An adventure from 1973

[EQGuy]

I had an email from the old job asking for some historical information and it reminded me of an adventure I had as a young GS3 Physical Science Aid working for USGS in Menlo Park, CA. I just thought I would share it with you all. This story happened in 1973 as near as I can remember. USGS had an array of eight seismograph stations in Nevada and Eastern California. They were centered around the Tonopah Test Site which I believe was run by the DOE. The array was funded by DOE and they cut the funding to run the array. My boss called me in one day and told me that we needed to retrieve the electronics from the array post haste to use for a new experiment. They were in such a rush I was instructed to charter a helicopter so that I could pull out all of the electronics in one day as it would take a few days to drive to all of the sites.

Everything was going smoothly and I was really enjoying the ride. We were returning to the Tonopah Airport after picking up the last site when the pilot started tapping the fuel gage which was registering pretty close to empty. He landed at a remote unmanned site on the Tonopah Test Site and climbed out of the copter and removed the gas tank cap and peered inside and started muttering to himself.

I was starting to get kind of concerned but I really got concerned when he climbed inside cranked her up and took off again. He finally found a water tank just off the test site with a road running to it and landed. He called his office and had them send out a fuel truck. We were only there for a short time before a Wackenhut Guard arrived with his emergency lights on. He was looking for the helicopter that had crashed. After waiting for around an hour the fuel truck arrived and gassed us up and we flew into Tonopah. I drove back to Menlo Park the next day in time to deliver the equipment for the next experiment. I continued working for the USGS until I retired 2 ½ years ago. I really enjoyed the time I spent working for them and I had a few other adventures along the way.

 

[627 city hunter]

I need to try that method with my Wrangler because the fuel gauge broke! Haha, emergency public indecency?

 

[feralmerril]

A good friend that I worked with was a helicopter flight instructor on the side. He called in sick and the next day he was a main story in the los angles times. Showed a picture of him, his chopper and a student. They somehow ran out of gas and auto rotated right in front of a funneral going on at forrest lawn! I think the chief called rocky in to see him the next morning.
EG guy and I found out we both worked at the same job in yosemite many years ago as a checker for blister rust control. I belive I was there a few years before him. EQ, when I worked there in 1960 they cross trained us for fire fighting as a large unit of about 20 guys. It was a heavy fire season and I belive we spent more time on the fires than grubbing out gooseberries. They had a huge fire in sequia NP and sent us down there for over two weeks early in the season. They had about 6 or 8 choppters on it, all contract pilots. The pilots asked my boss for a man to help them. I got elected. After that wherever we had a fire the pilots reconised me and always asked my boss for me. I was a crew member on all fires that envolved helicopters after that. They were just experimenting with water bladders. Most my job with them was filling up the bladders with a fire hose, straighing them out while the pilot hovered so the runners wouldnt land on the bags etc.
One pilot pulled me and a prisioner trustee off a cliff as a fire was comeing up on us fast and we all were flew out in a hurry. Right after I got out he went back to get more and crashed! He lived, but was messed up. Later I was a guard at universal movie studios. I ran into broderick crawford of highway patrol show and mentioned I had flew with the pilot he always used on his show. Crawford told me that the pilot later crashed into a fire and was killed!

 

[EQGuy]

Merril:
I worked in Yosemite the summers of 1964,65,66,67 and 1970. The first time I ever flew was in Yosemite going to a fire in Little Yosemite Valley on the Merced River. We flew in a helicopter that took off from Olmstead Point scenic overlook across from Clouds Rest. The copter was a Hiller and was piloted be Hiller's test pilot. I heard he was later killed during a rescue on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. It had a clear bubble and when he lifted the tail up in the air and then swooped over the side I think I about pushed the bottom of the bubble out. He landed us on a rock in the middle of the Merced River and then went back for more firefighters. I was one of the first on the scene of the fire and about that time the fire Crowned with a roar that sounded live a jet taking off. We eventually got the fire out.

