By Mark Spencer
We’re off to a cool fall, and the backcountry season is off to a great start! We’ve managed to crack seal and surface seal the Grapevine Airstrip (88AZ) on the Tonto National Forest for the second time since bringing this incredible airstrip back into service after a 26 year closure!
In central eastern Arizona, we’ve added a new volunteer sponsor, Josh Leavitt, from Safford, to help us keep us abreast of maintenance needs at the old Double Circle Ranch, AZ66 airstrip located on the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest northwest of Clifton Morenci. By the way, this airfield could sure use some mowing and a small riding lawnmower would be of great help here if one of you is willing.
Each few years we find ourselves saying goodbye to our friends like local District Rangers and making that all important transition to a new ranger. In Forest Service (FS) terms, the District Ranger is known as the “Line Officer,” and he or she is essentially the boss of that particular district. A lot of government agency authority flows from the top down, but it’s a little different in the FS as the organization as a whole is there to support the line officer, or the person closest to the ground and district. It doesn’t always work this way as federal laws governing such things as archeology and NEPA can trump the District Ranger (DR). Essentially the DR has to operate within these special areas of laws, and the FS teams that specialize in these areas guide this. 
At the Double Circle we have experienced sort of a double whammy here in 2022 in that our longtime friend and DR on the Clifton District retired just after having a new archeological study completed on the site. The new study now says that much of the site is eligible for the national historic registry, and this determination brings in federal laws governing what sort of activities, maintenance, and other activity can take place at such sites. Our new DR, Vince Voelker, is pro-active, and thankfully pro customer (taxpayer), and committed to help us navigate through these new waters. To these ends, District Ranger Voelker helped arrange a meeting at the site on Monday November 7th that included Ingrid Mendoza, the forest archeologist from Springerville, the zone archeologist, Aoife Kilmartin, and the district archeologist Sara Cullen, along with Sarah Mees from Historicorp, the USFS’s national partner on restoration of historic structures, and the Springerville District Archeologist, Amie Andrews. In no particular order in the photograph. I decided to take advantage of the meeting by asking my CFI to fly back seat in my Top Cub, completing my BFR.
Our meeting started around 11AM and went until just after 2PM. Much of my time was spent with the Forest Archeologist from Springerville, Ingrid, and giving her a complete history of the site and the aviation community support and restoration activities that have taken place over the last ten years, including three National Public Land Day events, replacing 42 broken windows, reconstruction of the front porch, construction of a new front door and so on. There are way more details than I can share here but suffice it to say that our conversation was positive, and I believe we ended in a good place. The tendency of archeologists can be to go a little too far, in my opinion, on the can-not’s instead of the can-do’s, but this team seemed well balanced and interested in working together. Our challenges lay in the red tap we must get though here on what to do with the existing lodge building and bunkhouse. For now, we’ll only be able to do minimal maintenance type work and mowing as we work through a plan for the site. It was pointed out that making a case for other non-aviation community interest in the site would be helpful, and there’s no doubt we have this interest here. Anyway, this will be a journey for sure, but in the meantime, don’t hesitate to enjoy this little gem of a truly backcountry slice of history. A big thanks to Eric and Agnus Klein for heading up to the ranch and sweeping out the lodge building, as well as Josh Leavitt standing at the ready! This helped show our interest and willingness to maintain this structure and site. Without our care of this lodge, and the lack of funding and manpower our FS has had for decades, structures like this can easily be deemed a nuisance and removed altogether!
Meanwhile, backcountry pilot and longtime APA former President Tommy Thomason orchestrated a multi aircraft gathering and maintenance event at the Red Creak airstrip on the Tonto National Forest to get started on some much-needed runway work. Look for his article next month!
Please visit and print the appropriate backcountry safety brief before venturing off to any of our backcountry strips! Your professional knowledge and behavior in the backcountry make your APA and RAF’s work of preserving backcountry airstrips much easier.