Banquet of the Infinite: Fire Watcher

It seems we are all fire watchers now, even if we don’t peer through high-powered binoculars or use an Osborne Fire Finder in a remote fire lookout perched atop some faraway rocky peak. No, just us down here in front of our computer screens, leaning forward, perched on the edge of our ergo chairs, scanning online resources, looking for wildfire incident reports, smoke plume progressions, air quality indexes, and updated weather forecasts. We’re busy juggling and adjusting our hiking plans, regretfully scratching destinations off our wish lists as wildfires now run rampant throughout Washington State. It’s that season, from late July, now early August, and soon to be September, and we’re busy gaming lightning strikes, burn zones, wind, and weather to find beautiful places to hike without endangering ourselves. It’s frustrating, not fun.

Earlier this year, back on July 23, we hiked up to the historic fire lookout on Desolation Peak, perhaps the most remote lookout in the state, situated deep in the North Cascades, high above Ross Lake, not far from the Canadian border. One of my photographic objectives was to take high-resolution images of nearby Mount Hozomeen, but I arrived to find the peak almost completely shrouded in a haze of gray. At times, I could make out little more than its looming silhouette and substantial form. The resident Ranger, Jim Henterly informed us that there were two recent wildfires in the Ross Lake area: the Luna Fire, located west of lake, southwest of Luna Camp along the Big Beaver Trail, in remote, rough, and steep terrain, and the Border 2 Fire, a blaze east of Ross Lake to the north of Hozomeen Mountain, again in steep, rocky, remote terrain near the Canadian border. Both had been ignited by lightning strikes a few days prior, and the Border 2 Fire was spreading rapidly. Although annoyed by the smoky Border 2 smoke as it cloaked Hozomeen, I would later marvel at the coincidence of witnessing an active forest fire from this iconic North Cascades fire lookout.

I’d hoped, earlier in the season, that we might skate free, but no, it seems not to be. Wildfires have become all too common in recent years, and yet my wishful thinking has remained undiminished, until Desolation. The Border 2 Fire, at 6,433 acres, is currently listed as out of control and seems destined to spread beyond its current perimeter. The Luna Fire, while smaller at 1,390 acres, is less aggressive. Of more concern is the Little Giant Fire. Located 41 miles NW of Leavenworth, WA, in the Chiwawa River drainage, the lightning strike fire has consumed 74,284 acres and is only 1% contained due to “increased winds and poor access in steep inaccessible country.” Another lightning strike blaze, the Sinlahekin Fire, 12 miles west of Tonasket, is even larger at 120,692 acres, but now 20% contained as firefighters continue work on strengthening and constructing more containment lines. These four are only a few among the many wildfires already actively burning across Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. A recent blaze north of the Mount Fremont Lookout shocked us, closing one of our favorite access points to hikes on Mount Rainier. WTA.org now flags hikes all in that area: “8.7.26: Trails and roads in the White River & Sunrise section of the park are closed due to the Grand Park 2 fire.”

The NW FireWatch Staff Report from August 6 states: “Fire weather conditions across the Pacific Northwest have reached levels not seen since 2020, with the National Weather Service issuing its highest-tier fire weather alerts — Particularly Dangerous Situation (PDS) Red Flag Warnings — for large portions of eastern Washington and northeastern Oregon. The warnings signal an elevated threat of rapid, erratic, and potentially uncontrollable fire spread.”

The report further explains: “The catalyst for this week's extreme fire weather was a dry cold front that moved across the region starting around August 1-2. Rather than bringing meaningful precipitation, the front delivered strong gusty winds with gusts of 40 to 55 mph across eastern Washington, the Columbia Basin, and northeastern Oregon. Combined with daytime temperatures approaching 100°F in the Willamette Valley and even higher in the Columbia Basin, and relative humidity values plummeting to 4-10 percent across the Sierra Front and Columbia Plateau, the front created a nearly ideal ignition and spread environment.” So, it is not over yet and will likely get much, much worse over the weeks ahead, before late-season rains arrive to quench the flames

This year seems a perfect storm for the emergence of unprecedented wildfires. A very low snow year, historically low moisture levels, and the abundance of fine fire fuels, grasses, sagebrush, and light timber just waiting for a spark from dry lightning- thunderstorms which arrive without rain to ignite what will become a rampaging mass of flame. Seasonal winds exacerbate the situation with frontal passages that periodically bring wind without meaningful rain, and are often accompanied by high-pressure conditions that push easterly winds and smoke into Western Washington and Oregon.

