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SAN DIEGO — A San Diego judge has been reunited with his past after a hiker found a note left on a mountain 40 years ago by the man.
Larry Wright, 69, was hiking a 12,000-foot peak with his grandson in September when the two discovered a small metal canister with a note inside.
"Tim Taylor climbed to this peak, Thursday, August 17, 1972. Age 13 yrs. Anyone finding this note please write," the note read, including an address in La Cañada Flintridge, a suburb of Los Angeles.
"I had my 14-year-old grandson with me. If he wrote a note like that, he'd be interested to have somebody respond decades later," Wright told the Los Angeles Times.
Wright went to the address and spoke with the current homeowner, who said Taylor had owned the home before him. Various neighbors said they had gone to high school with Taylor or played Little League baseball with him, according to CBS Los Angeles.
Wright ultimately learned Taylor is now a San Diego County Superior Court Judge, and on Monday, the two sat down to discuss their journeys, separated only by time.
Taylor said he had been hiking alone in Sequoia National Park in Aug. 1972 during a Boy Scout backpacking trip, and saw his chance to leave his mark.
"I could see it was unnamed, and that was part of the attraction," he said, saying the peak he climbed was not on his topographic map. "There was no evidence that anybody had ever been there."
Taylor told the San Diego Union-Tribune he was surprised one day when he got a call from a friend of his late father's, saying he was on the front page of the local newspaper. Since then, he's gotten at least 50 calls from old friends of his father and high school acquaintances.
"The whole thing has been great," he said.
Top image credit: CBS
