Long-distance speed-hiker Ella Raff had multiple run-ins with wildfire and its fallout after embarking on the Pacific Crest Trail in June to walk from Mexico to Canada. Last month, the Washburn Fire in Yosemite shrouded her in smoke for two days. “I was just breathing heavy smoke 24/7. It’s not very fun,” said Raff, 29, of Portland, Ore. Farther north in California, traversing 85 miles of trail charred from last year’s nearly million-acre Dixie Fire left Raff covered in ash and dismayed by a “surreal” landscape with little animal life.
Soon after, she smelled smoke from the McKinney Fire. As she was nearing the Oregon border, authorities shut the trail ahead. More than 100 miles of the route remain closed, with the fire, which started July 29, almost contained as of last week. Raff made her way to Portland, then to Washington to hike the trail southward from Canada.
Changing jumping-off points, routes, destinations, or timing to cope with uncertainty about fires is now routine for hikers in California. The Caldor Fire, which ravaged 220,000 acres southwest of Lake Tahoe last year from August to October, forced Truckee artist Danae Anderson, 63, to cancel three backpacking trips. “Everything was too smoky up here,” said Anderson, hiking beside Lower Echo Lake. She went to Yosemite instead.
Risa Roseman, 58, and her daughter Zara, 20, out for a day hike near Donner Pass this month, said they’ve become more alert to the threat of fire, tracking weather, wind, fire and smoke conditions before and during a trip, and worrying about the chance of a blaze starting while they’re out. Three weeks ago, camped northwest of Lake Tahoe, they smelled wood smoke, climbed up high but couldn’t spot a source, and spent an uneasy night, said Roseman. The next morning they ran into backpackers who confessed they’d started an illegal campfire, Roseman said.