MONTE RIO, Calif.

A Lexus-Mercedes caravan of privilege disturbs the sylvan stillness along a Northern California back road, motoring under an honor guard of redwoods that have no choice in the matter. In defiance of nature’s odds, every driver is a man.

This can only mean that it is time again for the annual Bohemian Grove encampment, where, for more than a century, thousands of men have shed wives and cares to hike, listen to lectures, drink, discuss current events, celebrate the arts, drink, share frat-boy traditions, enjoy boon companionship no woman could understand, and drink.

A teary-eyed toast, then, to this wooded womb, followed by soulful consideration of one’s connection to greatness while urinating beside a skyscraping redwood. Who knows what titan of industry, what head of government  what Bohemian!  has relieved himself in this very spot?

Herbert Hoover? Henry Kissinger? Art Linkletter?

To quote the sacred script of the grove’s notorious Cremation of Care ceremony, which includes the requisite summer-camp assembly of robed men, a 40-foot concrete owl, and a body burned in effigy (conspiracy theorists note: it is not a real body):

Once again, midsummer sets us free!

But some of the ritual is missing. For most of the last 30 years, protesters by the dozens and hundreds have agitated outside this dark-wooded lair, denouncing it as a networking opportunity for the male elite, where valuable connections are slyly made over gin fizzes and bra-strap adjustments before the next performance in drag.