Draft 6.8
August 23, 2026

“War Stories from the Field”

The best war stories come not from the generals, but from the men and women in the trenches. That’s always been true. And with apologies to the ones who have known the real thing, the tales that TV veterans tell themselves are more about memorable triumphs and disasters and absurdities. They’re the stories that tend to improve with age, about close calls and flat tires and wrong turns and equipment failures.  

Let’s face it, the stories we remember in our own lives are usually the stories that demanded the most from us physically and mentally. Maybe that’s why I’m especially proud of the shows that required extraordinary effort from the entire crew — the productions where everyone suffered a little for the final result. Hour-long productions like “50 Years of Wilderness,” “Beyond the White Clouds,” “The River of No Return,” “Sawtooths on My Mind,” and “Into the Pioneers”—they weren’t just television programs, they were part endurance tests.

We weren’t doing anything heroic. We were doing our jobs, trying to bring back the pictures and tell the story as well as we knew how. Years later, when I stumble across one of those programs, I sometimes find myself thinking about the people behind the camera as much as the images in front of it. And I catch myself saying to no one in particular: Hey, we didn’t do too badly on that one.

If any Outdoor Idaho production earned its blisters, it was our hour-long 2000 “Idaho Headwaters.”  The concept was straightforward enough. Travel to the birthplace of some of Idaho's most beloved rivers and report on them. In other words, keep working your way upstream until the river disappeared into a meadow, seeped from beneath a rock, or simply ran out of water.

The beginnings of rivers are usually hidden in the most beautiful and least visited parts of the West—sacred places, really—landscapes that remind us what is still worth protecting. Their remoteness preserves them, and for us that usually meant long, exhausting journeys into seldom-seen country. 

Years before “Idaho Headwaters” became an official Outdoor Idaho project, I had been hunting above Mores Creek, near Pilots Peak lookout when I stumbled onto what I assumed was the creek’s source. This was one of the waterways that helped make Idaho City a gold mining boomtown. I had stopped to watch a fawn when I noticed water trickling from beneath a small pile of rocks. I followed the tiny stream as it gathered itself and flowed downhill toward Highway 21 and Mores Creek.

When “Idaho Headwaters” finally made it into our production schedule, I thought it would be fun to include a short segment about the headwaters of Mores Creek, especially since I knew exactly where it was. The next time I headed into the area, I brought videographer Jay Krajic instead of my .270 Winchester. I assured Jay this would be an easy shoot.

Of course, we never found what I was looking for. But we did discover an old mining cut carved from a hillside. From that cut flowed a tiny stream, despite no visible water source above it. Maybe finding the headwaters wouldn’t be as simple as I once thought.

That was certainly the case when colleagues John Crancer and Jay Krajic headed out to find the true headwaters of Idaho’s largest river, the Snake. For more than a century, maps incorrectly identified the Snake’s source near Wolverine Creek inside Yellowstone National Park. Later geological work proved the true headwaters began outside the park, in a maze of springs and fallen timber near the Continental Divide. 

"That’s where we were headed,” said producer John Crancer. “Our guide said we were at least thirty miles of hard riding away from the Divide. That's where the Snake begins its 1,000-mile journey westward. That was our planned destination."

For twelve hours John and Jay followed their guide and the packhorses through stunning, untamed wilderness, the kind of terrain that few will ever experience. We were in grizzly and wolf country. With darkness approaching, the group made camp that first night in a meadow alongside the ever-shrinking river.

"We figured we could reach the most remote upper headwaters the next day," said John. "But our guide lost his bearings, and we followed the wrong tributary. After a long day in the saddle, we ended up on a sparkling stream that wasn’t actually the Snake’s source headwaters."

Hydrologists may appreciate the complexity of river systems, but that's little comfort when you're lost in the wilderness and on a strict timetable with the guide and his horses. "We finally realized we had mistakenly crossed into Yellowstone Park,” said John. “We knew the source of the Snake was just east of us, in the Bridger Teton National Forest. All we could do was backtrack to a spot near our original camp and try again.”