I was also on the last Blister Rust Crew in Yosemite the summer of 1970 after I got out of the Army. There were only two Checkers and our Supervisor, Dan Taylor. The NPS decided to see if there was any Blister Rust in Western White Pines and Whitebark Pines which grow right at the tree line. They had us follow the major stream drainages from the Lyell fork of the Tuolumne River, around to the north side of the park. We were working 10 days on and 4 days off. To get to one remote area they flew us in by helicopter. We brought along a watermelon and a case of beer as we were going to work out of a base camp. The pilot was a crop duster and he never got high enough for us to navigate properly. When he dropped us off we were actually outside the park in a National Forest Wilderness area. We gave away the watermelon and beer a walked the several miles to the proper area. It was a real blast as I had just got out of the Army and was in the best shape of my life and they were paying me to backpack the remote areas if Yosemite.

Fast forward 35 years and I was getting off a plane in Hilo Hawaii and I recognized Dan Taylor, my old boss from Yosemite, in the aisle ahead of me. At that time he was the Park Biologist for Hawaii Natl Park and I was in Hawaii servicing the seismograph array we had there.

 

[feralmerril]

EQGUY, There was one guy that had a hiller. He had a son about 18 years old (1960) that he was training when things got slow. Forgot the names but about 6 years later I read where the son got killed flying electric tower equipment. We also that summer had a french "elloett" sp? crash. Was the chief forrester Bob Sharp, or Clyde "Montanna" Folley still there? Most of the time I worked out of wawona. We sprayed bug trees out of tuolume meadows towards the end of the season. I was seasonal and worked the full six months.
Towards the end of my six months there was a wind storm in the valley that blew down some trees killing a bunch of camp curry workers that lived in those tent cabins and I had to help buck up the mess.
The 6 months were some of the best of my life.

 

[EQGuy]

Merrill

Clyde was the assistant park forester, George Briggs was the park forester. As I recall Clyde transferred to Glacier NP in 65. The French copter is an Aluoette and I actually got to fly one of one of them. The year was 1975 and I was spending the summer in Alaska maintaining the USGS array of seismographs. We had Anchorage Helicopter Service on contract and they had a crazy pilot named Joe Lietto. He was ex army and had flown in Vietnam. I remember flying along the beach between Cordova and Cape Yatatagua and being below the top of the sand dunes. He also demonstrated nape of the earth flying down the slope of Redout Volcano. Anyway we were flying across the Copper River Delta and the Aluoette II we were in had dual controls and Joe looked at me with a silly grin and asked if I wanted to fly his bird. What could say except yes!. Man I was all over the sky but I flew it about 5 miles before Joe had enough and took the controls back. I had tried to join the Navy to become a pilot but my high frequency hearing loss canceled out my dreams of becoming a pilot. That is the only time I ever piloted an aircraft.

We had another pilot fly us around Alaska named Stew ???, I don't remember his last name, out of Ventura. He flew for Condor Helicopters in Ventura. When we met in Alaska he reminded me he had flown me to Anacappa Island in the Santa Barbara Channel Islands to repair a seismograph. Anyway I discovered he had a glass eye as he had lost an eye in an accident. He told the story of flying for Shell Oil Company one summer in Alaska and at the end they had a party. With everyone getting drunk he excused himself to use the restroom where he replaced his glass eye with one with the American Flag painted on it. That is how they learned he only had one good eye. He is the only helicopter pilot I ever met that paid for his own flight training as the military would not take him with only one eye.

