Second video is better quality and resolution, go for at least 1440, skip the 1st minute
an undeveloped landing area in Idaho, Dewey Moore is perhaps the most notorious airstrip in the legendary bush pilot's paradise known as the "Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness" on Big Creek in Idaho, about 19-miles west of the junction of Big Creek and the Middle Fork of the Salmon River.
This strip is rated as the second most difficult strip in "Fly Idaho".
Many planes have wrecked on this tricky little 700' landing strip. There is even an effort to close it down by 4 groups (No doubt headed by Karen's) that have sued the Forest Service
The groups — Wilderness Watch, Great Old Broads (told ya so, Karen's by the dozen) for Wilderness, Friends of the Bitterroot and Friends of the Clearwater — claim that Forest Service records dating back decades, including through the establishment of the wilderness area, confirm that the four dirt-and-grass landing strips were abandoned and that it is expressly illegal for aviators to use them.
But the Forest Service has for years engaged in an informal policy of not enforcing the prohibition on the strips' use, the lawsuit states. And in 2018, the agency implemented what the groups describe as an illegal policy of opening the landing strips to airplane traffic and planning formal maintenance on them, the lawsuit claims, all without environmental review or public notice. In 2022 and at the request of the state of Idaho, the Forest Service illegally cut down tall trees to improve the approach to one landing strip, the groups allege.
George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch, wrote, "The Wilderness Act makes clear that the Forest Service must protect the wilderness character of the River of No Return, and it makes particularly clear that aircraft landings and other motorized activity are allowed only under narrowly defined conditions. The Big Creek Four airstrips were not in regular use at the time of wilderness designation in 1980, and they have never been lawful airstrips open to any public use. Establishing four more landing strips in the Big Creek drainage just chokes this spectacular area with incessant airplane traffic."
These groups are all about preventing anything with a spark plug anywhere near the wilderness.... so that? Hell if I know, if you can't get to the wilderness, then, what's the point of having one? Getting to it, experiencing the wilderness, the solitude, is the reason that they're WORTH seeing. It's WHY there's a national hiking trail, national parks, etc etc.
As you can see from this off season photo, there is a stream of rain run off that created this airfield, and that run off will likely cause the stream's bed to get very rough
thanks Marc!
