Last night was one filled with chaos and panic. Lots of people had passed our campsite, bringing disturbing reports of falling ash, thick smoke and a red glow visible on the horizon. The fire had grown exponentially overnight. Stinger’s part of the group had arranged an evacuation ride from one of the dirt roads the trail crosses. Most had hiked for many hours during the night in order to get out.
I didn’t notice any of this. The evening prior the wind was very loud, preventing me from sleeping, so I put in my ear plugs and slept through all the commotion. Fitz, Rabbit, Comatose, Mash, Lucky Charm, Drive Thru and me remained. Merlin and Marble had passed us during the night and IPA was a couple miles behind.
Honestly, I felt like the panic was overblown. Yes it was smoky, but the fire was clearly far behind and not expanding in our direction. So onwards we hiked! I was not gonna get off trail now, so close to the border. Besides, staying behind as the last group had a weird sort of appeal to me.
Then it was suddenly there: the sign demarcating the California/Oregon border. A 100 days to cross California, I still almost can’t comprehend the scale of what we did here. 2722 kilometers done. And there was more to come. I felt close to crashing. These past 2 weeks had been a mad rush to get through the ever-lasting heatwave with long days and very little sleep. And now this wildfire that had almost no chance of being contained anymore. California surely tested our limits. But we made it. We fucking made it. Having a continuous footpath through California without wildfires has already become the exception and judging the wall of smoke behind us, we would probably be some of the last this year.
Shortly after, we found Merlin and Marble, high on sleep deprivation and adrenaline. Our little group continued on, praying that the wind wouldn’t blow the smoke in our direction.
That soon proved to be idle hope as even ahead of us, the sky started to darken. Fitz, Rabbit and Comatose decided it had been enough and also arranged a ride out.
The day slowly turned into a fever dream. An eery yellow glow shone through the smoke. It reminded me of Blade Runner. Flecks of ash rained down on us, carried by the wind. It was unreal how quickly things had changed. We all realized that we could very well be the last people to ever see this forest alive. To think that this place could soon look like the burn area around Belden was tragic. Mere days ago we were worried about the Lionshead closure in Oregon. Now this whole area had changed into an apocalyptic nightmare. We passed some people in cars on the dirt roads. No idea what they could be looking for out here at this time.
My excitement at having escaped the fire quickly ebbed away. What were we even trying to prove hiking out here? I was dirty with ash and inhaling woodsmoke with every breath. Lucky Charm and Drive Thru couldn’t go on anymore and called for a ride too. Especially Drive Thru looked exhausted. The rest of us quickly decided to go with them. This wasn’t worth it.
Lucky Charm’s mother picked us all up and drove us to safety in Ashland. There I arrived dirty, tired and very very hungry. I stayed at a hotel with my mom, who was planning to hike with me for the next 4 weeks. I had never been so happy to take a shower and have a real bed.