10 ms·

Escape from Creek Fire

129 points by twohey 6y ago

kepler1 6y ago
Maybe I'm just being harsh, but after reading several times and figuring out what was going on, it's an instagrammer's slight inconvenience and detour being dramatized (or implied, given the photos and hour-by-hour narrative) into a life-or-death hike out, yet with "smoked salmon and mussels accompanied by biryani rice". They had a weeklong backpacking trip planned, hiked to where they thought they would start it, encountered smoke and potential fire, and had to hike back out. Leisurely. Enough to get a solid 9 hours of sleep. Doesn't quite qualify as the life-in-jeopardy kind of event that the polish and presentation of the blog make you think you're in for. I'm a little more interested to hear about the folks who were actually in danger and barely escaped.
- yread 6y ago
  Yes, while complaining about 4000ft of elevation and 13 miles. I wonder what was their program for the rest of the week if that sounds like a lot
  - kingkawn 6y ago
    The Hiking Gatekeepers: Stop! Who would cross the Blogpost of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see.
  - moultano 6y ago
    That is objectively a lot.
  - arcticfox 6y ago
    That is a lot for most people. Obviously the upper bound on what's possible is massively higher, but if you take a mildly fit person off the street and put them through 4k feet & 13 miles w/ a 45 lbs pack, they'll be feeling it. An out-of-shape person would be completely destroyed at that point.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Add elevation to this. Reds Meadow is already at 7,500 ft. I believe the 4k ft mentioned is net climb for the hike, not necessarily a peak elevation of 11,500 ft., though passes in the region certainly rise above 10,000 feet, and peaks top 14,000 (Whitney). With a full pack, unacclimated, making 10+ miles is a pretty good day. 13 miles outrunning a forest fire is respectable.
  - jschwartzi 6y ago
    A lot of the 8 to 10 thousand foot climbs around here are multi-day because lugging 60 pounds of gear up 4000 feet through 10 or 12 miles of approach is hard work.
  - xiainx 6y ago
    Don't forget that they were also almost 9,000' above sea level, carrying heavy backpacks (probably at least 25 pounds), and breathing in wildfire smoke. The AQI in Mammoth was in the low 200s on Sunday. Also, they had 7 days to complete the rest of their hike. I suspect the stats for the hike out weren't too difficult, but the cumulative effects were.
  - vondur 6y ago
    4k feet of elevation gain is a bunch, and 13 miles is no joke. I mountain bike regularly, and most of my rides average around 1300ft of gain. 4k feet would be a long tiring ride.
  - lucaswoj 6y ago
    We started those miles at sunset, after a full day of hiking, and in thick smoke
- lumberingjack 6y ago
  Some times these park trails have a waiting list months long now with this fake virus even longer and people just like this know someone and hoop the line. Half the hike is just getting a spot these days.
  - mav3rick 6y ago
    What's fake about the virus ? Is the fire fake too ?
- arethuza 6y ago
  Yeah - I think you are being a bit harsh but it just appears to be a personal account of a trip that went a bit wrong.