By then frustration was mounting. Knowing both John and Jay, I’m sure they were not thrilled with their guide. At least they weren’t members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, forced to eat one of their horses at "Colt Killed Creek."

Two days into the trip, they faced another two very long days of riding just to reach the car they had shuttled to a trailhead in the Bridger Teton Forest. "To make matters worse," said Jay, "John slid off his horse and hit the ground. It had been a long day, and his stirrups weren’t tightened enough after twelve hours in the saddle. It didn't help that I laughed."                                              

They only had the horses and the guide for two more days, not long enough time to continue their search by climbing to a higher elevation. "What's really frustrating," said John, "is that we later determined we were only about two miles from the actual source of the Snake.  We needed satellite GPS instead of paper maps to keep the guide on the right route.”

But from my perspective, the trip was still a success. They had reached one of the truly extraordinary landscapes in North America. "After more riding along the Continental Divide,” said John, “we reached Two Ocean Creek. Here we found the 'Parting of the Waters,' with half the creek flowing east toward the Atlantic Ocean and the other half flowing west to the Pacific Ocean.  We may not have reached the Snake's ultimate source, but we documented the incredible country that gives rise to Idaho's largest river."

                                                                  

The Selway River presented another challenge. The famed 100-mile river begins high along the Idaho-Montana border, again in some of the least visited terrain in the Lower 48. Beginning in the Bitterroot Mountains, the Selway eventually meets up with the Lochsa, to form the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River. It is the only river in America to receive immediate inclusion in both the National Wilderness Preservation System and the Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

“The Selway’s not for sissies,” outfitter Steve Burson warned us as we loaded our gear onto mules. “This is the most rugged country in the Lower 48. Very few people today have the skills to come in here on their own.” We couldn’t disagree, especially after spending the day on the back of a mule, on a narrow dusty trail, at 9,000 feet, surrounded by black charred trees for most of the 22 miles, and no water anywhere.

The Outdoor Idaho crew had rafted the Selway River several times, but no one we knew had experienced the headwaters of the Selway. We weren't sure what to expect, but Steve Burson and his two guides had convinced us they knew right where it was.

Also joining us was retired Forest Service district ranger Dave Campbell and his wife Debi, from Missoula, Montana. I had asked Dave to join us because he was used to defending the Forest Service's "Let it Burn" policy. During his 30 years with the federal agency, he had made decisions on at least 30 fires but remained a staunch advocate for letting wildfires burn. He held that philosophical position even when it wasn't popular, which was usually in June, July, August, and September. 

Outfitter Steve Burson thought the "Let it Burn" policy was wrong-headed, especially during drought years. Most of his permit area had already burned. Jay and I had experienced the effects of that policy riding up through it. I was pretty sure it wasn't what people imagined back in 1980, when Congress declared this land official Wilderness.

I figured their philosophical disagreement might add another layer of complexity to the story, but I warned both men that our show would not allow much time for a full-throated debate about wildfire policy. It would, however, show that Wilderness is rarely as simple as people imagine it from afar.

What a relief it was, after ten hours on mules, to see the outfitter's base camp, with lush trees and a tiny creek running through it. Even the mules seemed excited. As I was walking off my backside pain, Debi Campbell came up to me and whispered that she would rather die than get back on the mule. I could feel her pain, but we had a full day's ride just to get back to civilization.

Still, the journey proved worthwhile when Steve and Dave knelt beside a tiny stream emerging from beneath a rocky hillside. “It comes right out of the rocks,” Steve said, filling a metal cup with water. “I believe this is the Selway’s source.” Dave raised his cup in agreement. “Here’s to the Selway,” he said, “the crown jewel of wild rivers in the Lower 48.” At least on that one point they agreed completely.

When the trip finally ended for Jay and me, our faces were black with soot, the only open restaurant in town was Pizza Hut, and we spent the night sleeping in a city park in Hamilton, Montana.

                                                              

The hazardous washboard road into the 1860's mining village of Atlanta would be enough excitement for most people, but we still faced a 16-mile hike to Spangle Lakes, in the Sawtooth Mountains. We were in search of the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Boise River. No wonder we only met one hiker on the trail. It was all uphill.

