

Carolyn Adams was born and raised in Poughkeepsie, New York. She attended Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Hyde Park but traveled to Palo Alto, California in 1963 with her older brother Don shortly after she was expelled from high school. In early 1964, she met Neal Cassady, who introduced her to Ken Kesey and his friends, one of whom gave her the name "Mountain Girl". Journalist Tom Wolfe described his first impression of a teenage Adams as “a tall girl, big and beautiful with dark brown hair falling down to her shoulders except that the lower two-thirds of her falling hair looks like a paint brush dipped in cadmium yellow from where she died it blond in Mexico. She pivots and shows the circle of stars on the back of her coveralls” which one of her hippie companions described as “wild.”

Cassady took her to La Honda, California, Kesey's base of operations, where she quickly joined the inner circle of Pranksters and became romantically involved with Kesey, having a daughter by him named Sunshine. The Grateful Dead song "Here Comes Sunshine" may or may not be an allusion to Adams's and Kesey's daughter – the Dead were fond of lyrics having double, often personal meanings. Kesey was arrested for marijuana possession in La Honda, in 1965 and fled to Mexico. He returned and nights after being sentenced to six months in the San Mateo County Jail, he was arrested again, this time with Carolyn Adams, while smoking marijuana on the rooftop of Stewart Brand's Telegraph Hill home in San Francisco. Carolyn had a relationship with another Prankster named George Walker, who would become her husband in 1966. They separated in December 1966 and were divorced in 1978. She took up with Garcia after splitting with Walker, but they did not marry for many years after.

Before Carolyn married Garcia in 1981, they had two daughters. The family had a house in San Rafael, California as well as a beach house in Stinson Beach, California, but separated after Garcia began a relationship with Deborah Koons. Jerry and Carolyn Garcia divorced in 1994, but remained friends until his death. After the divorce, he married Deborah Koons. He died 18 months later.

After Jerry Garcia's death, Carolyn Garcia was involved in litigation to obtain payments as per their divorce settlement agreement, ultimately agreeing to a $1,250,000 settlement to avoid further legal costs.

Carolyn Garcia wrote a book on marijuana cultivation, called Primo Plant: Growing Sinsemilla Marijuana, first published in 1976 by Bookpeople. She currently sits on the boards of the Rex Foundation and the Furthur Foundation, and is on the advisory board of the Marijuana Policy Project. She formerly served on the board of the Women's Visionary Council. Garcia lives near her daughter Annabelle and the Kesey family farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon.

Further reading

• Jackson, Blair (1999). Garcia: An American Life. New York, Viking. ISBN 0-670-88660-2. A biography of Jerry Garcia, which also has information about Carolyn Garcia.
• Wolfe, Tom (1968). The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-553-38064-4. Describes the early years of Garcia's relationship with Kesey and adventures with the Merry Pranksters.