Angel Lake, Part Three: The Crash.

Borrowed this picture from http://www.elkorose.com/angel_lake.html since all of mine seem to have disappeared for now.

We were standing there, telling the tale of our days adventures, listening to Kent tell of his twenty-five mile trek to the lake around the other side of the ridge while being menaced by bears and cougars, and watching the last of the fire-Rescue guys on top of the cliff with binoculars while he coiled and packed away the ropes and harnesses into gear bags.

Susanne described her feelings as she sat on the rock and drew the landscape and talked to God. I mostly complained about being tired and drank a bunch of water, Kent talked of hiking through the wilderness with a mischievous gleam in his eye, Annie fussed over Susanne and snorted at her husbands liberal use of hyperbole, while the fireman finished packing the gearbags and went to sit right at the edge of the cliff near where he had been dropped off earlier.

After a short while we heard the helicopter's engine turn over and begin winding up. Then it took to the sky and went back across the lake and touched down in the same place it had dropped the rescuers off earlier. The last rescuer picked up the gear bags, tossed them into the chopper, then climbed in himself. Susanne and Annie had the binoculars at this point, Kent and I were using the old eyeball mark 1 viewers, and our conversation was on hold.

The 'copter picked itself up, rotated in place to once again face down canyon, moved forward slowly a couple of feet, and then turned nose down and dove at the lake. Someone gasped, I said “Oh Shit.” For a second I thought that the pilot was making a flamboyant exit as pilots are wont to do. Then the 'copter disappeared below the curve of the hill and the Aspen trees and there was an enormous tearing sound as though Gods own weed-whacker was mowing the Aspens on the other side of the lake. Time stretched out, telescoping as I listened for the crash, but the grinding noises just continued, and then the 'copter came lurching back up over the slope of the hill heading straight at us as it spun widdershins about the axis of its rotor-shaft. The tail-rotor and a big piece of the tail was gone, the broken end was smoking as the machine screamed through the air about twenty feet up I was looking at the left side of the copter, and noticed that the landing struts were also missing, then the tail swung my way as one of the left doors opened and a man, accompanied by several red bags went flying out the side. I was running for the lee of Kent and Annie's motorhome, visions of rotor-blades slicing through all opposition dancing in my head. Looking now at the right side of the approaching behemoth as it suddenly appeared to be flying backwards, then turned on it's left side and slammed down into the ground with a crashing roar. The turbine was still running, the rotors broken off, as I came around the rear of the motorhome and found myself sprinting towards the crash praying, “Oh God, please don't burn, don't explode, don't burn.” I could almost see the pale wash of blue and yellow flame engulfing the downed bird, but it did not happen.

I was either the first or second person to reach the 'copter, not sure, everything was quite confused. At first the pilot looked dead, the right side window had exploded inward on impact and he hung loose in his harness, head bloodied. In the back the fire-Rescue guys were moving about, apparently unhurt but dazed. Struggling to get out. The turbine was still running, whining in the afternoon sun sounding like the worlds biggest pissed off bee and reminding me of fire. The pilot started moving and then the turbine died. “Thank God.”

More people arrived at the crash-site, the fire-Rescue guys and the pilot all climbed out under their own power, and the man who had been thrown came stumbling out of the aspens also unhurt except for scrapes and bruises. The helicopter had hit on its left side, just off the road, not five feet from the bathroom, ten feet from a tent where a woman had been napping with her baby. Luckily she was down in the tent because it soon became apparent that a piece of blade had gone through her campsite at about head height and headed for the lake. The other police and Sheriffs got there quickly and moved all us helpful souls back away from the crash-site. Susanne and I had a front row seat for a bit because our camp was directly across from the bathroom, the nose of her car maybe thirty feet from the belly of the chopper. It was inconceivable that no-one died that day, but no one was even seriously injured. The worst was the pilot, and he simply needed some stitches in his scalp. Other than that, the rescue guys had some bruises and abrasions, no campers were hurt though a few missed being pureed by inches...Angel Lake is aptly named it seems, for surely something was keeping an eye on all of us that day.

Shortly thereafter, we were asked to leave our site as it was being roped off as part of the crash site, and dozens more law enforcement people showed up. We went back over to Kent and Annie's site and Annie made dinner for all of us. We ate a healthy, vegetarian, taco salad and it was wonderful though the salsa could have been hotter. Then they told us we would have to move our camp to another site, and before that the Sheriff's lieutenant wanted to talk to us and get a full account of the day and how we came to be stuck and what we had seen of the crash. We talked to a dozen or so other people about what we had seen and done and what they had seen and done. The camp-hosts helped us move to a higher campsite out of the way, and we eventually found our way to our sleeping bags and crashed hard around midnight.

The next morning we filled out witness statements for the Forest Service and the State patrol, drank coffee, ate breakfast, exchanged contact information with various other campers who promised to send us pictures and video of the previous days events. We swam in the lake, or rather I got in and splashed around in the freezing water for a minute before retreating to the sunwarmed shore and Susanne swam around the entire bloody lake...mi loca.

Then we headed on down the road, We took showers at a truck-stop in Eastern Nevada and crossed into Utah that afternoon. After traversing the Salt Flats, we reached the Great Salt Lake just at sunset. Susanne once again had to get in the water and once again I waded, just wetting my feet and tried to avoid squishing the millions of dead brine-shrimp that rimmed the salt muck and contributed their unmistakable aroma to the fetid air. That night we slept in the car on top of a pass just East of Salt-Lake City and were serenaded by thunderstorms. We had gotten in too late to get a campsite, and needed to stay in the area to take care of tire problem the next day. We were exhausted and ready for a rest...we got one over the next few days...but that night was long and uncomfortable. Our days rest had turned into a day of terror and exultation, not restful at all, but definitely a sign that God was watching over us both. He does not want us dead, but neither does he want us to get bored or to take our lives for granted.