1964 Plane Crash in the Bob Marshall Wilderness

The plane crash was where the finger of water trough through the scree fields in rivulets in dead center of picture but down in the tree where those little pocket meadows reside.  The lookout sits atop the highest point above.

       

          One late August day in 1965, two people were flying in a small five passenger cessna plane above the Bob Marshall Wilderness and the plane went crashing down.  They were flying above the headwaters of Prairie Valley   The plane started having engine problems and sputtering around the limestone walls of the reef connecting the mountain Prairie Reef lookout sits on and Slategoat mountain.  As the plane sputtered and the engine murmured the fire lookout person took notice of the plane.   The plane whizzed lower and lower buzzing the treetops as it nosedived bisecting a wing and crashing.   The fire lookout manning the tower watched it all happen with eyes big as saucers.  The lookout got on the radio and called Great Falls dispatch and got a helicopter out to the scene as fast as possible.

           A half hour later the wilderness bird beats the wind into submission and flies between Sawtooth Mountain and Castle Reef splitting the Sawtooth Range above Gibson Reservoir where the north fork of the Sun River spills in.  Upon arrival the helicopter flies above the carnage laid to rest in green meadow fields of upper prairie valley.  Pieces of plane lay scattered in and amongst the wall of standing sub-alpine trees and some parts lay in springs and creeks.  The medical people arrived on the scene surprised to find two passengers alive.  One was slowing breathing and in far worse shape than the other.  They placed the victims on stretchers and rushed back to Great Falls on Mercy Flight.  The one person was not so lucky but one did survive.  If it wasn't for the vigilant fire lookout on watch for anything on top of that particular mountain the one person may not have survived and two would have been listed in the obituaries.  

          The drop-off from the lookout is over 1,500 vertical feet down.  I hiked down to inspect the plane carnage one mid-September day on one of my days off.  The hike led along the reef via animal trails threading its way through the rock scree and around blocks of limestone roughage.  It is one of the only paths down off the reef.  All the animals in the area knew about this passage.  Sheep, mountain goats, elk, black bear, grizzly bear, wolverine and lion all left their sign on that trail in the shape of tracks; hooves, paws, feet and scat.  The hike down was about three miles or so and took about an hour leading through sub-alpine fir, the occasional white-bark pine and alpine larch tree.  Lush green meadows fingered their way through the dark pines.  Elk for weeks on end in September bugled through the crystaline air bellowing their harmonious, yet eerie flute-like ivory-inspired calls gumming it between curled lips and open flowing round nostrils.  Giant bulls were seen and heard fencing with their large antler racks like swords whacking each other in the crisp autumn air. Each bull tried to show the other one who was stronger, had more finesse and the best genes to offer the heard.  With each win the bull said to the cows, "Come join my harem!"

LOOK OUT: (prison or paradise) And Then again why did you want to come out?

           

LOOK OUT: (prison or paradise)

Then again why did you want to come out?     

Into the great unknown I flung myself or the United States Forest Service did on top a mountaintop where I sat in my own chosen solitary confinement with three square meals a day and snacks, water in five gallon jugs brought to me on horseback fifteen miles back every three weeks.  Each day was completely mine and belonged to no one but me except when someone called me on the radio to relay messages as a sort of wilderness secretary or more like a stone sentinel in a seventeen foot by seventeen foot squared cell made of wood or the few minutes each day where I sat and looked out over a vast wilderness made of rock, ice and trees searching for signs of forest fires.  The job didn’t require much in scientific skills or training just a desire to be unplugged from modern gadgetry, willingness to be alone and someone willing to try to ‘master the art of solitude’ and someone curious about weather.  I was the perfect candidate.  I will almost try anything once.

               Each day I was allowed to go out in the yard at any time as long as I remained vigilant.  I had to call other lookouts if I was going to go away from the lookout for up to an hour but that is all I was allowed and didn’t even get that if fire activity was too much.  I did pushups, sit-ups, shadow boxed each day and stretching exercises to help keep my mind from getting lazy and stagnate.  Endorphins pumping and flowing kept my mind lubricated and clarified thoughts kept rolling through like a good running machine. Wish I could have hiked longer and more regularly as I find the primitive rhythm of walking tends to delight the mind as Jim Harrison says.  I did tai-chai and tried to sit quietly in my “do-nothing hut” as Jack Kerouac called it in Dharma Bums for up to a half an hour each day.  I had a satellite phone that costs four dollars a minute and used it every few days to call my boss, other lookouts or friends and family.  They were my contact to the outside world except for letters I received and the visitors that came up for the views and the National Public Radio that I that I loved listening to each day. Usually not much changed in the outside world except for a lot of hot air and hoopla;  still the rich and elite trying to profit off of our world at the expense of the health of the planet and the people.  Crazy that they just don’t want to accept that the world is finite and you can’t have infinite growth in a finite world and keep putting profit before people or the planet.

