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Papa Pilgrim and his wife and 15 children have been unsuccessful in getting a Park Service permit to use the road leading to their back country cabin.

Friends and a group called the American Land Rights Association now have begun to assemble donations and willing pilots to make the trip.

"It's just beautiful," Pilgrim said by telephone from his remote cabin. "I cannot tell you the unity ... They just poured out their hearts."

The family, which is deeply religious and trying to live off the land in a remote property they bought in the Wrangell Mountains, began squabbling this summer with park officials after driving a bulldozer into town.

They drove the bulldozer along an old 14-mile mining road, sometimes with the blade up and sometimes down, carving a way through the overgrowth.

That act sparked a tense relationship with park officials who have filed a civil action against the 62-year-old Pilgrim. At one point the two sides were communicating through notes posted to trees near their property.

National Park Service officials closed the road to motorized vehicles, leaving the Pilgrims with the prospect of either traveling by horse through the upper valley of McCarthy Creek or reaching their property by airplane. It also left them unable to ship up large or bulky quantities of supplies.

Local residents who support Pilgrim say the road is state property and should not be closed.

"The main thing we need is to be able to get past this illegal road closure by having pilots to come out," said Laurie Rowland, a McCarthy resident. "This is the Bush pilot's chance to be a hero and be an angel of mercy."

Chuck Cushman is executive director of the American Land Rights Association, a group critical of the National Park Service and what they call "heavy-handed" treatment of inholders such as the family.

Cushman learned of Pilgrim during a radio program and offered to help.

"They are very self-sufficient people. The airlift was not their idea," Cushman said.

Donations of supplies are being made in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Wasilla, Glennallen and Copper Center to replace some of the stores lost when their bunkhouse was lost in a fire, Cushman said.

Volunteers organized the airlift in an attempt to break a "blockade" imposed by the Park Service, Cushman said.

So far, three people have agreed to ferry supplies and land on the small airstrip located within Pilgrim's property, Rowland said.

Lee Adler, 67, of Glennallen made the trip on Wednesday, hauling grain and wheat in his two-seat airplane to the property.

Clearing the tops of trees at the end of the uphill runway in the canyon was not difficult for an experienced pilot, Adler said, but not the place for an amateur.

"Had the Park Service been a little more helpful, this could be avoided," Adler said.

While volunteers continue to make arrangements for more flights this weekend, Pilgrim has an attorney who is trying to get an emergency permit to drive on the road.

Pilgrim has tried since June 17 to get permission to use the road, said attorney J.P. Tangen. A formal request was made in September, he said.

Part of the problem is the Park Service has to perform an environmental assessment of the route and any damage that could be done by the numerous crossings of McCarthy Creek.

Park Superintendent Gary Candelaria said each journey requires about 13 stream crossings and park officials have to determine damage to spawning fish and unfrozen ground.

The family could use snowmachines in the winter, Candelaria said.

As for the family's predicament, it isn't considered an emergency under federal regulations, Candelaria said.

"There's a lot of personal choice, personal responsibility involved in this issue," Candelaria said.

Candelaria doesn't agree with Cushman that the Park Service is being heavy-handed, nor does he agree with assertions by the Pilgrim family and its supporters that the road is state property.

Alaska has listed the road as its own under obscure federal mining statutes, but the Interior Department hasn't agreed.

The 1866 mining claim statute allows the state to assert claim to historic rights of way across federal land. State officials have been reluctant to push the claim for this and hundreds of other routes it has identified.

Pilgrim accused the Park Service of trying to starve his family out, but said they are resolved to stay.

"I just trust before this is all over, we will all be on the same side and we are going to see the needs of people, and the basis of it all is to love each other," Pilgrim said.