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Plane-camping on the shore of Stampede Reservoir
(Photo: Courtesy Trent Palmer)
Plane-camping on the shore of Stampede Reservoir
Plane-camping on the shore of Stampede Reservoir (Photo: Courtesy Trent Palmer)

Winging It with the New Backcountry Barnstormers

Published: 

Throughout the lower 48, recreational bush pilots are using their nimble planes and social media influence to spread the word about bold frontiers in flight: touching down on remote federal lands, flocking to little-used runways in designated wilderness, and drag racing one another for pure sport. Their capstone event each season, the High Sierra Fly-In, never fails to deliver hair-raising thrills.

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up! .

Part One: The Convincer in Chief

Northern Nevada and the Lost Sierra, Summer 2022

In early August of 2022, 69 days before the 12th annual High Sierra Fly-In鈥攁n event known as American aviation鈥檚 Burning Man鈥擳rent Palmer hoisted himself into the cockpit of his red, white, and blue bush plane, the Freedom Fox, and fired up the engine for another cruise into the valleys north of Lake Tahoe. Palmer, wearing flip-flops, shorts, and a Trent Palmer limited-edition trucker hat (鈥淔ly Low, Don鈥檛 Die,鈥 $40), is not your typical bush pilot, hauling mountaineers and machinery. Thanks to a prodigious YouTube following, he鈥檚 one of the most prominent of a new breed of lower 48 adventurers who are landing their fat-tire planes on and in mountaintops, ridgetops, river canyons, mountain meadows, dry lake beds, and grass and dirt airstrips, mainly in the American West, and mostly on land managed by the federal government.

Here was Palmer, 34, his handsome face smooth of whiskers but strong of jaw, moving through his preflight checklist, which included ditching his flip-flops in favor of bare feet, both of which were hovering over the rudder pedals. He jiggled the center control stick, rising up from the floor between his legs, which he used to tame the Freedom 贵辞虫鈥s direction and pitch. He said 鈥淐lear鈥 and pushed the starter button, and the propeller coughed and revved, eventually producing a throaty thrum. The plane鈥檚 wings and fuselage were the color of Old Glory; several dozen stars spanned the cockpit鈥檚 exterior. An observer would be forgiven for mistaking Palmer鈥檚 craft for an Air National Guard stunt plane.

Palmer tweaked the throttle and steered toward the runway. He spoke into his headset: 鈥淪tead traffic, Freedom Fox, taking runway two-six at alpha two. It鈥檒l be a westbound departure.鈥

I sat to Palmer鈥檚 right, a motion-sickness bracelet on my left wrist, anti-nausea gum in my mouth, and a gallon-size ziplock at my feet. The copilot鈥檚 control stick started bobbing around between my legs in sync with Palmer鈥檚. The Freedom Fox, an immaculately maintained, high-wing, single-engine tail-wheel plane with burly 29-inch bush tires, monster shocks, extended wings, and a 140-horsepower fuel-injected turbocharged engine, climbed from Reno-Stead Regional Airport at 1,500 feet a minute. The stamped alkaline flats of the Great Basin gave way to the dense pine forests of California鈥檚 Lost Sierra, a huge swath of mountainous backcountry about an hour north of Reno. On the horizon, the jagged crest of the Sierra Buttes came into view. Palmer, who was piping a Shakey Graves tune through the headsets, exuded competence, bonhomie, and (in the confines, I couldn鈥檛 help but notice) a pleasant, soapy smell.

He had agreed to take me along as he executed a series of 鈥渟hort takeoffs and landings鈥濃擲TOL, for short鈥攚hich epitomize bush flying, whether the assignment is depositing researchers onto a remote airstrip in Alaska鈥檚 Brooks Range, competing in STOL competitions, or landing 鈥渙ff-airport鈥濃攐n ungroomed terrain, nowhere near a runway鈥攁s we were about to do next to California鈥檚 Stampede Reservoir.

Palmer seemed happy to be flying without cameras and a YouTube agenda. 鈥淗ow are you feeling?鈥 he asked, this polite ambassador and evangelist of his winged pastime, this member of a band of nine bush-pilot buckaroos called the , social media influencers all, using their platforms to spread the bush-flying gospel to the uninitiated.

In one 2018 video, Palmer and two other young pilots fly to a northern Nevada mountaintop and set up base camp. One pilot paraglides off the summit. In a voiceover keyed to uplifting synths and soaring drone shots, Palmer says, 鈥淢ore often than not, we work away all the golden years of our lives, years we鈥檒l never get back, all in an attempt to enjoy the remaining few.鈥

鈥淚 say it doesn鈥檛 have to be that way,鈥 he continues. 鈥淲hat I鈥檓 saying is to stop waiting, stop dreaming, and start living. Life is too short to eat dessert last.鈥

鈥淵ou know the drill,鈥 he concludes. 鈥淟ike this video if you do, subscribe if you haven鈥檛, [and] come be my wingman.鈥 Then he whispers 鈥淧eace,鈥 flashes the V, and slaps his hand over the lens.

The result? Followers. Half a million of them. Palmer grosses about $150,000 a year from various income streams, including YouTube.

He gestured at the twitching control stick. 鈥淵ou might get punched in the nuts when I鈥檓 landing,鈥 he said, 鈥渂ut don鈥檛 worry about it.鈥

Trent Palmer鈥檚 plane, the Freedom Fox, at rest on a remote spot called the Outlook
Trent Palmer鈥檚 plane, the Freedom Fox, at rest on a remote spot called the Outlook (Photo: Courtesy Trent Palmer)

Palmer circled the Freedom Fox above Stampede Reservoir and aimed for a broad meadow bordering the inlet of the Little Truckee River. The Revivalists鈥 鈥淚t鈥檚 a Sin鈥 shuffled into the mix. Dense stands of conifers ringed the westernmost lobe of the reservoir.

I asked Palmer if he knew who owned the land.

鈥淭ahoe National Forest,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 government land.鈥 He paused. 鈥淪o we all do. I鈥檓 a public landowner. Aren鈥檛 you?鈥 He told me that he owned a T-shirt printed with the slogan: 鈥淧ublic Land Owner/User.鈥 鈥淚鈥檓 gonna sell it on my website,鈥 he said. And now he does, for $25.

I鈥檇 watched Palmer stick this Stampede landing a half-dozen times on YouTube. He鈥檇 made it look casual, but in the air, I saw nothing trivial about it. The lack of a delineated landing zone made the business of touching down arbitrary and nebulous. The dense grasses and lupine husks obscured drainage runnels and bowling-ball-size rocks. Palmer told me that, just recently, a friend had snapped his landing gear here.

He set the plane on a feathery glide path, moving low and slow and then even slower. Proximity to the ground prompted chittering from the Freedom Fox鈥檚 instrument panel. Palmer tweaked the stick and came down on the two blimpy main tires, but we landed with a jolt, even with the extra cushion of the plane鈥檚 monster shocks.

And then it was done. Just another off-airport landing for Palmer, but a revelation for me. I鈥檇 watched the video in which he landed the Freedom Fox on a backcountry road after the engine died above the Idaho backcountry, but it was impossible to sense the kinesthetics at play in this, one of his easier off-field landings. Yaw, bank, slip, and pitch materialized more by instinct than premeditation under Palmer鈥檚 hands and bare feet.

He spun the plane on its tailwheel and taxied upstream. We unbuckled the seat harnesses, climbed out the side doors, and waded through knee-high vegetation boiling with grasshoppers. The Little Truckee was narrow and sluggish here. Palmer, a fanatical fly-fisherman, wanted to check the stream for signs of the coming Kokanee salmon run, his justification for landing at Stampede. But we saw nothing.