- vegardx 6y ago
  You're being a bit harsh. There are some good lessons in what you shouldn't do, perhaps not intended so, but still interesting. We don't have many forest fires here in Norway, but we do have very harsh winters. Every year a family or group of people are trapped in a blizzard and die. And most of it could have been avoided by following the "Norwegain Mountain Code"[1], which I imagine is similar all over the world. Turning back before it's too late, seeking shelter, and not exhausting yourself when you realize that you're in trouble. I'd be very worried if people in my group started getting nauseous. That's when you start making those deadly mistakes. [1]: https://english.dnt.no/the-norwegian-mountain-code/ https://english.dnt.no/the-norwegian-mountain-code/
  - nick_kline 6y ago
    Probably getting sick was a combination of exhaustion, breathing smoke and anxiety.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    > Turning back before it's too late, Turning back the millisecond the danger is known. There are certain warning signs that should not be ignored. Each group sport has them and over time you learn to follow some protocols or you have to find yourself some new friends. For cycling in the Midwest, it's lightning strikes. There is no place to shelter and the storm can move faster than you can, so after the first strike, everyone is counting time to see if they're getting closer. If they are, you turn back for shelter, even if home is in front of you. Most of the time that's a foreshortened outing, but on one occasion we had to double back to the half-way point and wait it out. Even though that meant a lot more time out there and a longer route than we planned. When they mentioned the black smoke and continuing forward, it made me angry. I had a sudden flash of the conversation that had us holing up, dripping wet, in a little town in the middle of nowhere. It was clear who was going to win the argument before we turned around, even though it wasn't what we wanted to hear. We all knew the rules, clearly these people don't. (Over the years I've come to recognize how above average that group was in organization skills, but one should still aim for a solid grip of basic safety routines from inclement weather to common injuries and avoiding/treating heat stroke and exhaustion)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- xiainx 6y ago
  As a somewhat avid backpacker, I found it interesting. I was in a similar situation hiking near the SQF Complex earlier this summer. You're right that they weren't in immediate danger from the fire, but hindsight is 20-20. In the moment these events can be incredibly stressful, especially when your mouth, eyes, and head hurt from breathing in smoke, you don't know exactly where the fire is, can't see very far, and are limited to walking speed. While they were able to get a good night's sleep (I would have just hiked through the night), I wouldn't characterize this as a "leisurely" hike out.
- atarian 6y ago
  I saw this story on the Chronicle and had the same takeaway, but that's probably because I knew there were people who barely escaped with their lives via helicopter (like you pointed out).
- nick_kline 6y ago
  That seems unfair. When I've been backpacking, there is not much info about anything like a sudden fire that could move randomly around you. That could easily kill you. Even with help there were 200+ people who were surrounded by fire. There weren't a lot of extra resources to help a small group.
- starpilot 6y ago
  Yeah, it's a little harsh for a story titled "Escape from x." The story pretty much ended when they decided to turn around from the fire, point 3 in their map: https://www.jmeshe.co/escape-from-creek-fire/photos/6959453 https://www.jmeshe.co/escape-from-creek-fire/photos/6959453. The trip got cut short, but it wasn't much of an escape. Then again, wildfires can move 100 miles in a day, about 10x faster than a human. Like a viral pandemic, you have to make decisions before it feels dire. It sounded like though that they got enough information early on via satellite communicator to realize it wasn't an immediate threat. I think the author is guilty of mild over-dramatization.
- davidpaulyoung 6y ago
  Correct.
varjag 6y ago
Reminded me of a (granted, much more dramatic) August Tale in Neil Gaiman's Calendar of Tales.
paranoidrobot 6y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was known well ahead of time that there were going to be severe temperatures and a high risk of bushfire, right? Given that, who in their right mind decides that this is a good time to go hiking in this area?
- pixl97 6y ago
  In California pretty much all summer has been a high risk of fire. Something like 24 major fires occurring currently. So if you want to go hiking at all you are taking on some risk.
  - derwiki 6y ago
    If you want to go multi day backpacking you’re taking on some risk. But most hiking is very low risk. I just spent some time in Mammoth and there are dozens of day hikes that are low fire hazard (I’m looking at you, Convict Creek trail).
- xiainx 6y ago
  There was a heat wave, yes, but other than that not a particularly high risk of wildfires early this weekend. The wind wasn't terrible and there wasn't a Red Flag Warning issued (that's a fire weather warning). They started their hike on a long weekend, the last long weekend of the summer over here. And late August / early September is one of the best times of year for hiking in the Sierra. The bugs have died off, temperatures remain pleasant, the thunderstorms have usually passed, and after Labor Day (the first Monday in September) the crowds die down. In the high country, wildfire risk is usually low as well, so smoke is really the only thing to worry about. This fire grew remarkably fast, from 0 to 100,000 acres in about 36 hours, and happened to be rather close to the location they chose for their trip. Sure, they should have known that smoke from wildfires was a risk during this trip, but it's pretty reasonable to not expect this kind of impact going into your trip. In general, this time of year is a very good time to head into the mountains.
