The insane patrol continues

Last week Big Prairie District Ranger Henry Thol and fellow ranger Jim Diehl were looking for poachers in what is now the Bob Marshall Wilderness. This weren’t going well. In fact, the men were on the verge of freezing to death in a blizzard...

By JOHN FRALEY

Henry didn’t accept Jim’s surrender, urging him, maybe dragging him through the snow, towards the now reachable goal of Murphy Flat about five miles upstream.

By late afternoon Jim and Henry saw the Murphy cabin appear before them out of the curtain of the blowing snow storm. It’s hard to imagine the joy and relief the two men experienced as they stumbled into the cabin. They started the stove and fed in lodgepole pine chunks, basking in the warmth, and enjoying the best tasting food in the world. They had survived the first leg of one of the craziest patrols in the history of the South Fork. Maybe only Henry Thol could have brought through another man unprepared for this kind of extreme travel in constant, sub-zero weather. It must have been frustrating for him, because he likely could have done the trek more quickly.

The relieved men holed up at the cabin for two days, recovering their strength. The most difficult part of the patrol was completed, but a great distance still stood before them. Luckily, the well-stocked Big Prairie and Danaher stations stood along the patrol route.

On the eighth day out from Condon, Henry and Jim mushed the 10-12 miles to Big Prairie, home of the biggest cache of food in the wilderness. Henry was the official head ranger of Big Prairie, so it was homecoming for him. When they reached the flagship ranger station, their spirits soared. They were recovering from the hardships of the first part of the trip, and after gaining strength and loading up with supplies, they could sprint for the Danaher and nab the beaver poachers. The poachers, who supposedly accessed the wilderness from Ovando, would have no clue that the rangers were in the area because they would be approaching from downriver.

Henry checked the thermometer when they stepped up on the porch of the Big Prairie Ranger Station. The mercury had dipped to 47 below zero, but a ball of mercury at the bottom of the column seemed to indicate it was even colder. On this trip, Henry was breaking his own rule of no travel in conditions colder than 40 below.

After loading up on supplies and resting for a day or so, the travelers mushed up the South Fork trail for about seven miles to the junction of Youngs and Danaher Creeks. The travel had improved somewhat with settling of snow, and the two men felt added strength from eating plenty of high calorie food.

Moving along with a sense of purpose, the rangers headed up Danaher Creek and after about a dozen miles, reached the Danaher Forest Service cabin, searching for any signs of the reported poachers along the way.

After restocking supplies and a night at the cabin, the rangers headed up the wide, flat, beaver-rich Danaher drainage. They mushed about eight miles across the gentle Dry Fork Blackfoot- Flathead drainage divide. Across the divide in the Blackfoot drainage, the two intrepid rangers conducted an elk survey as they moved down the North Fork of the Blackfoot drainage and out into the valley near Ovando.

The travelers emerged from the mountains and knocked on the door of the first ranch house they came to at Frenchman’s Flat. After spending the night courtesy of the rancher’s Montana hospitality, they walked out to the little town of Ovando. The relieved game warden had just decided to send out a search party because the pair were nearly a week overdue.

From Ovando, the rangers caught a ride to Missoula, and then on to Kalispell where the odyssey had begun.

Henry and Jim had covered nearly 100 miles in a period of about two weeks in seemingly impossible subzero temperatures and snow depths.

For daring and danger, Henry Thol’s insane patrol has never been equaled in the annals of the U.S. Forest Service.

Nowhere on the entire length of their trip did they see any sign of beaver poachers.

It may have been a while before Henry acted on another tip from Ovando Game Warden Henry Morgan.

To read more about the intrepid Henry Thol, check out the “Ranger’s Ranger” chapter in John Fraley’s 2018 book, “Rangers, Trappers, and Trailblazers,” published by Farcountry Press in Helena.