I learned a great deal about myself, the nature of the self and about nature and its laws that govern the universe.  Everything comes in its due times and there really is no reason to hurry or to waste too much time either.  Nature is slow, steady and subtle, yet the beauty permeates all.  To say I didn’t struggle with not being able to check my emails, phone messages or see friends and family at will was challenging, but made it all that much more precious when I did see them or receive a letter.  I had to keep busy with projects like maintenance on the building, drawing, reading or little writing projects or I would wrestle the demons in mind like Jacob wrestling with God in the Bible.  As some great person once said that the most trouble they received from anyone was from themselves and their own mind.  Sure, I had to distract myself from my own tormenting mind just like anyone else, but I had far less distractions up there because everything was narrowed down to the bare necessities and essentials of life and had to face and embrace myself with its many contradictions.  

             I took a shower once a week to conserve water.  I poured water into a solar shower bag and let it heat up all morning and in the afternoon sun where temperatures would reach from eighty degrees to hundred in the bag.  I loved this once a week ritual and helped me realize how important water is and actually got caught showering by hikers a half mile away.  Oh well, I love causing a scene.

             I felt I learned peace and patience for myself and others struggling through long hours and minutes of each day with nothing but myself.  Each day had similarities with the rising of the sun and its setting, the many phases of the moon and the weather irregularities and routines but the subtleties were magical yet slight.  As like the weather that brewed and flowed overhead constantly changing throughout the day or the colors casted in an array and display of dazzling colors of mauve, violet and tangerines beginning and ending each day and an endless starry night spilling across the heavens.  The milky way pouring out of the big dipper in a river of stars and planets and galaxies streaming by in an interstellar night show.  I definitely did not master the now but always looked forward to my two glasses of wine I allotted myself each night throughout the summer and once in awhile a couple more.  Life up there was pretty simple but then one weekend in late September I decided to take an extended weekend and ask my boss for an extra two days off to get a total of four.  Little did I know that this would be an extremely expensive weekend where my life was threatened and I should have stayed up at the lookout where life was easier and simple.

FAST-FORWARD back to taking myself too seriously and wanting extra days off to have extended weekend and go see my lady friend.  After work one night on a Tuesday night about four-thirtyish I began the fifteen mile hike out and trudged back to the trailhead as dusk was settling and shadows were creeping out of tree wells and from behind trees where they lie hidden all day.  It was about seven thirty at night.  Remember this was mid September.   I approached my car and the cabins in the waning light and noticed several of the firefighters that I work with or then again not really because I am a fire lookout and work alone, but the fire crew were at Benchmark cabin and talked me into staying the night, hanging out until the next morning which was fine, because I was tired and couldn’t drive that far that night anyhow.  Since where I was heading was Flathead county and it is five hours north-east of Augusta.  Montana is over 600 miles long.

rodents like marmots and pack rats try to eat their way into cabin.  Not their fault they must stop their perpetually growing teeth, so they gnaw to control length or they will grow into their brains and kill them.

new cement board siding and steel runners for the shutter grooves we installed

            

new steps I built

            REWIND. . .as I drove to the trailhead on my very first day of the season I was being followed by Joe Woodhead the packer who packed me up to the lookout.  I was going to help him wrangle up the mules and horses we would need to carry my provisions up for the year.  I pulled into Willow Creek jumped out of my car and went with Joe to halter the stock.  We always had to catch the mare first.  Her name was Ruby and she was a cinnamon red mare with Ruby red hair.  All the other male horses would follow and so would the mules because mares represent and are usually ‘mother’.  She is a beautiful horse and if we caught her first it would make our lives a hell of a lot easier.  Well, we did not that easily and they all followed back to the horse trailer but we still had to catch and halter the ones we needed for the trip.  Bam-bam would always be pisses when he did not get to go.  He was an eager beaver of horse that would kind of throw a temper tantrum for being chosen.  He wasn't being chosen this much this season for a minor injury but enough of one to leave him back.

temple (church) pew

          After we gathered up Marvin, Beattle, Marco, Cochise, Ruby, Jody and Higgins .  We noticed my left back tire on my Subaru Legacy was nearly flat.  After I changed that tire and put on a spare I noticed another flat tire and then another.  We decided to leave the car on the jack, lock it up and leave it there and jump in with Joe into the Forest Service half-ton pickup truck.  We got on the radio and called the fire crew to tell them what happened and where my car would be and asked them for assistance to take tires into town to be patched then take my car to the trailhead.  Well, the fire crew did fix it and got the car to the trailhead, but then my fourth tire went flat in the following days.  The Benchmark road was regraded that past spring and all the rock in that area is limestone which is very sharp and great for rock climbing but not for driving on.  According to the local mechanic at the tire shop in town they changed over thirty tires in one day because of flats from driving that road.

