010819 Long Lost DC3 Tire
The longer story... My father moved the family to Belgrade in 1972. In school I'd occasionally hear stories of a DC3 that lost a tailwheel somewhere in the mountains. Sometimes the location was believed to be Ross Peak. Other times, somewhere down Gallatin Canyon.
When I started flying rumors again surfaced, sometimes from people who had been around at the time but couldn't remember specifics.
When hiking with my sister Marie, wreck chasing was not on my mid. When she pointed ahead on the trail and noted, "what a stupid place for someone to dump a tire," the tales came back.
The tire was about one and one-half miles from the trailhead. I returned in a couple weeks and packed it out for further inspection. The rest, as they say, is history.
