Day 117: Evacuation

Day 117: Evacuation

July 30; Mile 1601-1607-1599

I woke to the smell of smoke. As I began walking in the pre-dawn gloom, I could see the same plume from yesterday afternoon, except now it looked like there were two columns of smoke drifting into the sky. A layer of haze lay below, and as the sun crested the ridge it was the color of a pomegranate.

I checked my map, noting that the trail headed northwest, while the fires were due north. With any luck I’d be able to skirt around them, but what I needed was to get to cell service so I could find out more. I checked notes about upcoming tent spots: there was one in 7 miles with AT&T. I decided to continue forward until then.

My left shin was screaming in pain from the night before, and for the first time on trail I took ibuprofen to help. With the amount of food I was carrying, I could stretch this section from three days to four, and hike easier mileage to let my leg rest on the way to Seiad Valley.

A mile before the camp spot with cell coverage, four hikers passed me in the opposite direction; one was wearing an N95 mask. He paused to ask if I’d checked the smoke report while in town. “I didn’t go into town last night,” I replied.

“We met a group who turned around because they heard that Seiad Valley is being evacuated.”

What?!

I wondered whether I should go a little further to the cell coverage to find out more, but just then another group appeared that had turned around. Stealth was with them, and seeing someone I recognized was the boost I needed to admit defeat. With only 75 miles between me and the end of California, I turned my feet southward and headed back toward Etna.

The group hiked together, picking up hikers as we went and telling them what we knew. Stealth worried whether we were making the right decision; it was her dad that had texted her after reading something on Facebook about Seiad Valley, and that had started everyone turning around. Not the most concrete source of information.

I paused to ask a new hiker that had also turned around what she knew; her friend was actually working the McKinney fire and had told her a good deal: the fire went from nothing to 18,000 acres overnight, there was another fire on the other side of Seiad Valley, and several new fires had started from the lightning storm last night that they didn’t have the bandwidth to investigate.

“We are definitely making the safe decision,” she said.

I started to agree, when she cut me off. “Oh my god, look behind you. That’s the fire.”

I turned around. Where last night there had been a column of smoke rising steadily, now a mushroom cloud of devastation ballooned above the horizon. It was like seeing an atom bomb.

We hurried onward, and when we reached a ridge line someone said there was service. Stealth checked the PCTA website while another hiker started heading past us. We called him back and asked if he knew about the fires. When he still decided to continue on, we asked for his name. Stealth finally got the fire closure page to load and saw that the trail had just been closed. She called him back, and together we all hiked out.

I got a ride back into Etna with three other hikers and waited at the bakery for Dana to come rescue me. Thankfully it was a Saturday, and she happened to be free.

Hikers filled the streets of the tiny town, telling stories of helicopter evacuations, of midnight hikes through falling ash and thick smoke, of seeing the glow of the fires approaching Seiad Valley on either side. The one silver lining was that I met hordes of folks I hadn’t seen in weeks: the Blue Crew, my original group of friends, Siren, Ballsack, etc.

Dana arrived and we drove north past a sheet of smoke that grew worse by the minute. Rain began to fall, but it was mixed with ash and smeared gray across the windshield. Once we were safely back in Medford, I lay on the couch in the cool, dark house and let people know that I was okay. The PCT was closed from Etna to Ashland. I wouldn’t be walking into Oregon this year, but there was still plenty of trail ahead. The only question was: where would I get back on, and would I head north through the tinderbox that was Oregon, or start up in Washington and hope the heavy snow year would keep the fires at bay?