Bruce L. Smith - Stories from Afield: Adventures with Wild Things in Wild Places

Statistics are no substitute for judgment.

Henry Clay

Long, cobalt silhouettes of junipers slipped beneath, as we chased our shadow across the dissected sagelands. An immature golden eagle sporting white-banded tail feathers, the decorative plumes prized by Plains Indians, streaked past the helicopters left door. 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 12 E around the east flank of Black Mountain. The peaks 10,087-foot, fir-cloaked hulk dominated the skyline. Behind Black Mountain lay Crow Creek basin, a pretty, willow-lined stream nestled between 11,000- to 12,000-foot-high Black Ridge on the west and Trail Ridge on the east. These joined to the north, forming an elongated horseshoe that fed Crow Creeks waters 2,000 to 3,000 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 of Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Along to help me was Rawley Friday. Rawley was Arapaho and a tribal game warden at the Wind River. About my height but stockier, he could handle himself. I liked flying with Rawley. He was devoted to the reservations wildlife and a jovial companion on surveys; and he owned an iron stomach, something others Id flown with didnt possess.

The prototype of the rotary-wing aircraft carrying us was built in 1944 by helicopter pioneer Stanley Hiller at the age of eighteen. Hiller Helicopters first production aircraft, the Hiller UH 12, first flew in 1948, the year I was born. By 1965 more than 2,300 were built for commercial and military use. The next rerun of M.A.S.H. you watch, look closely at the choppers used for medevac or to transport Hawkeye from the 4077 in the series finale. They are UH 12s, first purchased by the military in 1950 as H -23 Ravens.

Like all reciprocating-engine craft, increasing altitude hampers performance. Our Hiller was equipped with a Soloy turbine conversion to ameliorate that limitation. The one drawback was the turbines increased thirst for fuel, giving us only two to two and a half hours aloft per fill-up. We carefully planned the days work with that in mind.

It was now midmorning. Nearly two hours had elapsed since Rawley and I met at the Thermopolis airport where our survey began. Wed already recorded 129 mule deer and almost 200 elk across the eastern three-fourths of the sixty-mile-long Owl Creek Rangeimproved numbers for that area compared to previous winters counts. The high country loomed ahead.

In search of bighorn sheep along Trail and Black Ridges, wed be operating at our highest altitudes on this final leg of the mornings flight. Unlike sheep in the reservations Wind River Range to the southwest, which migrate to lower-elevation cliffs in winter, bighorns here wintered along wind-scoured ridgetops and escarpments. We carried another forty gallons of fuel in five-gallon jerricans in the Hillers twin cargo basketsone mounted on the skid beside each door. The additional weight would reduce performance at high altitudes, acting like ballast on a submarine, but 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 theres too much fuel on a helicopter is when its on fire.