I fought a lot of fire in that country when I lived there in 97 and 98. Bear Valley was a heck of a place for a young buck to live and I drank a lot of beer in the Rod and Gun club and Mountain Village. Stanley was "only" 63 miles away by gravel and by far the closest town for us.

I am fortunate to have seen MANY places in the West from the air that most will never see. That part of the job I do miss. I also miss waking up in Bear Valley and taking my first cup of coffee out behind the barracks and watching 150 head of elk graze in the meadow right behind the place. I almost hired on one winter to care take of the cabins that got rented to snowmobilers. Reality set in that 65 miles by snow machine and no communication with the outside world may not be what was best for me. As much as I liked my time on the Clearwater (Powell) in the early 90's, I much preferred my time in the later 90's in the Bear Valley/Elk Creek/Deadwood area. Lots of good memories there!

I've been lucky to spend quite a bit of quality air time in the Sawtooths.Fourteen years ago (or so), I spent much of the winter doing wolverine surveys of the Sawtooth, Payette, and Boise National Forests by helicopter. A few years later, I was doing lots of wolf darting from a helicopter in the Stanley area, in the Sawtooths and the Whiteclouds. Great times. I have a sister that lived for many years in a teepee up the Yankee Fork, and I spent time up there. Helped a friend set up a wolf line in the Yankee Fork and the upper Main Salmon several years ago. I've got a lot of history up there, going back to the 1960s. My Father designed all the original campgrounds at Stanley Lake, Redfish Lake, and Petit Lake in the 1950s.