And during all this carnage, we confront the sobering fact that our firefighting resources are now more stretched than ever before. Headlines like, ‘Wildfires Burn at Record Rates, Trump Cuts Forest Service Funds’, both shock and anger those of us who care about our national parks and public lands. Massive Forest Service staff cuts occurred last year, and more are destined to come. The Trump administration aims to continue shrinking the Forest Service, eliminating programs and decimating services. It is obvious that his workforce reduction initiatives will reduce the Forest Service’s ability to manage and care for our public lands. And that will likely have a significantly negative impact on current and future fire management capabilities. After all the cuts, who will be left to rake the forests to clean up dead brush and trees? I jest, of course. Trump’s inane solution to the 2025 wildfires in California seems now to be long forgotten. Not that his foolish notion would have worked anyway. The tragedy is that we and the wild places we love will greatly suffer the consequences of Trump’s idiocracy, his obsequious ship of fools.

The devastation of our treasured wilderness forests is the heartbreaking part; the loss of a long-anticipated hike not as big a deal. But still, it is a crushing disappointment for all of us who yearn to visit those magical wild places. So, what shall we do?

Well, we do what we can with the resources available to us. My current approach is to identify and eliminate locations that are impacted by the current wildfires. I often start with a fire map and then utilize the hike search tools on WTA.org, the Washington Trails Association website. The hiking guide page is the best place to start as it offers multiple ways to search. I can enter a hike that I am curious about, or specify a broader search by region and subregion. For example, a search for Little Giant Pass yields a link to the hike page along with an alert in red type. “7.30.26: The trail is closed until further notice due to the Little Giant Fire.” The same message will be repeated for many other hikes in the Central Cascades, Stevens Pass, East region. That tells me there will be no Spider Gap, Buck Creek Pass loop this year. Sorry dude. So, we look elsewhere.

Sometimes we hunker down and wait for conditions to change. And when they don’t, it is always good to have a plan B. In fact, it’s always good to have a plan B, even without wildfires. That’s why I maintain an active list of trails arranged by region. If a group of trails in the North Cascades, or elsewhere, are closed due to wildfires, or road washouts, or trail maintenance, we might opt for the Olympic Peninsula to backpack the North Coast from Shi Shi Beach to Ozette. But, as wonderful as beach hikes and sublime oceanside sunsets may be, they’re just not the North Cascades, or the Alpine Lakes, or Glacier Peak Wilderness, those places where we celebrate the brilliant subalpine lakes, remote glaciers, pristine peaks, and intoxicating high routes.

Sometimes we return to sites where wildfires have previously ravaged the forests. In July of 2020, I hiked to a former fire lookout site in the Chinook Pass area to the east of Mount Rainier. The Norse Peak wildfire started by lightning strikes on August 11, 2017, and was not contained until November 1, 2017. The fire killed most of the hemlock, silver, and noble firs in the 55,909-acre blaze. Nearly three years from that time, I solo hiked the Norse Peak trail to view the burn zone. The scorched trees remain as silent sentinels, displaying a tragic beauty. The high-angle alpine meadows flanking the open trail through the burn zone were resplendent with broad swaths of wildflowers including lupine, paintbrush, asters, columbine, arnica lilies and more, providing an exuberantly colorful show. The regal snowcapped Mount Rainier stood proud, cresting the horizon to the southwest in the upper sections of the trail, and Mount Adams was easily seen from the summit to the distant south. The hike, though through a site of tragic devastation, was made strikingly beautiful by the reemergence of the wildflowers.

Sometimes a hike through a burn zone is far from enjoyable. It can be what we refer to as Type 2 Fun, challenging and unpleasant on the day, but later remembered with some appreciation. In September of 2023, my hiking companion, Roy, and I punished ourselves on a short trail from our Stuart Lake basecamp up to the pristine Horseshoe Lake, perched high in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness close to the north side of Mount Stuart. It was an easy trail at first, then a half mile of dense burn zone deadfall, with over a hundred downed trees in our path. And, after that, a steep climber’s trail that gained 1,200 feet in seven-tenths of a mile. Even that challenging path to the remote alpine lake was occasionally encumbered with charred deadfall. But still, there was a sublime beauty to the place, dramatically enhanced by the presence of vast clusters of blooming Chamaenerion angustifolium, commonly known as fireweed. Even the charcoal flanks of the burn zone trees had an eerie, visually interesting quality.