Trent Palmer said he鈥檇 like to test my head and stomach. He slalomed a thousand feet down a broad bowl on Mount Peterson鈥檚 southeastern shoulder, then banked steeply, pulling a G.

Palmer鈥檚 reach transcends his channel. Delve into chat forums鈥攃onversation hubs with names like , , and, on Facebook, 鈥攁nd you鈥檒l inevitably encounter mentions of Palmer and occasional references to 鈥渢he Trent Palmer Effect,鈥 which refers to his ability to bring new participants into the recreational bush-flying game, whose presence gooses both demand for planes and their prices.

One of Palmer鈥檚 closest friends refers to him as the 鈥淐onvincer in Chief.鈥 Partly because of Palmer鈥檚 charms, the plane he purchased for $39,000 in 2015 is now worth five times that, and people hoping to buy one like it face more than a three-year backlog for a factory-built plane and two years for a DIY kit. 鈥淚鈥檓 basically flying a plane I can鈥檛 afford,鈥 Palmer told me.

We returned to the Freedom Fox, which when empty weighs a bit more than a golf cart. Palmer throttled up and lifted off within 150 feet or so, and soon we were circumnavigating the Sierra Buttes, streaming east across Plumas County, and finally swinging south, following the Highway 395 corridor.

He scooched the Freedom Fox westward, in the lee of the ridgeline of Petersen Mountain. I sensed that he wanted to show off the plane鈥s nimbleness. He eyed a hanging valley on the broad-shouldered peak, but the winds made conditions squirrelly, so he aimed for a canyon.

鈥淎nd you haven鈥檛 felt sick at all?鈥 Palmer asked again. I told him no. He said he鈥檇 like to test my head and stomach. He slalomed a thousand feet down a broad bowl on Peterson鈥檚 southeastern shoulder, then banked steeply, pulling a G. I tried to fix my gaze on the horizon, but the horizon wasn鈥檛 there. I realized that this was the same maneuver that causes his wife, Hailey (aka Hailstorm), to scream on camera. Palmer鈥檚 viewers love it when this happens.

After landing back at Reno-Stead, Palmer pointed at a vintage 1938 Piper J-3 Cub tied down alongside the other planes. It was missing its cowling. The plane belonged to another flyboy named Max, whose Instagram handle at one time was @gods_gift_to_aviation. The account appears to have been retired, but Max is very much still in the air.

Palmer working on the Freedom 贵辞虫鈥檚 transponder
Palmer working on the Freedom Fox鈥檚 transponder (Photo: Brad Rassler)
Palmer heading out for a flight into Northern California鈥檚 Lost Sierra
Palmer heading out for a flight into Northern California鈥檚 Lost Sierra (Photo: Brad Rassler)

What happens to the complexion of the lower 48鈥檚 commons when this new breed of bush pilot can legally land their planes deep in the backcountry? (I would learn later that flyboys were landing just downrange from my own home, along the Tahoe Rim Trail.) Most of them profess an understanding of the basics: stay away from designated wilderness, national parks, national seashores, wilderness study areas, national wildlife refuges, tribal land, and Area 51, which are all strictly off-limits鈥 unless they aren鈥檛.

I asked Palmer about the legality of landing on the shores of Stampede. He told me that he鈥檇 heard from his friend and bush-flying mentor, Kevin Quinn, that doing so was legit. But Palmer didn鈥檛 want to contact the relevant land managers to fact-check Quinn鈥檚 claims, for fear of poking the bear.

鈥淒on鈥檛 poke the bear鈥 is a common refrain on backcountry-flying message boards, the posters referring either to the big land-management agencies鈥攖he Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM)鈥攐r the Federal Aviation Administration, for which the piloting community seems to harbor a reflexive antipathy. 鈥淎sking what a pilot thinks about the FAA is like asking a fire hydrant what it thinks about dogs,鈥 is an old saying. Another goes, 鈥淲e are from the FAA and we are here to help鈥攁nd everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.鈥

The bear (in this case the Forest Service) has bigger problems than the flyboys. Last summer I spoke with Chris Hartman, director of recreation, heritage, and wilderness for the agency鈥檚 Intermountain Region. During a 30-minute interview, I struggled to grasp the many permutations of aviation use on federal land and the futility of enforcing regulations on every acre of the Forest Service鈥檚 holdings鈥攅ven on the airstrips themselves. The pilots, he said, were not at the top of the list of Forest Service problems. 鈥淭he aviation community is small compared to our trail users, our overnight users,鈥 he said. 鈥淵ou know, we鈥檙e trying to manage OHVs and UTVs.鈥 Oh, my gosh, talk about resource damage!鈥

Months later, Hartman would provide more guidance. 鈥淕enerally,鈥 he wrote, 鈥減ilots are not prohibited from landing aircraft outside of designated airstrips.鈥 One caveat is that, at certain times of the year, off-airport landings are restricted in sensitive ecological places鈥攊ncluding wilderness and congressionally designated areas. Hartman encouraged pilots to contact their local land managers to check the rules.

As for territory managed by the BLM, most aviators think of it as the federal government鈥檚 rag-and-bone shop and assume they have unfettered access, which isn鈥檛 true. Brian Hires, the BLM鈥檚 national spokesperson, says that the agency is aware of growing use by recreational pilots, stressing that land regulations are determined at the local level. Hires made it clear that aircraft use鈥攂oth on and over public land鈥攎ust be in compliance with federal regulations concerning motorized vehicles.

But the BLM has been generally unresponsive when queried by citizens and local governments about the unwanted consequences of profligate aircraft use. Last year, the commissioners of Grand County, Utah鈥攚hich includes the city of Moab and two national parks, Arches and Canyonlands鈥攑roposed an ordinance to restrict use to approved airstrips only, which would have made off-airport STOLing illegal. After reaching out repeatedly to the BLM for clarification and receiving no answer, the commissioners convened for a vote. Because of public outcry about the lack of due process, they tabled the ordinance.

Since Palmer didn鈥檛 seem to want to ask about the legality of his Stampede landing, I called Jonathan Cook-Fisher, Truckee district ranger for the Tahoe National Forest, and did it for him. I cited a section of the Federal Code of Regulations given to me by Palmer. Cook-Fisher confirmed that the code cleared the way for plane use within the non-wilderness and environmentally healthy areas of the Tahoe National Forest, as long as they obey the rules.

I called Palmer and encouraged him to contact Cook-Fisher, which he did. He also called the BLM鈥檚 regional office. He subsequently made a video, lauded the district ranger鈥檚 helpfulness, and encouraged his followers to contact Forest Service and BLM offices presiding over the land they wanted to access. In the same video, he urged the STOL community to adopt a stewardship mindset, saying: 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be on us to make sure that we don鈥檛 screw it up and erode that privilege from ourselves.鈥

Sometimes it pays to ask.

Palmer in the air
Palmer in the air (Photo: Brad Rassler)

If not for the FAA and a youthful fascination with flight and video, there would be no Trent Palmer Effect. As a child, he had a recurring nightmare about dying in an airplane. He still fears heights, but he discovered he could temper his anxiety by taking control of the stick. At 15, he began playing with radio-controlled planes and helicopters, whipping them through the valleys north of his home in Truckee.

