[pct-l] WTA on Suiattle River Crossing repair

[Marion Davison]

Jeffrey Olson wrote:
> On a side note I hiked down from Horseshoe Meadows over Trail Pass to 
> the Kern River last summer.  ON the last 900' drop to the river my 
> friend and I were amazed to see a white helicopter make its way up the 
> canyon about a half mile from where the trail crosses the river into 
> sequoia national park, and then back down again.  It landed in a little 
> grassy area a hundred yards or so from the ranger hut, idled for five 
> minutes as stuff was unloaded, and then it took off again. 
> 
> They couldn't have done this if the landing zone had been 100 yards 
> across the river in the national forest.  I guess it's cheaper than 
> putting ranger stuff on mules and hoofing it the six miles up from the 
> trailhead?

In 2002 we were hiking the Bishop Pass Trail (SEKI) with our llamas.  A 
trail crew was doing major trail and bridge reconstruction.  They had a 
pile of creosote soaked bridge timbers from the old bridge they had 
removed.  We watched as they loaded these into a steel cargo net.  Then 
a helicopter came and hovered, the net was attached, and the helicopter 
flew off with the load.  They explained to us that the timbers could not 
be left there because of the creosote, and that it was cheaper to use 
the helicopter than to use a stock train.  The ranger maintained that 
eventually they would not be using stock support at all, as the cost 
kept  going up and they could only be used in summer, while they were 
using helicopters for multiple uses year-round and the cost of that was 
stable.

However, we have encountered several forest service and NPS service 
stock trains that are traveling the backcountry specifically to service 
the needs of backcountry trail crews.  One such packer was set up for 
the summer at Simpson Meadow in SEKI, providing support to three trail 
crews located further out from Kings Canyon.
We have often seen helicopters used in case of backcountry fire or 
evacuation of injured visitors, as well, in both SEKI and Yosemite.  Our 
llamas aren't the least bit bothered by helicopters in very close 
proximity, thank goodness.
Marion