The Mountain Stallion

As the summer field season comes to a close, so to does my second job as a mechanic.  Keeping the fleet running, or limping, is sometimes more difficult than trapping a bear or darting an elk.  My dodge is currently without a speedometer and the trusty Jeep has a blown head gasket.  We have cumulatively installed 6 Dodge wheel bearings, one set of ball joints, and a hand full of U-joints.  Five tires have succumbed to the trails on Black Mountain and somewhere above 3,500 ft there is a jack buried in the mud.  Our wildlife research depends of a stable of running vehicles that are capable enough to get the job done.  These vehicles are our summer offices and sometimes our lodging.  They carry our gear, transport bears and bear traps, and get us back to the ranch at the end of the day.

Over the years, our work trucks have been many and varied in make, yet the mountain stallion stands out as the best.  The 1996 Ford Bronco that was run hard for three years finally had a catastrophic engine failure this winter in the middle of elk research season just as it turned over 205K miles.  Its 351 V8 drank gas and the mud tires were so loud it made the radio useless.  Its seats reminded me of a school bus and there were two holes in the roof that let in water.  These problems were all overlooked when the pavement ended.  If the going got tough, a simple shift into 4 wheel low made you feel as if you had just pulled the farm tractor out of the barn.

This vehicle ran a trap line for bear on Black and Pine Mountains in 2009, surveyed ravens and did bear work in the winter of 2010, ran 150 bait sites for bear in the summer of 2010, and plowed through snow and mud while darting elk in the winter of 2011.  Its last 40K miles were spent being rode hard oven mine roads and the forest roads of McCreary County.  The beauty of this vehicle was in its simplicity.