At one point on the trail, Outfitter Darl Allred had to very carefully maneuver his packhorses through a bog choked with submerged trees. I had called the Forest Service office before the trip and was assured there were no major trail problems. Apparently, no one had heard of the swamp.

For more than an hour Darl carefully guided the horses through 200 yards of knee-deep mud and hidden obstacles.  He had determined he couldn’t climb above it or drop down below it. Many horse packers would have turned around, fearful of a horse breaking a leg. "Every year here in the Sawtooths there's a horse or two that goes down, For most people, the trip would have been over right here, at this bog."  

Luckily for us, Darl was an expert horseman, and the animals had seen this rodeo before. They seemed surprisingly comfortable jumping over the slippery, submerged logs, with Darl leading them through the bog one at a time. It was hard work, and Darl's pants and shirt were soaked and dripping with mud, but he knew to bring an extra pair of clothes for the interview. We decided to camp nearby, grateful we had avoided disaster. Outfitter Darl had earned everyone’s respect.

I had first visited Spangle Lakes as a twelve-year-old boy, during a fifty-mile backpacking trip that began in Grandjean instead of Atlanta. As we approached the lake decades later from the opposite direction, I wondered whether I would recognize the giant rock where my friend Greg Brown and I had caught brook trout using grasshoppers from Ten Lake Basin. 

But a funny thing occurred. Now that I was older, that giant rock had shrunk, and the fish seemed smaller, too. The water, however, was still as crystal clear as I remembered, and the fish were still biting. The good things hadn't changed much at all.

“I’m surprised in 40 years that no one died. And if someone did die, it probably would have been me.”  Jay Krajic never talked like a conquering mountaineer. He talked like a cameraman with a job to do. “I was doing my job and that overcame any kind of fear I had. I really like challenges. Besides, I just thought nothing bad’s gonna happen to me. In fact, that became my mantra while climbing on near-vertical cliffs with a camera: “Nothing bad’s gonna happen! Nothing bad’s gonna happen!”

That was until expert mountaineer Tom Lopez accidentally unleashed a football-sized boulder that came racing right for Jay’s head. “We were up around 10,000 feet, below the summit of Bell Mountain, and I heard ‘Rock!’  I looked up, and I looked around, and there was nowhere to go. There was a wall on one side and a drop on the other, and the rock was coming really fast. I just hoped it wouldn’t hit something and ricochet.  I leaned over and fell down on the ground as it missed me by inches. Yeah, that was a pretty scary moment.”                                                       

Climbing mountains was nothing new for the Outdoor Idaho crew. Beginning as early as 1989, cameraman Peter Morrill and I followed llama owners Jay Rais and Rick Stull(?) into the Lost River Range near Challis. They hoped to be the first to take llamas to the top of Mt Borah, at 12,662 feet.

The llamas performed admirably until 11,200 feet. That’s the start of Chicken-Out Ridge. The animals balked. Perhaps they looked down and saw the near vertical drop-offs. They aren’t mountain goats, after all. Perhaps the llamas understood just enough English to know that Chicken-Out Ridge was where even brave souls turned back rather than face the steep exposed narrow rock rib that requires precise footwork with little margin for error.

I just know my respect for llama intelligence grew as I watched their stubborn insistence. They had seen just about enough of Idaho’s tallest mountain.

“Hey, I liked Chicken-Out Ridge,” said Jay. “I thought it was fun. Borah may be the easiest of the 12ers to climb. It’s certainly the most trailed.” Jay had begun work on our 2020 hour-long program “Idaho’s 12ers.” Of the nine mountain peaks higher than 12,000 feet, Mt Borah is the most famous. Each year hundreds of people attempt to summit, but first you have to get past Chicken Out Ridge.

“I have seen climbers who left camp at 5 a.m. so that they could get back to their cars before dark,” said Jay. “After a 5,200-foot elevation gain over 4.25 miles that took them most of the day, they eventually reach Chicken-Out Ridge. It freaks them out. It’s just too scary. The Ridge is the end of their climb. They don’t go any farther. For me, even with a large camera slung over my shoulder, I found Chicken-Out Ridge exhilarating.”

