I’m sort of praying as I’m strapped inside a helicopter attempting a one-skid landing in a boulder field above treeline on Mount of the Holy Cross, the northernmost and most famous of the 15 fourteeners in central Colorado’s Sawatch range.
Jesus H. Christ, Randy, park this thing!
At the stick in the cockpit’s left seat is Randy Oates, a Helitack pilot rocking a ZZ Top beard in a flight helmet and Nomex coveralls. God, I trust, occupies the empty right-hand seat of the cockpit. Belted in on my left elbow is Jolen Anya Minetz, a fortysomething forensic anthropologist who specializes in human bone identification. Anya, also a professional snowboard instructor, must be reliving the summer she spent in Montana as a wildland firefighter with the Lolo Hotshots. Because, unlike me, she’s grinning ear-to-ear as Randy waves off and spurs 1,400 fire-breathing horses screaming from the turbine engine, sending the helicopter soaring up a 1,000-foot granite wall for another landing attempt. Sitting on the yawing deck between my knees is a black Lab named Stryker, a beauty of a scent detection beast I acquired during the pandemic. He comes from a Connecticut breeder known for producing lines of legendary cadaver dogs for FEMA and other agencies. Sweet Stryker’s gazing up at me, eyes wide with concern yet brimming with trust as if saying, “This not fun. When we have fun, Boss?”
Soon, buddy. Soon.
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