In 2008, at age 20, Palmer was studying engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, and working part-time in his father鈥檚 sign shop when Jerry Dugan, the founder of Fall Line Films, an adventure filmmaking company, hired him as an editor. One day, Palmer approached Dugan with an idea: Why not mount a camera on his radio-controlled helicopter and shoot action sequences rather than outsource the aerial work to helicopter pilots?

Palmer adapted an aftermarket two-axis gimbal, attached a Canon 7D DSLR, and bolted everything to the undercarriage of the radio-controlled copter, which he navigated with a joystick. The copter consisted of a six-foot rotor capable of cleaving a man in two, so Palmer had to figure out how to fly the thing without killing the talent.

He called in a favor from an old friend, the Red Bull mountain-bike rider Paul Basagoitia, and shot a three-minute demo, which he showed to Dugan, who was impressed. 鈥淗ere鈥檚 the deal,鈥 Dugan told him. 鈥淚鈥檒l introduce you to three people. You won鈥檛 have to worry about working again. Just don鈥檛 quit on me right away.鈥

Palmer dropped out of college, formed a company called Copter Kids, and was shortly grossing half a million a year. In 2010, the FAA mandated that all commercial drone pilots had to acquire a private pilot鈥檚 certificate, and Palmer faced a dilemma: fold Copter Kids or face his fear of flying. He completed flight school in the minimum of 40 hours required by the FAA鈥攎ost new pilots do it in 70鈥攁nd within a year bought the Freedom Fox.

As a child, Palmer had a recurring nightmare about dying in an airplane. He still fears heights, but he discovered he could temper his anxiety by taking control of the stick.

In the summer of 2022, I visited Palmer at the home he and Hailey , which they sited on 70 acres in Reno鈥檚 north valleys, its banks of ten-foot windows looking out on basin and range country, the decor a tasteful mix of midcentury modern and contemporary. With a new 3,100-square-foot airplane hangar and a private 900-foot dirt runway mere steps from the front door, you can see how a mini-industry has emerged from the Palmer lifestyle, which seems designed to satisfy his fandom鈥檚 wish fulfillment. There鈥檚 a radio-controlled version of the Freedom Fox, for starters, and a Microsoft Flight Simulator knock-off of the Freedom Fox, the house, the hangar, the landing strip, and the Ford Raptor in the driveway. .

Freedom, to Palmer, equals fun. But at times fun has translated into trouble. He鈥檚 had several run-ins with the FAA, one for on Lake Tahoe in 2018 with a passenger on board. The agency only issued a warning letter about that one, but Palmer鈥檚 most recent brush with authority is something he鈥檚 still dealing with.

A few years back, Palmer considered bringing the Freedom Fox down on a friend鈥檚 ten-acre rural property, which had a small landing strip for radio-controlled aircraft鈥攁 challenging but possible landing for an expert bush pilot to make. During a low-level inspection pass he decided against it, but by necessity had come well within 500 feet of the neighboring house, which the FAA deems permissible only when a landing follows. Since Palmer didn鈥檛 land, he triggered the FAA鈥檚 prohibition of flying too close to people and structures.

The homeowners filed a complaint with the FAA, complete with cell-phone video of a TV screen playing security-cam footage of the Freedom Fox. In 2022, the FAA found for the complainant, but reduced Palmer鈥檚 license suspension from 120 to 60 days. Both sides appealed, with Palmer claiming that the case could set a dangerous precedent by compelling bush pilots to forgo off-airport inspection passes for fear of being similarly punished. Many in the aviation community rallied to his cause.

That didn鈥檛 help much. This past spring, the National Transportation Safety Board upheld the FAA鈥檚 decision and reinstated the 120-day suspension, prompting Palmer to appeal again. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) tweeted its support of Palmer and is covering his legal expenses. Pilots in the middle of FAA appeals can still operate their aircraft, so Palmer continues to fly and post his adventures on YouTube.

When I asked Palmer about his troubles, he smiled ruefully, squinted, looked up from the recesses of his ball cap, and said: 鈥淎ll I wanted to do was to get people into flying.鈥

The Sierra Buttes
The Sierra Buttes (Photo: Brad Rassler)
Stampede Reservoir
Stampede Reservoir (Photo: Brad Rassler)

South of the 49th parallel, big-tired bush planes with a wheel at the tail rather than the nose鈥攖aildraggers鈥攁re suddenly all the rage among aviation enthusiasts in the noncommercial, nonmilitary wing of American flying known as general aviation, or GA for short. Workaday pilots have acquired a wild hair. In a throwback trend reminiscent of the telemark-skiing revival of the late 20th century, they鈥檝e been ditching their nose-wheel-equipped airplanes鈥攖he forgiving design preferred for smooth landings on asphalt鈥攊n favor of retrograde tailwheel bush planes flown by generations of Alaskans.

Taildraggers are trickier to handle, can be as pricey as a Ferrari (anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000 for a used Cessna or Piper Super Cub or a new Carbon Cub), and, given the inexperienced tailwheel pilot鈥檚 predilection for throwing the craft into a violent loop when taking off and landing, costlier to insure. And yet, within the past 20 years, but especially in the past ten, with a post-pandemic surge of all things plein air, the new breed of lower 48 bush pilots have been enthusiastically STOLing their planes onto and off of backcountry locales that had never before seen the likes of bush wheels, floats, or skis.

Meanwhile, there鈥檚 been the outsize influence of those Flying Cowboys issuing a steady stream of YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook posts crowing about the new pastime. Critics have grumbled that people like Palmer are shining too bright a light on an under-the-radar pursuit cherished discreetly for decades by recreational backcountry pilots, and that with publicity will come scrutiny, and with scrutiny, loss of freedom.

At the same time, others are thrilled that a younger, edgier breed of pilots is bringing fresh blood into flying, which, judging by the demographics, is old, male, white, and dissipating. The editors at Flying, Plane and Pilot, and other industry organs have fallen over themselves publishing cover stories about backcountry flying, STOL flying, bush flying, and adventure flying.

They鈥檝e highlighted lower 48 aviators like the Flying Cowboys鈥 alpha male, Kevin Quinn鈥擳rent Palmer鈥檚 mentor, the founder of the High Sierra Fly-In, and the inventor of a tournament-style, side-by-side race between bush planes called STOL Drag.

Other pilots of note include STOL Drag world champion Steve Henry, who drew a million YouTube views after hucking his little bush plane, a Just Highlander, off a cliff above the Owyhee River Canyon and gliding it, sans power, onto a gravel bar. Then there are the Patey twins from Utah: Mike and Mark. Mike is the creator of million-dollar Frankensteined aircraft including , a Carbon Cub mutant, and , which Palmer once called 鈥渢he most badass monster bush plane EVER鈥 in a video. Patey crashed Draco on a windy day in Reno, and his first instinct after walking away, abashed but unharmed, was to record a series of mea culpa videos for

Cowboys aside, several high-profile stunts recently pulled off by extreme aviators have brought high-wing planes to a wider audience, for better or worse. In March of this year, a Red Bull鈥搒ponsored race pilot by the name of Luke Czepiela set on the roof of the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai. In 2021, in a classic case of effect influencing cause, a former Olympic snowboarder and YouTuber named Trevor Jacob . (Jacob lost his pilot鈥檚 license, then scrapped his plane before the FAA could examine it, a felony that could mean 20 years of jail time. He pleaded guilty, but the man had been pilloried by the aviation community long before the plea deal, including by Palmer.)

