Special Delivery Winter Can’t Stop Backcountry Mail Carriers

Rain, snow, sleet, wind, hail, snowslides, breakdowns and subzero temperatures don’t keep Bill Tuggle from delivering the mail to 10 households tucked into the snowy folds of Idaho’s backcountry between Challis andSalmon.

Tuggle, a rural route mail carrier, uses a snowmobile during the winter to deliver the mail on most of his 75-mile round-trip run from Morgan Creek near Challis to Deep Creek near Cobalt, about 42 miles west of Salmon.

Three days a week, for six or seven months each year, Tuggle hauls a snowmobile to the Salmon-Challis National Forest boundary, then unloads it and heads across the mountains to Cobalt, population one. The rest of the year he or his wife, Cary, drive the run in a four-wheel-drive pickup truck.

Before reaching the 7,200-foot Morgan Creek Summit, Tuggle delivers mail to four families.

On the other side, where a parked truck awaits him, Tuggle bumps down the road to six more mail boxes before turning around and heading home.

“On the cold days, the truck’s really nice because you can get out of the cold,” he said.

Lemhi County plows the steep winding road into Cobalt. Mining and logging companies plow another portion to at least the old townsite of Forney to provide access for their employees.

Despite the plowed road, it has always been faster to deliver the mail from Challis, 40 miles south of Cobalt.

Once Tuggle heads up the pass, he loses contact with the outside world.

Radios and cellular telephones don’t work in the remote stretch. If he has a breakdown or is hurt, it could be hours before he gets help.

Tuggle and his boss, Allen Hardman of Challis Transportation, have a system worked out for emergencies.

“We have a snow machine loaded and ready to go out looking for Bill if he isn’t back by four,” Hardman said.

As snowmobiles get more reliable, Hardman says he has to go out less and less often to help his drivers. Tuggle has had so few breakdowns that he simply takes a bit of extra food, matches and dry gloves and socks.

Dennis Savage, who drove the route for 18 years, was more accustomed to breakdowns and tried to make the best of them.

He carried a blue plastic tarp for shelter and a coffee can filled with emergency supplies like matches, soup and coffee. Hardman said whenever he arrived to help Savage, he had the coffee pot steaming over a campfire.

“There’s a lot of times if you break down that they don’t get there ‘til 8 o’clock,” Savage said.

“If you break down at 10 in the morning, you could be in trouble.”

Breakdowns and blizzards can quickly change the soft, billowing world of snow from pure white innocence into a deadly arctic nightmare.

In a pinch, resourcefulness is sometimes the best life insurance.

In the early 1980s, when he was caught in a blizzard, Savage used two mail bags for protection.

He slipped one over his feet and up to his waist, then pulled the other one down over his head to cover his upper body.

Then he curled up by his sled to wait for help, Savage said.

Wayne Gardiol, who ran the route from 1946 until 1962, said in those days he couldn’t count on anyone coming along to help him.

“I was the only one out there and it was a long way in between,” Gardiol said.

“I always carried snow shoes.”

Gardiol says he drove one of the first snowmobiles made. Looking something like a toboggan, it had a motorcycle engine mounted on the front with a six-foot section cut out in the middle for a rubber track with cleats.

Next he used a Tucker snowcat with skis in front and tracks in back, he said.

The mail run, which now takes Tuggle about five hours, took Gardiol 22 hours in the 1940s. Gardiol said he barely had time to sleep or eat.

“That first year I weighed 167 going into the winter and I came out weighing 127,” Gardiol said.

“Meals were few and far between.”

Tuggle, an engine mechanic retired from the Navy, is beginning his third year on the job. An avid snowmobiler, he says he likes the job. When temperatures dip below zero, though, it’s not so easy to go to work. Besides being uncomfortable, the colder weather makes the trip more dangerous.

Since Tuggle began the run, the winters have been relatively mild. But Savage recalls some cold ones.

“I’ve had my eyes froze shut and my eyes froze open,” Savage said.

“When it got really cold and your eyes started watering, you never shut them.”

Warm weather and snowslides bring a different kind of danger. While Tuggle hasn’t yet had a bad year for snowslides, Savage says his last winter on the job scared him.

“There’s a lot of times that make you wonder if you’re going to make it,” he said. “Sometimes the snowslides would get bad. I’ve had them sliding in front of me, sliding at my machine, and sliding behind me.”

Punching through fresh snowslides often means hours of backbreaking trail blazing with a shovel.

Tuggle has had his own share of close calls, though. Once, while driving about 65 mph, a bunch of elk ran out in front of him. Tuggle said he hit the brakes, turned his machine, and flipped it before coming to a halt.

Like past carriers, Tuggle sometimes hauls more than mail on his route. For example, one patron building a house asked Tuggle to haul paint in for him. And sometimes, someone will ask him to bring enough gas so that they can start their trucks and drive them to town. Often Tuggle and his wife will buy groceries for the mountain dwellers.

“Everybody’s friendly and helpful, so I don’t mind,” Tuggle said. “If it’s buying a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread, I’ll do that.”

Being helpful works both ways. More than once patrons have helped Tuggle when the truck parked on the other side of the pass has failed him.

Most days now, Tuggle can fit each day’s mail into a beer flat. But in the early 1980s, when Noranda was trying to reopen the Blackbird Mine and the Cobalt post office was still open, Savage had to trail one or two sleds to haul the mail sacks. During the holidays, when he has packages to deliver, Tuggle also hooks up a sled.