The Trail is on Fire

As I surpass two months on trail, I now face the unfortunate reality that thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail making a continuous is hardly possible, for me at least. This year, like many years in the past, fires have erupted along the west coast, disrupting the trail.

I’m far from a purist, and the continuous footpath of the PCT ended long ago for me. As I find it annoying at times to have to skip significant portions of the trail, it’s hard to overlook the bigger issue at hand. 

For many miles I’ve set a routine. My alarm blares in the early hours of the morning. “10 before 10” I tell myself as I force myself out of my sleeping bag, indicating an attempt to hike as many miles as possible before it becomes too hot to hike. In the middle of the day, I hunker under a sliver of shade from a juniper or Joshua tree just to find relief from the heat. 

I check the map constantly, looking for the next water source. I look forward to the creek outlets or rushing streams, but often find “seasonal springs” with a slow trickle that tests my patience as my bottle slowly fills. 

The sun beats on my shoulders as I continue my hike. While I’m surrounded by trees, they offer no coverage from the relentless heat of the sun and instead serve as a constant reminder for how fragile forest lands are, and how the constant threat of fire danger can easily strip them bare to their most vulnerable state. 

And finally, the fires themselves.

Heat trends are on the rise in California, and all 1,691.7 miles of the PCT in the Golden State can attest to that trend. Even in the high altitudes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, a dip in a lake was a nice break in the middle of a hot day. As smoke fills the sky and more hikers are desperate to hike as much as they’re able, it’s hard to not feel guilt. Human-caused activity is the root of the issue; a National Integrated Drought Information System funded study revealed that “all the observed increase in burned areas over the past half-century is due to human-caused climate change.”

How selfish it is of me to find distress in my displacement? I have the simple solution of driving around the fire. But for the residents of affected areas, these events uproot their entire lives. Homes, jobs, families and more are at stake. For me, I have a pack and a hitchhiking thumb or rental car to evade any danger. Furthermore, when the I reach the terminus, I have the simple pleasure of leaving the trail behind returning home safely. 

My experience on the trail is a direct result of the climate change that occurs around us. It’s not just me, but hundreds of hikers around me and thousands who aspire to trek the trail. It’s intertwined now, it’s part of the journey. There is no changing what has been done. 

I now have skipped 350 miles of Northern California. As the excitement of being in Oregon greets me, I now face another near 100 miles of official closure of trail miles, plus many more engulfed in smoke. It’s hard to call this a thru-hike at this point, rather just a logistical battle to make it to Canada. As upsetting as it is, it simply adds to the journey with a strong underlying reminder that this is the reality for our world. 

I’m not done with the PCT, far from it. I’ll continue to go as many miles as possible and add the hectic skipping logistics to the uniqueness of the journey.