The Cowboys don鈥檛 engage in such absurdist theater鈥攁lthough Mike Patey consulted on the Dubai stunt. In fact, they鈥檝e turned a little pious. In 2020, Richard McSpadden, the senior vice president of the AOPA Air Safety Institute, recruited Quinn and Palmer to participate in a , and Quinn and . (McSpadden was a passenger aboard a small plane that crashed on October 1, 2023; both he and the pilot died.) Still, John McKenna, the founder, former president, and current chairman of the 11,000-member Recreational Aviation Foundation (RAF), an advocacy group for backcountry pilots, isn鈥檛 sold on the idea of promoting bush aviation through social media.

鈥淚 tend to believe that a lot of the spectator self-promoter guys are takers, and they don鈥檛 give much back,鈥 McKenna told me. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e bringing new people into the sport, but they鈥檙e not bringing them into a long-term conservation plan.鈥 Palmer, it should be said, has used his channel to advocate for the use of bush planes as a tool rather than as a toy. And yet his oeuvre of more than 250 videos contains titles like 鈥淩ipping Sand Dunes in Bush Planes?鈥 and 鈥淚 landed my plane on an 11,000ft mountain.鈥

These pilots also love to land on mostly forgotten runways. Out west, with its vast tracts of federal land and open spaces, hundreds of dirt and grass airstrips鈥攕ome renowned, some hiding in plain sight, many mothballed鈥攔emain scratched across the landscape like so many fading tattoos, from Southern California鈥檚 sparsely traveled expanses to the wilds of Montana. For nearly a decade, Dustin Mosher, a 32-year-old flight-simulator engineer at Virgin Galactic and an avid backcountry aviator from Southern California, has been practicing a form of aviation archaeology, scouring Google Earth and other sources for faint traces of runways. He鈥檚 uncovered over a thousand of them in California and the Four Corners region, especially Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. Idaho holds a treasure chest of strips, some nestled within the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness and Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.

As it happens, on the iconic strips in and around the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in the Frank Church鈥揜iver of No Return Wilderness Area, a difficult situation has been brewing for years, and it recently boiled over.

Part Two: Trouble in the Sky

The Frank Church鈥揜iver of No Return Wilderness Area, September 2022

Cut to central Idaho, the lower 48鈥檚 Alaska. Zoom in to the Lower Loon airstrip, hard by the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, deep within the 2.3-million-acre Frank Church鈥揜iver of No Return Wilderness, a place currently under siege by flocks of the new recreational bush pilots. Why? Because if you aspire to become a real backcountry ace, then Idaho鈥檚 strips are where you test yourself. No one really knows how many flocks of flyboys are swooping into Idaho鈥檚 backcountry in any given year, but everyone agrees that the numbers are higher than ever. As for the land managers and the commercial outfits? They could never have anticipated how the strips would become ends in themselves rather than a means to access untrammeled land.

Mike Dorris doesn鈥檛 have much patience for the boys with pricey toys who show up in the Idaho skies on a typical summer weekend, clotting the strips and bending their props, occasionally crashing when landing or killing themselves when taking off.

At the moment, Dorris is in his Cessna 206, logbook in lap, adding another hour to the staggering 25,000 he鈥檚 flown in these mountains, transporting ranchers, hunters, anglers, river rafters, and their cargo onto the strips, and, until recently, carrying homesteaders鈥 mail each winter. Maybe five-foot-nine, with jeans baggy around his ankles and grayish-red hair poking out of his Leupold trucker hat, Dorris swiveled out of the frayed pilot鈥檚 seat of the chunky Cessna鈥攖he Chevy Silverado of these mountains鈥攁nd limped to the other side of the plane on a bum hip, likely acquired years ago when he was a member of the U.S. Ski Team. Many consider Dorris, a co-owner of Sawtooth Aviation and its chief pilot, the best bush flier in the continental United States.

These bush pilots love to land on mostly forgotten runways. Out west, hundreds of dirt and grass airstrips remain scratched across the landscape like so many fading tattoos.

Dorris had picked me up at the Stanley, Idaho, airfield that morning. He delivered me to the Lower Loon airstrip so I could backpack for a few days before rendezvousing with Zach Collier, owner of Northwest Rafting Company. I鈥檇 join Collier and his clients for the remaining four-day float down the Middle Fork, one of the country鈥檚 greatest free-flowing rivers. Later, when I mentioned to people in McCall, Challis, and Salmon that Dorris got me into Lower Loon on a day so shot through with rain, clouds, and wildfire smoke that his competitors had grounded their operations, they said, 鈥淥h, well. Dorris.鈥 Dorris, the son of Bill Dorris, one of Idaho鈥檚 legendary airmen, was considered his father鈥檚 equal, a pilot said not so much to fly his plane as to wear it.

Dorris has firm opinions about the flyboys. 鈥淚 hate to say it,鈥 he told me. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e got every right to come, but they鈥檙e not using their heads. When you鈥檝e got three, six airplanes all flying low down the canyon at the exact same time when people are trying to enjoy the Middle Fork? Yeah, that鈥檚 not right.

鈥淥ne day, somebody鈥檚 gonna come along and say we鈥檝e got too much traffic in the Middle Fork,鈥 he continued, sounding more sad than angry. 鈥淕uess who they鈥檙e going to come after first? Us. The charter companies, because they can find us and they鈥檒l grab us right by the balls. After that, they鈥檒l go after the commercial outfitters.鈥

More than a few air-taxi operators feel the same. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e flying the Middle Fork at 6,500 feet, right where people are executing an approach or are taking off,鈥 Dan Schroeder, the founder of Salmon, Idaho鈥揵ased Gem Air, told me a few days after I emerged from my river trip. 鈥淭he original purpose of the airstrips back there was a gateway to the wilderness, so you could go in and meditate and fish and hunt and walk around. Too many people are using those airstrips for the badge. 鈥業 went to Soldiers Bar.鈥 鈥業 went to Indian Creek.鈥 鈥業 went to Thomas Creek.鈥 And they don鈥檛 spend any time back there. In my opinion, you want to go and land at that airstrip? Then spend the night.鈥

Members of the Recreational Aviation Foundation at the Moose Creek airfield
Members of the Recreational Aviation Foundation at the Moose Creek airfield (Photo: Brad Rassler)
Mike Dorris loading river bags into his Cessna 206
Mike Dorris loading river bags into his Cessna 206 (Photo: Brad Rassler)

Dorris鈥檚 concerns were prescient, but ultimately it wasn鈥檛 Sawtooth Aviation that got pinched; it was the Forest Service. Last June, four grassroots environmental nonprofits, led by Wilderness Watch of Missoula, Montana, sued the USFS for illegally maintaining the Big Creek Four鈥擵ines, Simonds, Mile Hi, and Dewey Moore, all of them notoriously short, difficult-to-land airstrips carved into the forests abutting one of the Middle Fork鈥檚 major tributaries.

Dorris and his father had lobbied to preserve these strips in the eighties, back when the Payette National Forest鈥檚 supervisor, Kenneth Weyers, was making moves to shutter them. In Weyers鈥檚 estimation, the Big Creek Four did not possess a historical record of public use prior to 1980鈥攑ublic use being the chief criterion for grandfathering the strips into designated wilderness, spelled out by the 1980 Central Idaho Wilderness Act, the legislation that, along with the 1964 Wilderness Act, created the Frank Church鈥揜iver of No Return Wilderness Area.

The lawsuit makes this very claim, among others. Wilderness Watch and its allies have sought declaratory and injunctive relief, which could lead to the closure of the airstrips.

