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Finding a 'Flying Fortress' |
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Written by Dan England
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Wednesday, 16 August 2006 |
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So close and yet so far.
That’s what was flying through Ken Kafka’s mind as he wandered off the Old Flowers Trail and around the foothills up the Poudre Canyon. A cold, wet, soupy mist enveloped the area, drowning it in white and making it impossible to see anything but a few feet in front of him.
As he searched around the area with his wife Karen, Kafka, 56, who lives just west of Pierce in Weld County, knew his quest to find the wreckage of a Boeing B-17 Bomber — dubbed the Flying Fortress during World War II — that crashed in the canyon would fall less than a mile short. Walking on a trail through the thick mist was fine, but even with the little bit of off-trail hiking it would take to find the plane, it would be far too difficult to find the wreck and far too easy to get lost in the thick forest.
After walking almost 10 miles and coming so close to finding the plane parts, the weather would win, and he would have to turn around.
Just two weeks later, on a classic July weekend, Kafka roared up the dirt road that would take him to the Browns Lake Trail in his 1965 Falcon, an old car that the Blues Brothers would drive, under bright, sunny, blue skies. The forecast called for no thunder, no rain and no stupid mist, either.
It was a perfect day to try again.
The beautiful weather was a relief that morning, even if it could turn into a hot day, given the stories Kafka likes to tell about his adventures climbing 40 of the state’s 14ers.
If the weather looks clear, and you do hike with Kafka, the spaces between conversations or comments are tighter than a one-bedroom studio apartment.
“I just flap my gums the whole way up and the whole way down,” he said.
Besides the fact that Kafka just loves to hike: He loves machines.
“I own 26 things,” Kafka said, “that require an oil change.”
Many others use the plane crash as an excuse to hike as well: In fact, there are more than a dozen “plane crash” hikes across the country, and some like to collect them in the way that many Colorado residents such as Kafka like to “collect” the 14ers. Another hike in the Indian Peaks about a two hours from Greeley offers a plane crash as well: Navajo Peak, a hard, Class 3 13er, in the Indian Peaks, features one, and as a result, hikers call an area that leads to the summit “Airplane Gully.”
According to Web sites, the World War II B-17 Bomber held 10 men on a training mission when it crashed in June 1944. They were flying at 10,750 and it crashed into a 10,875-foot ridge. Four of the 10 were killed. The U.S. Army packed it full of dynamite and blew it up a few weeks later but left the pieces.
Kafka said he’d heard that one of the plane’s machine guns was still up there.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Kafka said.
Most of it is still there, even if it is scattered into hundreds of pieces.
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| | My name is Michelle Turley and I'm 28 years old. I live in Severance with my hubbie, Brandon. We have 2 dogs and a cat. We enjoy camping, four-wheeling, and just being in the mountains. I like to cook, clean (go figure), flea market, and play poker. I have so much to say about poker... | |
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