One of my fond memories of that 1989 trip is making it to the summit and seeing a little lake down below us. A bear was swimming across the lake. We used the video near the end of our program.

Twenty-nine years later, Jay and I and a small group of adventurers bushwhacked into that small lake below Borah summit for “Land of the Lost River Range.” No bear and no trail, but we could definitely make out climbers on the top of Borah that afternoon. I’m sure they wondered who those people were, yelling up at them. They had to hear us, because we could hear them.

Jay figures he summitted 18 peaks for Outdoor Idaho, and of course he has his favorite climbs: Castle Peak in the White Clouds; the duo of Church and Donaldson in the Lost River Range, so close they’re usually climbed on the same day; Jerry Peak in the McClure-Jerry Peak wilderness, and Bell Peak in the Lemhi Range.

And there were two he disliked, both located in the Lost River Range.

“Just shy of Breitenbach peak, we got to a ridge. The snow had drifted both ways, so there was a cornice on the knife edge. It was a huge slab of snow that went over the ridge. It was nasty, and it dropped thousands of feet below you. You’re hiking on the edge of that ridge, and you’re not sure if you’re going to step on a piece of snow or a piece of rock. Terry Lee, our volunteer, was ahead of me carrying the tripod. I guess he was my guinea pig. He stepped through the snow. Luckily, only one foot stepped through the snow. That moment on Breidenbach was probably the scariest of the 12ers.”

Jay’s least favorite climb was Lost River Peak, following skiers who were happy to climb up and ski down “Super Gully,” a wide-open slope for about 2,000 vertical feet.  What Jay remembers is the post-holing. “When we videotaped the skiers, we were heading down the mountain, and I had a pack on with my camera in it. I hit soft snow and sank three feet. The pack went over the top of me, and I was buried. I couldn’t get out. Someone had to come over and pull me up.”

The ski group only went as far as the “false” summit that day, and Jay and Terry figured that soon they would need to climb Lost River Peak again. It was personally important to them that they bag the true summit, which by all accounts required careful navigation. The second climb was in May, two months later than that first trip.

“We began post holing around 10,000 feet. You hit a soft spot and your leg goes down, as you’re going straight up the steep mountain. That’s bad enough, but above 10,000 feet, there’s not enough oxygen to breathe, and each time your foot goes down into the snow three feet, you gotta stop and pull your foot out. That takes a lot of energy, but you get back up on your feet, and you post hole again. That happens, until you have no energy left.”

Jay could have lightened his load, but he was a purist when it came to cameras. He hauled the large TV camera up and down mountains because it had the better lens, zoom and depth of field. “And I knew how to operate those cameras. They were manual, and I could control everything on the camera. Those small auto-digital cameras weren’t quite there yet.”

The one thing that Jay did appreciate working on “Idaho’s 12ers” was the camaraderie of the climbers. “It was physically a challenge, but they made it fun. They were really into it, and so it made it easier. And they didn’t care that I was there documenting their trips. That’s really rare.”

 

 

"A haunting and mysterious world lies under Idaho." That's how we introduced our 1993 program “Under Idaho” to folks above ground. The show explored lava tubes, mining tunnels and deep limestone caves, including Papoose Cave in the Seven Devils mountain range.

Several of us worked on the program, but it was my colleagues Sauni Symonds and Pat Metzler who went the farthest down under, hauling bulky cameras, lights that proved to be no match for the blackness of the cave, and enormous batteries into Idaho’s largest cave. “I believed it was a grand adventure,” said Sauni, “and I wanted to be the producer who nailed Papoose Cave.”

Back in 1993 our antique equipment often let us down, especially in harsh environments. We sometimes wondered if we should stick closer to home. “Our cameras were very clunky and light-challenged,” explained Sauni. “The batteries to run the lights were huge and heavy, and those lights were not very strong.  We had to drag all the gear through dark, wet tunnels, up and down ladders, in the dark.

