My friend Bill Baugher, who lives in Bakersfield, took this absolutely gorgeous photo near the top of Hell For Sure Pass in the Kern River Canyon while hiking there a couple days ago. I didn't ask his permission to use it, but I'm sure he won't mind.
The Kern River Canyon is a dramatic and dangerous water-cut cleft in the earth which begins immediately east of the city. Bakersfield, with its unbreathable air, is not exactly the kind of place people ordinarily think of as a scenic attraction, but there are beautiful and wild places within a stone's throw of it.
A little-known bit of Kern Canyon lore is the history of a stealth fighter crash which occurred there in July of 1986. Partly because it happened prior to the advent of the internet, and partly because the Air Force has worked very hard to keep any knowledge of it suppressed, information about the crash is to this day only readily available on nutter web sites -- the types of sites ordinarily devoted to UFO mythology, etc.
Nobody outside a tight circle of secretive Air Force personnel knows why the Stealth plane was flying out of Edwards AFB when it crashed in the canyon at 2 a.m., instantly killing the pilot and only person on board, Major Ross E. Mulhane, and touching off a 150-acre blaze which required 16 hours for firefighters to extinguish. Fortunately, there were no weapons on the plane.
As far as anybody outside the Air Force's circle of secrecy knows, it was highly unusual for a stealth aircraft to be flying in that area. Most of the development and testing of all the various stealth craft took place at the famous and mysterious Area 51 base in western Nevada.
All trace of Major Mulhane's fatal crash is gone from the canyon now, and I'm sure it was very quiet the day my friend Bill was hiking the remote and semi-accessible reaches of Hell For Sure Pass. The peace of the Kern River Canyon can be very deceptive, however, and I would advise anybody who ever visits there to resist any temptation you might have to go swimming in the Kern River.
Click on the image for a larger view.
3 comments:
What's wrong with the Kern River?
People drown in it every year. There are places where it looks placid on the surface, but there are vicious undercurrents.
Hey Dave, it's an honor that you included one of my photos for your blog...and...thanks for the breif history lesson on the Kern Canyon. I didn't know about the stealth fighter crash in 86. I guess I was too busy to notice because I was going through the "hell for sure" credential program at the time.
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