December 18

5 C part cloudy. Certainly dull weather.
Spent all day yesterday on my back, but feeling a bit better today.

which was now just over eighty-five hundred.

I tapped Ralph on the shoulder and pointed towards where the flash had come from as he turned his head it came again and a second later still again. He pulled back the stick and started a climbing turn and headed for the spot. In less than five minutes we were looking down on Art waving a mirror at us from beside his plane.

The Aeronca was in a nose down position and tilted on to the left wing. Art looked unhurt and was moving around still waving. I always carried what we called a 242 book in my shirt pocket which was simply a small note book. I scribbled on it as quickly as I could, I wrote,  “Art, you old bastard, we’ll get you out. Gotta go now.”

I wrapped it around my pocket knife, put it in an airsick bag and tied it with some forestry ribbon and left about a three foot piece which I loosely wrapped around the parcel. We flew back over Art and dropped the bag out the side window. Ralph had to maintain a speed of around seventy or eighty miles an hour because of the elevation so I wasn’t unhappy when my parcel hit the ground about thirty feet short of the Aeronca. We circled while Art picked it up, read the note and waved to us. We turned and headed home.

I plotted the location on my forestry map, Ralph relayed through Fort Nelson to the 206 helicopter that we had found Art and would meet back at the airport.

Within two hours the helicopter was all refueled and on it’s way to the crash site.

I drove home and found the women and kids at our place. The two women were just sitting there drinking coffee and looking sad. It took a moment then I realized that Phyllis didn’t know that we had found Art.

The atmosphere in the room changed pretty quickly!

Phyllis picked Art up at the airport later just after noon. When we all got together later that day, he was already planning how he would fly the plane off the mountain.

I did get my knife back but that note he kept. I wonder if Phyllis still has it.