A Perfect Defile

The canyon the panel calls a perfect defile is also where Montana lost a governor. On January 25, 1962, a Montana Air National Guard C-47 left Helena for Cut Bank carrying Governor Donald G. Nutter, his executive secretary Dennis Gordon, Agriculture Commissioner Edward Wren and a crew of three. The crew radioed that the governor wanted a closer look at the planned route of Interstate 15 through the Wolf Creek area. In winds reported above a hundred miles an hour the plane came down in this canyon, and all six died. A bronze beside this panel names them.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mann Gulch — 11 mi
  Thirteen markers on a grass slope above the Missouri, where a fire outran a crew of smokejumpers in 1949.

More markers nearby

• The Montana Central Railroad — steps away
• Old U.S. Highway 91 — 6.5 mi
• The Mann Gulch Fire — 6.5 mi
• "Cliffs High and Steep" — 16 mi