I first met the RAF鈥檚 John McKenna in the fall of 2022, when he flew me into the USFS鈥檚 Moose Creek airfield so I could see his group in action. Several RAF elders were meeting with the district ranger to strategize the grooming of the Moose Creek Airport, a storied field within the heart of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. At one point, I found myself conversing with McKenna, district ranger Ron Tipton, and Willy Acton, a Forest Service aviation officer, about the strip-bagging phenomenon and the age-old troubles with the Big Creek Four. McKenna stepped in.

鈥淗ere鈥檚 the bottom line,鈥 he said. 鈥淚鈥檓 not getting into a big pissing match over the Big Creek Four. We would probably solve 90 percent of the wilderness problem if those four weren鈥檛 part of this ecosystem.鈥 He referred to the strips as 鈥渁 belt-notcher to most guys鈥 and said he would trade those four 鈥淏lack Diamond runs鈥 for a single easy-to-land, family-friendly airstrip.

鈥淚鈥檝e personally medevaced or helped pull planes from three out of the four airstrips during my time working down there,鈥 Acton said. When I asked McKenna about the suit recently, he would only share his view that the RAF 鈥渋s working with the USFS on an appropriate place to be involved in the Big Creek Four.鈥 Because of the pending litigation, the Forest Service鈥檚 Hartman declined to comment.

As far back as 2012, the Idaho Aviation Association, a pro-backcountry-flying group, had urged its membership to exercise restraint by refraining from using the Big Creek Four until an understanding could be worked out with the Forest Service.

鈥淲e have met the enemy, and he is us,鈥 wrote president Jim Davies in a newsletter that year. Davies鈥檚 entreaties were largely ignored. Evidence of the airstrips鈥 use was abundant online, with pilots proudly sharing their exploits on website forums, Facebook pages, and YouTube videos. Last year I came across in August 2019 by the AOPA鈥檚 Air Safety Institute. Richard McSpadden had gathered a group of pilots to deconstruct a crash earlier that year at one of the Big Creek Four, Dewey Moore. A 30-minute debrief ensued, with the pilots reflecting on mistakes made. Notably absent was any critical discussion of what the three pilots and one passenger were doing on the airfield in the first place.

鈥淚鈥檒l get in trouble from my aviator friends for saying this,鈥 Idaho backcountry-aviation historian and former commercial pilot Richard Holm told me, 鈥渂ut I think if Frank Church and Ted Trueblood could have seen the potential abuses of aviation as a sport, to go out and bag airstrips rather than use them for access to fish, hunt, raft, kayak, or whatever, they would have made some provision. This isn鈥檛 at all what pilots were meant to do.鈥

Dick Williams
Dick Williams (Photo: Brad Rassler)
Flying with Williams in his Piper Super Cub
Flying with Williams in his Piper Super Cub (Photo: Brad Rassler)

And yet the morning after Dorris dropped me at Lower Loon, I was awakened by a squadron of air-taxi pilots using their 206s as envisioned by Church and Trueblood, an Idaho native and prominent outdoor journalist who advocated for the creation of the Frank. They were supplying a float trip staging out of Lower Loon. The air traffic was so remarkably noxious鈥攑unctuated by the growl of a UTV ferrying supplies from the airstrip to the gravel-bar put-in鈥攖hat the whole notion of wilderness character was out the window.

Miles upstream, heading to Lower Loon, Collier鈥檚 guests had noticed the activity and noise, too, and later wondered aloud about the visual and aural blight of airplanes. The irony of ironies: Who were we to complain about the din of bush planes 18 hours after stepping out of one? Without air-taxi service, none of us would be floating the Middle Fork to begin with. Collier, an expeditionary river runner in the spirit of George Wendt, the late founder of Outdoor 国产吃瓜黑料 River Specialists, would have had no boats, no food, no tents, no guides, no clients, no revenue.

Three days after the Middle Fork float trip, I was in the rear seat of Dick Williams鈥檚 1957 Piper Super Cub. Williams, 73, another of Idaho鈥檚 bush-flying veterans, wanted to show me the Bighorn Crags.

Before long, just minutes out of Salmon, Idaho, I was ogling the Crags鈥 scalloped cirques and granite towers. Suddenly, Williams wheeled the plane on its left wing, soared over Fishfin Ridge, and plunged into the basin containing Airplane and Ship Island Lakes. We flew down the drainage and emerged over the Middle Fork鈥檚 Impassable Canyon, where neither trail nor airstrip cut along the banks. Williams touched us down on the doglegged Soldier Bar airstrip, a few hundred feet above Big Creek. We scoped the rough path down to Big Creek that I鈥檇 intended to walk, and Williams showed me a memorial on the site. On the return flight, 15 minutes from Salmon, he pointed out a technical and high-elevation airstrip called Hoodoo Meadows, which, because of its proximity to a Tuolumne-like dome called Sugar Loaf, could make for one of the lower 48鈥檚 only fly-in climbing destinations.

I鈥檇 always snobbily insisted on earning these views by muscle, but the Frank viewed from a bush plane revealed the 鈥減rimeval character and influence鈥 of the landscape, borrowing from the language in the 1964 Wilderness Act. The flight hadn鈥檛 served any practical purpose, but I found the experience no less profound for lack of one. River rafts operate by the laws of fluid dynamics, as do planes. As below, so above, in this case.

Part Three: Rodeo Pilots

Dead Cow Lakebed, Nevada, October 2022

It鈥檚 a chilly and still October morning in the Great Basin, the sky a black shade of blue, the air redolent of burnt sage. Several miles across a cracked alkaline lakebed, a tent city appears on a horizon foregrounded by an airstrip, a long line of porta-potties, and a phalanx of high-wing planes with big bush wheels鈥擟ubs, Kitfoxes, Cessnas, Maules, Huskies, with the odd Zenithair, one bearing the moniker Big Tuna鈥攁rrayed across this northern fringe of the Dead Cow Lakebed, a roughly 12-square-mile basin 60 air miles southwest of Burning Man鈥檚 Black Rock City and eight miles due west of Kooyooe Pa鈥檃 Panunadu, otherwise known as Pyramid Lake.

This is the 2022 edition of the High Sierra Fly-In, described on its website as 鈥渁 celebration of backcountry aviation at a gathering of like-minded individuals in the beautiful Nevada desert鈥攁n experience unlike anywhere else on the planet.鈥 The logo consists of a bull鈥檚 skull swathed in the American flag.

The Fly-In takes place 200 miles northeast and 10,000 feet lower than the stretch of 14,000-foot California peaks known as the High Sierra. Still, the misnomer won鈥檛 perturb the few thousand attendees who will eventually stream onto the lakebed for the weekend, in their aircraft and motor homes and truck beds filled with ATVs, mountain and motocross bikes, motorized scooters, and Onewheels. American flags hang limp above encampments; one large settlement flies the secessionist banner of the State of Jefferson, a proposed partition of the sparsely populated and right-leaning spaces of southern Oregon and northern California into a whole new state.

Palmer and Hailey are out here, as is Kevin Palmer, Trent鈥檚 brainy younger brother. Taller and more assertive than Trent, less eager to please, with a ginger-brown beard that doesn鈥檛 quite attach to the mustache part, Kevin is an accomplished bush pilot, too, and he owns an older version of his brother鈥檚 plane. 鈥淚t was a total hack,鈥 he鈥檇 said to me in his hangar months earlier, pointing at the plane and explaining how long it took him to get it airworthy. 鈥淪ince I鈥檓 cheap, I do what鈥檚 cheap.鈥 He pointed at his brother. 鈥淗e鈥檚 got the fancy wing and fancy motor. This one鈥檚 lighter, smaller, so it does a bit more with what it鈥檚 got.鈥

I find Trent at HSF鈥檚 base camp, a wind-battered, white-poly party tent with mildew staining the roof and AOPA banners tacked to its sides, the HSF logo flying free.