"And the dark was overwhelming. One climber prepared us by saying, ‘it’s darker than you've ever experienced in your surface life.’ I quickly came to believe him. But we were able to make a story with still photos taken by the cavers over the years.  The photos were excellent. Film and strong strobe flashes made a huge difference.” 

Photos can certainly tell a story, but the crew wanted video hundreds of feet underground, and Sauni was not someone who gave up easily. “It always nagged at me that we could have had a better story with better TV gear.”    

Years later, advances in camera technology convinced Outdoor Idaho to try again. By 2015, lightweight DSLRs and GoPros could capture images impossible to record in 1993. “The cameras were super light-sensitive, we had multiple lights and lots of very small batteries,” said Sauni. “But the challenges of the dark were still there.  The cavernous, pitch-black cave again swallowed the light. Papoose Cave was unforgiving.”  

We seldom revisit a story, unless a public affairs angle has substantially changed the story. But we made an exception for Papoose Cave, just like we made an exception for our 1995 “Backcountry Pilots” show. Too many of the pilots had died after it first aired. We figured it was improper to keep re-airing that program. That’s why 15 years later, we produced “Flying Idaho.” But after a few years, we had the same problem. Now neither show airs. 

Cavers nationwide consider Papoose one of the most dangerous caves in the country and one of the most geologically significant. It descends to a depth of 800 feet below the surface of the earth, with documented passageways that extend for more than three miles.

After its discovery by a group of hunters in 1959, the Forest Service installed a locked gate at its entrance, allowing only expert climbers to enter.  A good thing, because almost immediately Papoose requires ropes and special equipment to survive the 50-foot drop-off. As one expert climber told Sauni, "It's a very challenging environment. Not many people are capable of going into this cave and coming out in one piece." 

For our 2015 show “Middle Earth,” a group from the Gem State Grotto were our guides and took Outdoor Idaho crew members Sauni and Troy Shreve to a depth of 500 feet. They worked their way through tight squeezes and complex passageways that could keep a novice lost for weeks. One false move could mean cascading through an ice-cold waterfall or dropping dozens of feet onto hard limestone rock. 

Expert cavers carry three lights to guarantee plenty of redundancies. They also notify other cavers before entering Papoose. “In Papoose, the silent killer is hypothermia,” said Sauni. “With an average temperature of 36 degrees and 98 percent humidity, it’s virtually impossible not to get wet. That’s something I discovered with my first rappel into the cave.”

 Years later, while reminiscing about our various underground adventures, Sauni admitted that “Middle Earth" was one of the shows that kicked her backside, physically and mentally.

“When ascending the underground waterfall on ropes to leave the cave, my ascender mechanism got jammed. So, as I’m straining to push myself up the waterfall, my rubber boots and coveralls filled with water, increasing my weight by what felt like 20 lbs. That effort resulted in a shoulder injury that took years to heal. It made me realize that what we were doing back then was not only exciting but downright dangerous.”

It was frustrating also. Ever the perfectionist, Sauni realized she would need even more usable footage to tell the lengthy story she wanted to tell. So Troy went back to Papoose to gather even more footage. 

“Still, we used every image we secured,” noted Sauni. “Unlike so many shows, absolutely nothing landed on the cutting room floor. Those were the kinds of shows that I always wished we had a bigger budget for, to hire a production team with experience in that kind of difficult environment.”

Years later, Sauni remembered the experience less as glamorous television than sheer endurance. “In many ways, it was the most punishing show I worked on. But we did what we could on a shoestring, and I’m proud of that.”

 

There are plenty more war stories to tell, involving rivers, mountains, wildlife, wilderness, snowstorms, broken equipment, questionable judgment, and more than a few times when somebody should have known better. But every war has casualties, and in this case it’s page count. This chapter is already too long, and every producer, videographer, and editor who worked on Outdoor Idaho could add a few stories to the list.

Viewers never see these moments, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Hopefully, what they do see is a story worth telling. And maybe they’ll feel the way I do: Hey, we didn’t do too badly on that one.