 

[feralmerril]

Clyde was sort of a hero of mine. In another life he would have been a mountain man. Clyde had old pictures hangin in his cabin. He was army AF and a bomber crewman. Said he had been shot down several times. I dont know if he ever worked out in a gym but he had muscles that looked like ropes. He had his own personality for sure. He liked to play the guitar and sing too. If I recall, our pay worked out to $2.11 a hour and that wasnt bad back then. I think they took out something like $3.65 a day for our meals and we ate a ton of it and it was good! Seems they charged us a buck or two a week for our sheets? That would be our tent cabin accomidations I guess. Roughly there were about 8 of us blister rust checkers and maybe another 20 workers that got about a $1.85 a hour to grub out the gooseberries. Seemed really we were all working together 75% of the time fighting fires. Most of the workers were what we called political apointees that got there job by seeing their uncles that were congressmen etc. Several were from washinton DC. One guys dad was president eisenhowers personal attorney, another the son of a fbi agent that headed up the lab in DC etc.
We had a pack train with mules and they were branded "US". A guy by the name of Murphy ran the pack train. For the most part the majority of the workers were college students on summer vacation. I wasnt so I worked more months than they did and drew other details the other 3 months or so before and after working with them. I bet you remember a indian by the name of charlie castro. He and his dad were tree toppers that were famous for climbing those giant trees. I sure would like to go back in time and hang out with all those guys again.

 

[EQGuy]

As I recall our pay in 64 was $2.53 per hour. Yes the chow was excellent. It was even better than home cooking as Gibb was an excellent cook. The crew in 64 was 7 BRC checkers and one Foreman. We worked mostly out of Crane Flat in the old CCC Camp there. The last time I went thru there it was the Yosemite Institute. We did some work in Wawona in a spike camp several miles away from the trail head. I was there when the Gulf of Tonken incident went down sealing my fate down the line. I do not recall there being any VIP's on our crew, they were mostly on the garbage detail in the Valley where all of the pretty girls were. Rumor had it that Barry Goldwaters son was on the crew in 63. Most of us were college students on summer break. They had a requirement that you had to have a few units of Botany to qualify for the job at that time. I heard about the job from my sisters best friend. Her father was an Entomologist who worked for UC Berkeley and worked in Yosemite during the summers. I remember Charlie Castro and also Jay Johnson who was a Yosemite Indian and also an excellent timber feller. Murphy was still working when I was there. Speaking about the old Army Mules in 1970 we rode into Benson Lake to set up a base camp to work out of and I rode Bells, an old Army Mule 20 miles that day. That is the only time I have ever ridden an animal. It thought it appropriate riding an Army Mule since I had just gotten out of the Army myself. In the fall of 1966 I got my draft notice and applied for and got an emergency deferment which ran out in June 1967. I knew what would happen in June so I dropped out of college and enlisted in the Army on the 120 day delayed entry program. I contacted Yosemite to see if I could work for them and they hired me in Feb 0f 67 and I worked until I went into the Army on July 3rd. So I got to work on bug crews spraying Lindane on beetle infested trees and doing other Forestry work. Sure enough I got my draft notice and had to write my draft board and inform them that I was already in the Army. I was surprised when I arrived at the AFEES in Oakland that the first thing I got was an honorable discharge from the inactive reserves. I do remember this AH of a Spec 4 there that gave everybody that came thru a hard time. Several months latter I was at the personnel office at Fort Wainwright, AK and ran into the same ***. We were both Spec 5's at the time and when I asked him if was indeed the AH I had run into earlier he just turned around without saying a word and walked away. I guess he had caught a lot of flack from those he had mistreated earlier in his career. Well, I guess I am rambling so I will sign off for now.