Trent鈥檚 been telling everybody who asks that he鈥檚 undecided about racing. (鈥淒on鈥檛 be a puss,鈥 I hear somebody tell him.) One problem is that his insurance company won鈥檛 cover him in the event of a crash. Also, after the recent death of a STOL competitor, Trent issued a 14-minute YouTube homily in which he critiqued the competitive STOL mindset. Now he wonders whether he鈥檒l come across as sort of a dick if he races. (In the end he鈥檒l decide to compete, later saying that his friend and booster Kevin Quinn persuaded him to.)

Maybe 30 pilots stand in the tent, all white, only two women, and all wearing baseball hats, listening to Quinn explain the fine art of drag-racing bush planes down a 2,000-foot course and landing using STOL science. That science involves stopping, twirling around, taking off, and hauling ass back to the starting line, with the winner being the first to cross it and come to a dead stop. Things can go wrong in a hurry in these races, including the .

鈥淚t鈥檚 not a matter of if but when, and when just can鈥檛 happen!鈥 Quinn is now declaiming. He鈥檒l repeat the mantra several times over the next hour.

Two days later, when happens, not once but twice, in a tightly coupled chain of events, the first possibly the cause of the second. Because when you gather a collection of like-minded individuals in the beautiful Nevada desert, synchronicities abound.

Kevin Quinn on race day at the High Sierra Fly-In
Kevin Quinn on race day at the High Sierra Fly-In (Photo: Brad Rassler)
Quinn during the race
Quinn during the race (Photo: Brad Rassler)

I鈥檇 met Quinn, then 53, several months earlier at the Truckee, California, airport, home to his two hangars. A burly six-foot-two, with a thick soul patch ornamenting his chin and a Breitling chronograph on his left wrist, he looked like the minor league hockey player, surf bum, and skydiver he鈥檇 once been. These days he鈥檚 all about STOL: he鈥檚 the ringmaster of the three-day Fly-In and the STOL Drag World Championships, where he reigns supreme.

We shook hands (鈥淢y friends call me Quinner鈥), and he handed me a couple of Flying Cowboys decals as we entered the first of his hangars鈥攐ne holds his Stearman biplane, the other a custom Carbon Cub he calls the Hermaphrodite. Dozens of skis lined the Cub鈥檚 hangar, including a pair of the late Shane McConkey鈥檚 Volant Spatulas鈥擬cConkey was a close friend of Quinn鈥檚鈥攁long with an old twisted propeller and a busted tail assembly. 鈥淭alk about life-learning lessons,鈥 Quinn told me, shaking his head and laughing with resignation. 鈥淚鈥檝e learned every lesson in life the hard way.鈥

We talked about the fatal accident of his friend Tom Dafoe, which happened on May 20, 2022, not long before we met. Dafoe was in Wayne, Nebraska, to compete at the MayDay STOL Drag, which Quinn, who was officiating, called off because of high winds. Even so, during an unofficial STOL demonstration, Dafoe鈥檚 Cessna 140 stalled and spun into the ground. 鈥淭his was an event in Kevin Quinn鈥檚 life that is a top-five tragedy,鈥 Quinn told me. 鈥淗ands down.鈥

He stared into the distance, an old Alaskan brown bear rug spread at his feet. Earlier he鈥檇 pulled a flag of Alaska from a battered refrigerator to get a bottle of water. He鈥檇 pointed out the names of dead friends scrawled with a black Sharpie on the fridge, 18 of them, a who鈥檚-who of climbers, skiers, BASE jumpers, wingsuiters, and aviators: McConkey, Dafoe, Dan Osman, Erik Roner, Doug Coombs, and 鈥淒ad.鈥 He would add several more before the end of 2023.

鈥淲e鈥檙e off-airport pilots,鈥 Kevin Quinn said. 鈥淪ome call us strip baggers. I love going out and landing in twenty different spots.鈥 Then he compared his flying to golf.

I watched Quinn give interviews on Zoom. Once he got rolling, the man was an open book who invariably apologized for hogging the airspace but always circled back to close his linguistic loops. Now the chief Cowboy鈥攚ho had unconvincingly referred to himself in these interviews as silly, a meathead, a bumpkin, and a broken record, and was known to invoke his Zodiac sign, Libra, to explain a predilection for making pungent observations and then immediately contradicting himself鈥攚as opining about social media. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 the cesspool of the earth, I hate it,鈥 Quinn said, then paused. 鈥淚n the same breath鈥攈ere comes my Libra鈥攊t鈥檚 pretty neat.鈥

When it comes to flying Cubs, Quinn admitted that he鈥檚 in it for the thrills. 鈥淵ou know, we鈥檙e not bush pilots,鈥 he said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e backcountry pilots. We鈥檙e off-airport pilots. Some call us strip baggers. I love going out and landing in twenty different spots.鈥 Then Quinn compared his flying to golf. 鈥淵ou know, the other day we hit 36 holes.鈥

He told me about his father, a Marine who flew helicopters and then found work as an electrical engineer up on Alaska鈥檚 North Slope. About how he grew up on Anchorage鈥檚 Lake Hood, would get airsick when he flew with his dad in the elder鈥檚 Helio Courier, and dropped out of high school because he couldn鈥檛 abide authority and was smarter than his teachers (鈥100 percent鈥). 鈥淜evin Quinn was lucky,鈥 he told me, later adding: 鈥淔inancially, Kevin Quinn is doing fine.鈥

Back at the High Sierra, Quinn is talking optics.

鈥淲e have a responsibility to uphold,鈥 he鈥檚 saying to the assembled pilots, 鈥渂ecause a lot of people think that we鈥檙e the redheaded stepchildren, these backcountry cowboys with big tires who land wherever the hell they want and water-ski airplanes.鈥 These precise optics, of course, having been intentionally cultivated by Quinn and the Cowboys. 鈥淲e killed two people, and I talk about that story all the time,鈥 he says, referring to a mid-air collision during the 2014 High Sierra Fly-In. 鈥淚f that happens, it鈥檚 on you. But ultimately it鈥檚 on me.鈥

Quinn finishes his spiel, and everyone leaves the tent.

An hour later, Palmer and a few pals slouch under an awning in front of the Palmers鈥 Black Series trailer. They鈥檙e talking about the Fly-In鈥檚 poor attendance this year鈥攕omewhere between 500 and 3,000, according to an informal poll (Quinn won鈥檛 say)鈥攚hen something out of Mad Max: Fury Road crawls by. It鈥檚 a monster stretch limousine with four-foot-high tires, a viewing deck bolted to the roof, and a frayed American flag hanging from the deck, rap spurting from its speakers: Snoop Dog and Ice Cube belting out bars in 鈥淏ig Subwoofer.鈥 鈥淏low the windows out the frame, it鈥檚 a party when I pull up鈥︹

The name painted on the sides is 鈥淯SS Compensator,鈥 and the driver is none other than Max, God鈥檚 gift to aviation, the owner of the 1938 J-3 Cub that Trent pointed out to me months ago at the Reno-Stead airport. As the USS Compensator passes, one of Palmer鈥檚 friends comments on Max鈥檚 transformation from a nerdy and earnest professional pilot with short-cropped hair, and wonders about what caused the young man鈥檚 metamorphosis into something rather feral.

