The Radio repeater

Tales from the Backyard... While working in Alaska at the Klondike Goldrush NHS among my various duties was the maintenance of the Historic Chilcoot Trail.  We had Rangers who lived the summer months at the head of the trail just before the last climb to the top and they were without radio contact while there and had to hike halfway down the mountain every time they needed to call out. So the Service Center had sent out a radio expert to find a location for a repeater.  I had scheduled a helicopter for the day and we lifted off and began heading the 17 miles up the canyon.  We were to meet the rangers there and scout the mountain tops.  When we got to the summit, we found what looked like a good location and we were dropped off at the top of this massive cliff which looked like Half Dome at Yosemite and the chopper flew down to get the rangers.  No sooner had he left when a massive storm front moved in from nowhere.  You couldn’t see ten feet.  I told the radio expert that these fronts could last hours or for days, so we had 2 choices, stay here and wait or move along the ridge and connect with the trail, about a mile and a half away and climb down.  He didn’t want to stay and because he thought he was senior in rank, said we would head out this way, pointing in the wrong direction.  I said we could, but it’s about 2,000 miles to the nearest road.  We argued for about 10 minutes then I just said that I was going to go along the ridge and if he wanted to start out his way, when I got to the bottom I would inform the rangers and they would send a search party.  Mind you we were standing on a flat rock with zero visibility, arguing over which way to go, not knowing north from south and heading in the wrong direction meant either going into the wilderness or falling off the face of the cliff.  He followed; along the way we discovered hundreds of artifacts left by the gold seekers more than a hundred years earlier.  We even found the skeleton of a packhorse with all the gear still attached.  Why they had come so far off the trail is still a mystery, but what a great experience.  Apparently we made it down, just as the clouds lifted.  He never did say thanks.