Wildlife on the Wind: A Field Biologist's Journey and an Indian Reservation's Renewal

Chapter 5: Stranded

96 5 Stranded L ong cobalt silhouettes linked the sparse junipers that slipped beneath as we chased the helicopter’s shadow across dissected sagelands. An immature golden eagle wearing white-banded tail feathers, the decorative plumes prized by Plains Indians, streaked past the left door where I was seated. The dense, still air made for ideal flying conditions. It was a great day to be alive, soaring with the eagle. Our pilot John guided the Hiller 12E around the east flank of Black Mountain, so named, I assumed, for its cloak of lodgepole and limber pines that shaded to pyramidal firs and spruce above 9,000 feet. This 10,177-foot hulk dominated the skyline. Behind Black Mountain lay Crow Creek basin, where a pretty willow-lined stream nestled between the 11,000- to 12,000-foot-high crests of Black Ridge on the west and Trail Ridge on the east. These ridges joined at the north, forming an elongated horseshoe that fed Crow Creek’s waters over 2,000 feet below. Our mission on this subzero morning in January 1980 was to survey elk, mule deer, and bighorn sheep in the Owl Creek Mountains. Helping me was Rawlin Friday. Rawley was Arapaho and a tribal game warden. About my height but stockier, he could handle himself. I liked flying with Rawley. He was devoted to the reservation’s wildlife, made a Stranded 97 The author on Trail Ridge glassing for bighorn sheep, June 1979 jovial companion on surveys, and owned an iron stomach, something others I had flown with didn’t possess. In 1944, helicopter pioneer Stanley Hiller built his initial rotary-wing aircraft at age 18. Hiller Helicopters’ first production aircraft, the Hiller UH12, first flew in 1948, the year I was born. More than 2,300 were built for commercial and military use by 1965. The next rerun of M.A.S.H. you watch, look closely at the choppers used for medevac or for transporting Hawkeye from the 4077 in the series finale. They are UH12s, which the military first purchased in 1950 as H-23 Ravens. Increasing altitude hampers performance, as with all reciprocating engine craft. Our Hiller was equipped with a Soloy turbine conversion to remedy that limitation. The one drawback was the turbine’s increased thirst for fuel, giving us only two to two and a half hours aloft per fill-up. We carefully planned the day’s work with that in mind. Bruce Smith Wildlife on the Wind 98 It was now mid-morning. Nearly two hours had elapsed since Rawley and I had met at the Thermopolis airport and begun the day’s survey. We had already recorded 129 mule deer and almost 200 elk across the eastern three-fourths of the sixty-mile-long Owl Creek Mountains—improved numbers for that area compared to last winter’s counts. The high country loomed ahead. I had planned the day’s flight to conclude with the mountainous area surrounding Crow Creek. We would be operating at our loftiest elevations when we searched for high altitude elk and bighorns along Trail and Black ridges. Unlike sheep in the Wind Rivers, which migrated to lowerelevation cliffs in winter, bighorns here wintered along windscoured ridgetops and escarpments. We carried another 40 gallons of fuel in five-gallon jerry cans in the Hiller’s twin cargo baskets—one mounted on the skid beside each door. The additional weight would reduce performance at high altitudes, acting like ballast on a submarine, but would avert a gas-guzzling ferry to refuel in Thermopolis. This dance of performance versus mission time vexes all remote mountain flights. But as one pilot told me, noting that far too many aviation accidents are caused by running out of fuel, “The only time there’s too much fuel on a helicopter is when it’s on fire.” After completing our counts of elk and deer at the lower elevations, John throttled the Hiller toward Trail Ridge. The fuel gauge now registered one-quarter full. We would land on the ridgetop high above, refuel with the jerry cans, and begin our hunt for bighorns. As we approached Trail Ridge, John unexpectedly settled the Hiller in a foot of snow on the Crow Creek road. His voice was tinged with concern as he said, “I want to check on something.” Noting our probing expressions, he added, “I smelled something.” Stranded 99 As I...