Camping at the Fly-In
Camping at the Fly-In (Photo: Brad Rassler)

On day two, attendance has swollen somewhat. It鈥檚 midafternoon when I walk over to the Palmers鈥 compound. Trent鈥檚 wife, Hailey, is present, sipping a cocktail, the usual assortment of friends gathered around. Palmer is wearing a T-shirt with the silhouette of a man holding a selfie stick parachuting from a plane: it鈥檚 Trevor Jacob, the plane ditcher.

A father and his three sons, 15, 11, and 9, tentatively approach Palmer. They鈥檝e driven to the Fly-In from California鈥檚 Lost Coast. The kids look up at Palmer, the eldest鈥檚 eyes gleaming, the other two looking away out of embarrassment or awe or disinterest.

鈥淲e saw you鈥檙e starting to build a house,鈥 the father says, a season or more behind on Trent鈥檚 adventures, since the Palmers and their three dogs, two cats, and seven Silkie chickens have occupied the Desert Oasis for two years. He then asks about the runway. 鈥淎re you flyin鈥 off of that yet?鈥 Meanwhile, small groups come over to the Freedom Fox, peer into it, and take photos and selfies, as they鈥檝e been doing for two days.

Later that afternoon, Palmer鈥檚 friends and hangers-on are hovering around, hoping to fly with him. One of the hangers-on is a YouTuber whose handle is Missionary Bush Pilot. Another of the pilots owns Big Tuna. The Convincer in Chief decides to organize a sunset sortie. I鈥檓 invited into the passenger seat of a black Carbon Cub flown by a tall, lean, gray-haired gentleman named Bill Holmes.

Our squadron, composed of eight planes, takes off to the east. Palmer assumes the pole position and chats with everyone over the radio, telling them how to approach and land on the first plateau, the off-airport equivalent of a green ski run. We all land, exit, mill about, reboard, and then flutter to the next landing, another plateau. The sun is sinking. Holmes and I return to the playa while the others explore Pyramid Lake.

Returning to the playa, Holmes flies 50 feet above a long, sandy road that cuts through the flats, slaloming the plane pleasantly to and fro. Even before we reach the fringe of Dead Cow, frenetic radio chatter indicates that something鈥檚 not quite right. The guy volunteering to herd planes鈥攁 man whose day job is air traffic controller鈥攊s sounding stressed, in part because too many people are in the air wanting to land before nightfall. And then the words 鈥淐ub down! Cub down! Cub down!鈥 come bellowing through everyone鈥檚 headsets. In the distance we see a fireball on the playa, but it鈥檚 too early for the nightly bonfire.

Holmes takes us far to the east and goes into a holding pattern. Light is quickly fading. The radio chatter is still chaotic, but somebody piloting a Maule isn鈥檛 listening. 鈥淢aule! Maule! Maule!鈥 the ATC guy screams. It鈥檚 feeling weird up here, not much fun, and out of control. Holmes is sanguine about the holdup, but that fire on the playa worries him. We land. I thank Holmes more than once. 鈥淎t least we鈥檙e down safely,鈥 he says. Palmer鈥檚 group is still miles away. I run toward the commotion.

Remains of the crashed Piper J-3 Cub on the playa
Remains of the crashed Piper J-3 Cub on the playa (Photo: Brad Rassler)

Kevin Palmer has arrived here with a black eye, by the way, but he didn鈥檛 get it at the Fly-In. Earlier in the week, he was inflating a 650-pound hot-air balloon at the International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Two storm cells appeared out of nowhere, and he got smacked in the face during a mad scramble to deflate the balloon, which was shaped like an enormous shoe.

Now he and his fianc茅e are behind the wheel of a pickup, towing a 35-foot toy hauler that contains his own balloon and 70 gallons of propane in seven ten-gallon bottles. Palmer is at the Fly-In for the fun, sure, and he won the STOL Drag event at the Reno Air Races in 2021, but Quinn wants him to put on a nighttime show, which features a flight of glowing, propane-flamed balloons.

There鈥檚 a problem, though: a long stretch of the road into the playa consists of a series of washboarded furrows carved through sand and silt. People have been bogging down here, and the younger Palmer is having to gun it at times to maintain momentum. Propane-tank fittings are easing open as he pulls onto the playa and weaves his way through a circus of tents, planes, and RVs. He comes to rest in a large clearing just beyond the State of Jefferson camp and within 20 yards of the USS Compensator. At that precise moment, four pilots pile into nearby planes and taxi to the runway for an afternoon flight. One of them is God鈥檚 Gift to Aviation in his 鈥38 Cub.

Somewhere inside the toy hauler鈥檚 recesses, a spark is produced. And what is this unaccounted-for hissing of vented propane? What鈥檚 with the serial reverberations, which sound like the timpani opening of Richard Strauss鈥檚 Also sprach Zarathustra? Why has the toy hauler鈥檚 roof separated itself from its frame, soaring 50 feet up, and then crashing to the ground?

Over the next three hours, a menagerie of stinking, steaming little bush planes move up to the start line, two by two, farting avgas, and then race away after Quinn gives the signal.

Onlookers see the younger Palmer and his fianc茅e scramble from the truck unscathed while the hauler鈥檚 innards spit shrapnel. Twisted hunks of ten-gallon canisters rupture and fly skyward, landing between planes, tents, and motor homes. Some run for cover; freaks mesmerized by chaos and flame move closer. A plume of bubbling black smoke wafts 100 feet up, and the aroma of flamb茅ed balloon and off-road tires washes over the Fly-In.

And that鈥檚 not the end of it. At the south end of the playa, something is falling from the sky. Is it a plane? Yes. It鈥檚 Max in his yellow Cub, with his girlfriend in the passenger seat. Did God鈥檚 Gift glimpse spewing flames and bombs crashing down around the USS Compensator? Distracted by the spectacle, did he fly too close to the Cessna he was trailing, absorb a patch of turbulence from the Cessna鈥檚 wake, stall, and commence an irreversible spin?

It appears so. But look, God鈥檚 Gift is living up to his Instagram handle: he levels the yellow bird and then belly-flops the Cub onto the playa. The pilot and passenger emerge intact. The girlfriend is concussed but refuses a LifeFlight ride to Reno.

Somehow the 2022 Fly-In has miraculously, inconceivably avoided a mass-casualty event that surely would have made Manhattanites, Chicagoans, and Angelinos take note of the hijinx out on Dead Cow lakebed.

鈥淚t鈥檚 just another one of those scenarios that happened at Dead Cow,鈥 Quinn says during that evening鈥檚 bonfire, the wreckage still smoldering a few hundred yards away. Folks whistle, cheer, applaud, and woo-hoo after he says this. Ever mindful of social media, he says: 鈥淎nd I hope that the message you guys put on the internet is that we鈥檙e doing our best.鈥

鈥淲e鈥檙e gonna come back here, have dinner and a big fire,鈥 adds Quinn, who uses an adjectival phrase for the fire connoting stupidly large. 鈥淚 really appreciate all of you guys for being here. Happy Friday night.鈥 Another raucous round of applause, whistles, and woo-hoos.

To their credit, Trent and Kevin, with help from @heavydsparks (another YouTube influencer) came backto clean up the mess.

