1U1_Moose Creek Airstrip 2024-04-28

This large X of an airstrip was carved into a pine tree meadow in 1932 by the Forest Service at the intersection of Moose Creek and the Selway River. That’s where the Moose Creek Ranger Station had been built in 1921 as the base of operations for several surrounding fire lookouts in Idaho’s remote Panhandle region.The airstrip was built at the beginning of the smokejumper era. The area also has the distinction as the first place that smokejumpers – Rufus Robinson and Earl Cooley – ever parachuted in to fight a fire on July 12, 1940.