Elbow Pass Fire (early stages)

            Later in the season with the numerous wildfires burning in the Bob Marshall Wilderness the Elbow Pass fire threatened the trailhead and all structures around benchmark trailhead.  They had to move my car again and discovered that my battery was also dead.  They had to jump start it with jumper cables just to move it to a safe area.  I heard about all this over the radio up at my lookout.  I just had to laugh because I did not need the car anyhow.  Also I thought that the gods must have wanted me to stay up there all season because of all the mishaps.

Pyrocumulous cloud created by fire.  Fire can create its own storms systems with hail, snow, lightning, rain, winds

             After catching up with many of the fire folks that I haven’t seen all summer I decided to sleep in my car and tossed and turned all night thinking about my car and whether or not it would work, if tires were fine and battery?  Needless to say I didn’t sleep well.

            

The next morning the fire crew and I tried to push start my car ‘Yabba-dabba-doo’ style--”WILMA!” because I thought it could be my celunoid or starter that was going out but that didn’t work and finally tried jumper cables and that worked in seconds.  I thanked everyone, waved and drove off down the winding gravel road the forty-five minutes back to Augusta.  It was seven thirty in the morning and I was off.  I was driving down the road when I kept thinking that I was getting a flat tire because of the way my tire sounded like it was kind of wobbling or something.  I kept putting it off, but then finally jumped out of the car, walked around it and tires were all good.  Remember I haven’t driven a car in seventy days.  I jumped back in not thinking it could be something else, but kept going.  Finally, I drove around a curve around the north side of Nilan Reservoir with sixty foot rolling cliffs on each side of the road and hit another curve and was driving forty-five miles an hour when my front left tire came flying off my car at sixty-five miles an hour.  It wheeled right by car down the middle of the gravel road, then veered off to the left, jumped the ditch, then jumped a four foot high barb wire fence and came to a stand-still on the other side.  I grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, white knuckling the Subaru ship as my hub was driving into the pavement and I steered the ship into the shore of the gravel road.  Adrenaline surged through my veins and my heart was nearly leaping out of my chest as I thought, “What the F*&% just happened?”  I jumped out of the car and went after my spinning tire, grabbed it and hauled it back to the car and threw it in the backseat.  All five lug-nuts were gone.  That explained the sound and feeling of a flat tire.  

                I thought to myself, “What else could possibly happen?”  Never-ever think those words.  They are destructive and will send you into a never ending spiral of negativity that one could drown in.  Pulled out my cell phone and turned it on.  No service.  Still too remote.  Got on my hand-held Forest Service Radio. No contact!  Locked the car doors and walked down the road.  Walked a mile and finally got through on my cell phone.  Called Kyle Inabnit the AFMO (Assistant Fire Manager Officer).  He dropped what he was doing and came and picked me up.  We grabbed the tire and threw it in the back of his truck then inspected the studs (bolts the lug nuts go on) and saw that the threads were stripped from the wobbling of the tire for miles.

              We drove into town to the tire shop and asked if he had lug nuts for sale.  He had two and I needed five.  With Kyle’s quick thinking we went and borrowed two more off of another Subaru of a co-worker at the Fire crew’s bunkhouse.  Then drove back out to my car.  We jacked up car as high as we could and barely got the car high enough then slid tire on and put on four out of five lug-nuts as tight as we could, which wasn’t all that tight because of stripped threads.  Then tried to turn over the battery and wouldn’t start.  Had to jump it all over again then drive slowly with Kyle right behind me.

             Made it back into town to a different mechanic and he said I will need five new studs, three lug-nuts, a new battery and new alternator after checking it.  Things just kept adding up.  About this time my head was down and tail between my legs with heart in my stomach.  I told him to order everything he needed.  He couldn’t get it until tomorrow from Great Falls via FedEx.  