Palmer flying over northern Nevada on his way to Idaho
Palmer flying over northern Nevada on his way to Idaho (Photo: Courtesy Trent Palmer)

The next morning dawns clear and calm, but that鈥檚 not true of Quinn. It was never going to be a matter of if but when, and when had indeed happened, and now Quinn is in a lather about it. At the pilot briefing the next morning, he rages about protocols and broken rules, such as what in the hell were people doing landing south of the runway? What about maintaining spacing and landing at dark? What about accountability and optics? Quinn鈥檚 molten anger rises, he spews f-bombs, and then鈥攈ere comes the Libra鈥攈e apologizes profusely. Then he slides into cussing again. The cauterized, postapocalyptic mess of the toy hauler lies in plain view a few hundred feet to the south, lending verisimilitude to the Burning Man motif.

No matter. There鈥檚 little time for invective. The hour of the STOL Drag World Championships is upon us, and Quinn has things to do. A couple dozen volunteers wearing fluorescent-yellow safety vests are huddling around an observation platform. One thin, blond young man wears a Trump 2024 camo trucker hat, stars and stripes socks, and aviator glasses, a clipboard at the ready to tote up the winners and the losers.

A race official has the brackets sketched on a whiteboard. The FAA guys are out there, monitoring for safety, eyes on the race lines, keeping crowds away from the planes. The playa is alive with restless onlookers now; they line the 2,000-foot runway one or two deep at the beginning, sitting on lawn chairs, some under cheap gazebo tents, their UTVs and dust-coated trucks and cars and motorbikes behind them. The crowd line thins considerably toward the end of the course.

They all wait for the coughing of engines and the slicing of air, anticipating the frisson of hot metal zinging by at over 100 miles per hour as the pilots race about 2,000 feet and zoom back to the starting line. The racers themselves have traded jeans, T-shirts, and ball caps for flight suits and helmets, their faces grim and lips taut, as they sit in their cockpits waiting to be called to the line.

Trent Palmer is here, mentally alert, palate cleansed of the prior evening鈥檚 events, his brother and future sister-in-law in shock, without spare clothing, but intact. His mom, Jane, came to the playa after she heard about the toy hauler accident, and now she鈥檚 watching her eldest from the gallery. Palmer is here because it鈥檚 fun, and damn the plane insurance anyway. The Freedom Fox will race once again.

Speaking of which, Steve Henry鈥檚 over there suiting up, his mild manner belying his rabid competitiveness. His Yee Haw 6 is basically the bush-plane version of Dale Earnhardt Jr.鈥檚 Goodwrench Monte Carlo. It consists of a fuel-injected, four-cylinder, four-cycle, double-overhead-cam, nitrous-cooled engine lifted from a Yamaha snow machine and turbocharged to 300 horsepower. Henry鈥檚 drag b锚te noire, a man named Toby Ashley, isn鈥檛 competing, so Henry is basically racing against himself.

Quinn, wearing a checkered shirt with the patriotic cow skull, a radio holster strapped to his chest, gathers the volunteers for one last speech. It鈥檚 all about safety. 鈥淚 beat it up 鈥檛il I鈥檓 blue in the face, I gotta continue to beat it up,鈥 he says, the 鈥渋t鈥 referring to a dead horse, 鈥渂ut head on a swivel for all these people who are going back into the masses while airplanes are running鈥攖hat鈥檚 my biggest fear.鈥

I鈥檓 advised 鈥淣ever turn your back on a moving plane!鈥 Another safety dictum is 鈥淭ires are softer than propellers!鈥 If a wayward plane comes my way, I鈥檓 supposed to duck and cover.

The preliminaries commence. First up: two smoke-spewing warbirds scream down the crowd line, maybe 15 feet off the ground; the FAA guys will later decide that one of the planes flew too close to the masses. Next, the 鈥淪tar-Spangled Banner鈥 is piped tinnily out of a small speaker, and people stand solemnly, a thousand ball caps placed over as many hearts. Finally, two parachutists are falling from the ether; they deploy their canopies a few hundred feet above the racecourse. One lands on his feet, and the other trips and falls on his face.

The STOL dragsters鈥 propellers are spinning, each with its distinctive timbre, from basso profundo to wailing to shrieking. Finally it begins. Two planes wheel onto their marks. Quinn stands between them, erect as a sentry, speaks the immortal words every BASE jumper has intoned鈥斺淭hree, two, one鈥 See ya鈥濃攄elivers a mighty karate chop with his right hand, and they鈥檙e off.

Over the next three hours, a menagerie of stinking, steaming little bush planes鈥擟ubs, Kitfoxes, Huskies鈥攎ove up to the start line, two by two, farting avgas, and then race away after Quinn gives the signal. They鈥檒l fly nearly a mile, ridiculously close to the ground, shaving speed with vicious side slips, stalling, and then stopping. The best can drag it out and back in just over a minute, but hell, nobody鈥檚 faster than Steve Henry, who鈥檚 going for sub鈥50 seconds on the 4,000-foot round-trip. The uncowled engine of the Yee Haw 6 emits a sound like a barnful of hornets as Henry goes storming down the track in the final, trailed by a man named Hal Stockman, who flies the equally noxious-sounding Lawn Mower. But the flight of Stockman, a man who lives in his STOL Drag coveralls, is ornamental only, to minimize his loss to Henry, who won鈥檛 nick 50 seconds, but will go 52 and set a STOL Drag world record.

Nobody crashes. No one is sushied by a twirling prop. The masses are fine.

Palmer comes in fourth. Afterward, everybody wanders back to their camps, presumably having found what they were looking for.

Epilogue

Wilbur Wright once described his desire to fly as both a disease and an affliction, a sentiment that still resonated in the bush-flying community during my travels with them. They were all similarly drawn, or perhaps even entranced, by their bush planes and where they could take them.

On that August day last year when I flew with Palmer, we were returning to the airport when he veered the plane and muttered more to himself than to me: 鈥淲e鈥檙e gonna just feel it out.鈥

Feel what out?

He pointed the Freedom Fox into the steep, north-facing bowl on the flank of a small peak.

鈥淲e鈥檙e just taking a look,鈥 he said.

Palmer, I decided, intended to fly us into the side of the mountain.

鈥淩eally?鈥 I said, and then, 鈥淗oly fuck!鈥

I shot a glance at Palmer, who looked like he had for the entire flight: calm.

Powerless, I began to giggle and then started laughing, somewhat maniacally as the mountainside neared. Only one of two possible outcomes could befall the Freedom Fox, and by extension our bodies: Palmer would either auger us into the slope or, through blunt mastery of throttle, flaps, ailerons, stick, and rudder, transmute sure death into something infinitely more transcendent: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness; one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all (and maybe a few million clicks hanging in the balance).

Isn鈥檛 freedom just another word for nothing left to lose?

The moment of crisis upon us, Palmer flicked his left wrist, popped the 贵辞虫鈥s nose, stalled it into a brisk headwind, slapped the balloon tires down on the slope鈥檚 steep headwall, jammed on the brakes, and brought the beast to rest maybe 80 feet later atop a grassy bald overlooking the airport.

鈥淭hat was fucking sick,鈥 I heard myself croak, having witnessed the marriage of chaos and control, the hallmark of a perfect off-field landing. A lone pronghorn antelope lolled on an adjacent ridge.

鈥淵eah, so that was the hottest and highest I鈥檝e landed there,鈥 Palmer said.

He inched the Freedom Fox toward a 40-degree drop-off, jammed the brakes, revved up, released the brakes, and we were airborne. A few minutes later, we touched down on Reno-Stead鈥檚 runway.

鈥淟ike, what I did on that hillside was pretty dang close to full,鈥 he said as we taxied to his hangar. 鈥淚 mean smackdown.鈥

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Lead Photo: Courtesy Trent Palmer