Marion

 

[feralmerril]

That would have been Gibb Douglas, right? He was a old rodeo rider. He once had me drive him to the cow palace to watch a rodeo. He cooked for us too in that camp out of toulome meadows. I met goldwaters son in southern calif on some other deal when I worked at lockheed. Wish I had known that. I had been takeing a forestry and lumber tech course at a unaccredited tech school. One of the guys had also worked at yosemite in 58 or 59 and told me what application to get from the PO and how to apply. He also had been a political appointee as senator Van Pelt from wisconsin was his uncle. Murphy was nicknamed "Dirty murphy" probley behind his back as it was said he refused to sleep in the tents or bunk houses but would wrap up in a blanket and sleep with his mules. There was another wrangler, Bob Barrett that I understood was a high school teacher the rest of the year. Another teacher was my boss by the name of richard brown. I didnt particularly like him but he was tough and had nerve. Once we were driveing near the glacier point turn off. A coyote was a regular begger at a turnout. We drove up and I couldnt belive what we were seeing. A old woman was feeding the coyote while her husband was takeing a picture. Another car with a family had pulled up and this guy was injuning around it with a shotgun intending on shooting the yote!
Boss brown was driveing and pulled up next to the guy. He got out and said okay guy, give me the gun! Aint no one gonna take my gun, the guy said! With that brown grabbed the shotgun and neither would let go. I got out, had to walk (or run) around the truck to pile on. We werent armed of course. He gave up and it amounted to a citizen arrest. I dont know what happened to him as all we done was have him follow us to the wawona station and write out statements. I felt kind of crappy haveing to do that in front of his wife and kids. I kind of think brown got off on it though.
I belive the assistant chief ranger was a man named Bill smith if I recall right. A big nice tough looking guy. There were a couple other old men regulars that might have been there too. One was a small kind of simple guy, joe vail and another they called "Pop" alderage, a barrel chested old guy. Another was a big old local indian, john lenard. I remember we had a hell of a big fire above hetch hatchy. We had taken over a resort camp somewhere around mather. They had flew several of us to several spot fires from I think, crane flat. We were on those a few days, came out and this huge fire was in full swing. I got elected to wash pots and pans and be the cooks helper. It lasted over two weeks. We had about 900 red hots, indians from ariz and NM. The cook got on my butt for not getting the pots clean enough as most the indians got the s----!
One indian got ahold of a bottle. His chief set him out on the road to find his own way home, and I dont think he could speak a word of english! Just remembering.
I just remembered another checker you might have known, Fred Juice or Guice?
Another permenet was Everett De Moss

 

[EQGuy]

Everrt Demoss was the Forestry Foreman when I worked there. I remember John Lenard, Joe and Pop. Pop was an old German, he must of been pushing 80 when I first met him and he was still driving his first car which was pretty old. I remember the other Forestry workers teasing Pop because if he cut himself he would pee on the cut. This is old folk healing and apparently is effective as urine is sterile when it first comes out. They wanted to know what he would do if he got a cut on his bald head.

The five seasons I worked there I only fought 3 fires. As we were wage grade employees we made the equivalent of GS 5 pay. Most of the fire fighters were GS 3's and as such made about a dollar less an hour then we did. They did not want to pay our salaries to fight fires unless they were short handed. Especially as overtime was paid at time and a half. The first fire I fought was a snag that got hit by lightening hear Hetch Hetchy. After we dropped the snag and put a line around it we had to feed it to keep warm the rest of the night. We also had a big search party around White Wolf. Johnny Ireland Jr was the 12 or 13 year old son of a Hollywood producer. He wandered off and we searched for him for about a week. They pulled in the Navy and Air Force to assist us. I still remember the Navy guys with their leather soled shoes slipping on the mountain slopes. We walked a line with about 15 feet between us looking for any evidence of him. We were hollering Johnny all the time. After a few days we were sniffing the wind for the smell of decaying flesh. It was a big deal and made the news in SF and LA. After several days he was found sitting on a rock next to a stream in remarkable good shape. The thing I remember the most of the search was the WW2 C rations they fed us. They were actually quite good I thought. After he was found his mother had a sterling silver likenesses of his head in profile with an inscription thanking us for finding her Johnny. I think that my nephews stole that along with my dog tags.

 

[feralmerril]

I belive "pop`s" last name was aldrige or eldrige. Gibb and pop both seemed around 70 to me in 1960. Nice talking with you.