![]() ![]() The map of this area is the largest map on the right, showing Gannett Peak, the glaciers and the crash site. 14, 1943-a B24 four-engine bomber with a crew of 11 crashed in the Shoshone National Forest near our beautiful Trail #801. One of the crashes was found at the time the plane went down, but the other one (a B17 with a deceased crew of 10) wasn’t found for two years.Īug. To my surprise, there were actually two bombers that crashed in Wyoming during WWII. After calling several forest ranger districts and the Wyoming Historical Society, I started to get conflicting stories. Years went by, and now, as the owner of these exciting “Airport Journals” aviation newspapers, I decided to finally look into the story of this crashed bomber. The subject piqued my interest, so I vowed to research the story. None of us knew anything about such a crash, only that one had gone down not far from where we had been hiking. peaks with scouts, but this was a very special and rewarding climb.ĭuring one of our evening campfires on this trip, someone mentioned a WWII bomber that had crashed. ![]() What a relief reaching the other side! Over the years, I had summited many of Colorado’s 14,000-ft. So I quickly, but very carefully, crossed the bridge. They said there was a big crack just below where I was standing. On the second one (with the boys ahead of me as usual and down below me), I called down to the boys, prior to crossing the snow bridge. Coming off the peak, we had to cross two tricky snow bridges. Some of the route was so steep that even with the snow being soft, we had to grasp the handle of our ice axes, moving only one support at a time (i.e., only one foot or the ice axe). The two boys and I left for the climb early the next morning. This is in glacier country, so our mountain was snow-covered from its base to its summit. When we finally reached the base of Gannett Peak, only two boys, Scott Tandberg and Chris Near, felt comfortable and eager to climb the mountain. This trail is classed as one of the five most scenic mountain trails in the U.S. Our route to Gannett Peak was on National Forest Trail #801, going south for 25 miles starting near Dubois, Wyo. ![]() Our hike was to culminate in climbing Gannett Peak, at 13,800 feet, the highest in Wyoming. A few years ago, I was a leader of 14 high school boy scouts on a six-day backpack trip in the Wyoming Bridger Wilderness (Wind River Range). ![]()
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