The torched woodland was the sorry remnant of the Jack Creek Fire, ignited by a lightning strike on August 11, 2017, the same day as the Norse Peak Fire. By the end of September, the fire had burned a total of 4,606 acres in the Stuart Lake and Eightmile drainages. Though short, the rough trail up from our Stuart Lake campsite and through the burn chewed up an inordinate amount of time as it was completely unmaintained. No one had come, or would be coming, to clear the wildfire debris that lay like giant scattered matchsticks across the trail. And, as an out-and-back route, we had to deal with the deadfall obstacle course twice. We stooped low and gymnastically circumvented those that we could. We stepped over, traversed along, and butt swiveled over many rough, charred trunks and crawled under and wriggled through gaps in the thicket of wood that impeded us. We got filthy dirty. We got snagged, poked, and scraped. The deadfall drew blood. Was it worth it? Though it wasn’t a whole lot of fun that day, it was a journey through and up to a place of rare beauty that I will long remember. So, yeah, Type 2 Fun.

Anyway, I sit here writing about wildfires and wondering if the smoke will clear enough that we can hike tomorrow. I had proposed a hike up to Red Pass, the old unmaintained Snoqualmie area trail that preceded the newer section of the PCT that now traverses the Kendall Katwalk. Mark and I had hiked up there back in August of 2021. Our objective was to get a closer view of Mount Thomsen. Mark had often gazed at the peak from the Alpental chairlift during ski season and wanted to get a closer look. I took my heavier camera gear and captured source images to create two spherical panoramas. While I found the finished panoramas quite beautiful, the skies were blanketed with a streaky orange-gray wildfire haze. I planned to someday return to find clearer and more pristine skies and reshoot the place. So, I suggested it to hiking friends earlier this week. And then, things changed. Things got smoky. The irony is that all of us now sit robotically querying the AQI (air quality index), wishing it to drop from an unhealthy 167 so we can hike tomorrow. But I don’t see it. Not going to happen. (And, it did not.)

The high AQI is not just a meaningless statistic; the Air Quality Index tells us how clean or polluted the air is. And, that matters. A lot. We should always take heed when the AQI is unhealthily high. Listen up. Back in September of 2020, National Geographic published an informational piece titled, ‘How Breathing Wildfire Smoke Affects the Body.’ This excerpt cuts to the heart of the problem: “Wildfire smoke is a very complex type of air pollution,” says Sarah Henderson, an environmental health scientist at the University of British Columbia. “It has many different gases in it, and the composition of those small particles can be highly variable, depending on what’s burning [and] how hot it’s burning.” Of particular concern, she says, is particulate matter 2.5 microns in diameter—also referred to as PM 2.5. Those small particles, and ones even smaller, are capable of penetrating deep into a person’s lungs. Henderson says the body responds by releasing the same immune cells it would deploy to attack a virus. Unlike a virus, however, particulate matter isn’t broken down by that immune response and results in long-lasting inflammation. “That inflammation affects your lungs, kidneys, liver, and probably your brain,” says Henderson. Yikes!

Although the severity of wildfire seasons fluctuates, the recent trend is toward more fires and increased devastation. It feels prophetic, as if this is the heavy cross we will now bear before every remaining outdoor adventure this season. And, unfortunately, that crushing burden will probably remain for as many years as we have yet to come.

I created several spherical panoramas in the Norse Peak burn zone, at Desolation Peak, and on the Red Pass hike. If you wish to view them, I have posted the links to a few below. For the most immersive viewing, click the link to open the image, then locate the menu bar in the upper right of the image. Click ‘Toggle Fullscreen’ and scroll around, up and down.

Norse Peak, Summit Knoll with Wildflowers, WA State

https://www.360cities.net/image/norse-peak-summit-knoll-with-wildflowers-wa-state

Norse Peak, Burn Zone with Mixed Wildflowers, WA State

https://www.360cities.net/image/norse-peak-burn-zone-with-mixed-wildflowers-wa-state

Manning the Fire Lookout, Desolation Peak, N Cascades, WA State

https://www.360cities.net/image/manning-the-fire-lookout-desolation-peak-n-cascades-wa-state

Ranger Jim on Call, Desolation Peak Lookout, N Cascades, WA State

https://www.360cities.net/image/ranger-jim-on-call-desolation-peak-lookout-n-cascades-wa-state

Red Pass Vista with Peaks, Alpine Lakes Wilderness, WA State

https://www.360cities.net/image/red-pass-vista-with-peaks-alpine-lakes-wilderness-wa-state

A Few Fire Watch Resources:

NW FireWatch https://nwfirewatch.com