          

             “Do what you need to do.”  I told him.  I jumped back in Kyle’s truck and he drove me back to Fire cache and walked to bunkhouse since I needed a room for the night.  One full day of four days off cancelled.  I grabbed a room and was going to mind my own business the rest of the day.  First, I was going to take a nap because of lack of sleep about worrying about car, then do laundry, shower, and go to bar later to do emails.  After laying down a minute decided to kill two birds with one stone and do laundry (since I did it by hand all summer) while I napped.  Had a little bit of dirty hiking clothes in pack and ones I was wearing but didn’t have anything to change into.  I remembered I had clothes cached in the car.  Decided instead of walking a few blocks to the mechanic (cause now back in “the Real World”  need to be in a hurry like everyone else and borrowed friend’s bike that we borrowed lug-nuts off his car from.  Well, he had a flat tire on bike.  I was lazy and stupid enough to still ride it five blocks or so (possibly ruin his rims) and ride a Specialized road bike-that-was-too-big-for-me-and-had-no-business-riding-it.

UFO's could be to blamed for this awful day

                I rode it down the street barely reaching the pedals on a flat lumpy tire.  I rode to the mechanic grabbed some extra clothes and cord to my lap-top computer (because I hiked it out the fifteen miles out of lookout) put everything under one arm and rode off.  I had one hand on handle-bar on top, not by brake and rode back to bunkhouse. I was getting ready to get off the bike and was wearing Chaco sandals and put my right foot back up towards pedal for balance or something (still not sure) and placed my right foot just below big toe into the sprocket.  I forgot how to drive a car and ride a bicycle during the the last two and half months (not really but seemed like it). I received a huge half inch deep and one inch long gash in my foot.  No blood yet just open and exposed cartiledge, veins, tendons and bones.  “FUCK!!”

 I am now in shock walking around the bunkhouse opening up rooms looking for first aid kits but can’t find any.  No blood yet just open void in foot.  Walked outside to look for a plant called yarrow that stops mainly arterial wounds but also any bleeding.  No yarrow anywhere to be found!  Finally grab paper towels because foot is now bleeding.  I have the paper towels puffed up like a paper-mache flower sticking out of my sandal and pasted to wound, walking around like some kind of freak show.  Finally, walk back over to fire cache and show Kyle.  Kyle is on phone, but looks down at my foot as I waddle and limp in his office.  He puts down the phone for a second and asks, “Now what happened?”

                He gets off the phone and hears my story and says, “We have to rush you to the Emergency Room in Choteau to get stitches.  I say I don’t really want to but suppose we should since I didn’t have insurance and it wasn’t on the job.  Finally I agree and we head in.

            

plane crash from '64 that I could see from edge near lookout

 The doctor and nurse tag team me by suturing me up with five stitches and probably could’ve doubled that in stitches, but was practically hundred dollars a stitch.  Kyle meanwhile goes and gets my direct boss Russ and we all go out for lunch that Russ pays for after my expensive trip away from the look/out.  We all agree I should’ve stayed in the lookout.  

            Later that day the mechanic calls and says I don’t need a new alternator the wires just came loose.  That was good news.

           The last twelve or more years my parents and friends back home have worried about all the things that could happen to me living and working in the wilderness like grizzly attacks or black bear maulings, eaten by pack of wolves (which doesn’t happen), falling off a mountain and plunging to my death, drowning while crossing a swollen river from spring runoff of snow melt,  slipping off a log and being impaled by a broken stub, struck by lightening, cut off my leg with a chain-saw, have a tree fall on me in my tent while sleeping, falling in a snow field and sliding to my death, falling in crevasse while crossing a glacier, or dying in an avalanche while skiing or mountain climbing.  Sure many of these things could happen, but most don’t actually happen and living in society and civilization driving a car or crossing a city street is far more dangerous than any of these possible mishaps.  

last day right before getting packed down

                The next day my car is fixed and I drive back to the Flathead scared shitless of driving and having another tire fly off or anything else go wrong.  Hours later I get back to Kalispell and to my storage unit to drop some things off.  I get back in the car and my speedometer and odometer quit working as well.  The last year my gas gauge hasn't worked so I would measure how many miles I would go then fill up my tank.  Usually around 200 to 250 I would go then fill up.  Now I had no technology to measure how far I would go.  I had to tally the miles in my head and guess how fast I was going in relation to other cars if there were any or by the passing landscape.  Kind of tough.  But I did it for next month or so before I got the car into a mechanic.

                My boss allowed me to take a few more days off to let my foot heal and spend time with my lady friend before she moved.  Then when I did go back up to the lookout for a day or two I rode the horse 'Higgins' nearly back to the top.  I stopped an hour from the top then hiked back up slowly not to tear apart or aggravate the freshly sutured foot, which I had wrapped up quite well with extra socks for padding but could barely tie my boots.  Once the horse and I stopped we waited for my boss to hike back up from Indian Point cabin and while the horse and I sat waiting for him I decided to feed the horse some grass.  The horse was roped and hitched to a small green tree.  After I plucked some grass I stood up too quickly into a branch and got a minor black eye.  What a weekend!

a branch poked my left eye