  - ihunter2839 6y ago
zaroth 6y ago
> One of the best decisions we made that evening was choosing to only bringing the best snacks and dinner option available. Which happened to be smoked salmon and mussels accompanied by biryani rice. This ended up being just the magic we needed to keep morale up as the evening came to an end. Exactly this. Never underestimate how important a good snack can be to improving morale in a difficult situation. In many situations just a bit of chocolate can literally be the way to lift the mental fog of war and make it significantly easier to keep plodding through whatever stressful situation you are dealing with. A good snack really does work magic.
- kepler1 6y ago
  Well, by contrast I took it to show how much of a non-event this story really was. At least for the rich folks in this story. If the person is sleeping 9 hours and dining on smoked salmon and mussels, is it really the "escape" from danger they made it out to be?
quipsdefaux 6y ago
As beautiful as the smoke haze can make things, you don't mess around with bushfire. Glad they got out. t. Australian
davidu 6y ago
I appreciated this write-up. The line between "mildly interesting story with some great photos" and "we made a wrong turn or wrong decision and died" is a lot thinner than I think this post makes clear. There are very few roads and people in the High Sierras, and Red Meadows pack station is basically it when it comes to services. Surrounded by smoke, changing winds, and uncertain information, they had to try and get information through very low bandwidth, high latency satellite text systems (I have an InReach, and it's great, but leaves a lot to be desired). I'm impressed with their retelling of the story and am glad they made it out safe.
- cactus2093 6y ago
  I agree. I was hoping for some lessons or takeaways though, but maybe there is so much luck and randomness involved that it’s hard to generalize. But was it really the best choice to leave an area with other cars and people and rangers around and hike through the woods, camping overnight so close to a fire? Seems crazy, although maybe the chance of getting trapped would have been higher if they didn’t do that. Glad everyone seemed to get out out ok though.
  - dvt 6y ago
    > maybe there is so much luck and randomness involved that it’s hard to generalize They were hiking in the mountains during a heatwave with already a few fires nearby. The takeaway is "don't be stupid" but I doubt they learned their lesson, because their particular situation was pretty low-key.
    - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
      This is a pretty uncharitable opinion. The Creek Fire exploded to 130K acres in a couple days, definitely not typical.
      - distrill 6y ago
        It's unfortunately becoming more typical.
sailfast 6y ago
This looks harrowing and I appreciate the person taking the time to share their experience and their lessons. Total technical aside: is this a submarine for a new version of exposure?
- LandR 6y ago
  How harrowing can it be when they were comfortable enough to stop and camp for the night?
  - lucaswoj 6y ago
    Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
- derwiki 6y ago
  I had to go back and double check to find out what exposure is. Maybe? But maybe just using the platform for its use case. Maybe it’s both.
- lucaswoj 6y ago
  Jaymie is a long time fan of the platform, with articles going back to 2013.
iandanforth 6y ago
If you know someone who is about to leave on a backpacking trip in California, please slash their tires.
thenoblesunfish 6y ago
I feel pretty dumb for reading this whole thing. I kept waiting for the part of this story where they said "yeah, maybe the first time people told us to turn around, or the second, or the third, we should have actually turned around". At least hindsight is supposed to be 20/20 :D Also, is it an "escape" if you walk toward something dangerous for longer than you should, and then turn around. D- guys. You made it, but BARELY.
- URSpider94 6y ago
  I don’t know what you’re talking about. They literally turned around and tried to leave the very first time someone told them to do so. The rest of the trip was them trying various ways to get out that were blocked by fire.
  - grey-area 6y ago
    Look at the map, they were told early on where to go and went in the opposite direction towards the fire, though the text skips over this without explanation as to why.
    - ksdale 6y ago
      I was under the impression that they went back to the car, and the road out appeared to go through the fire. The recommendation to go the other way would have meant hiking out, which, even though it was what they ended up doing, was not obviously the best choice early on?
      - grey-area 6y ago
        They could have driven the other way, the way they finally chose to drive, parked and started to walk to Red's Meadow and the other car. I agree they probably had reasons for the choice like not wanting to lose car 1 in the fire or get stuck up a mountain on foot without the car if the fire reached them. But they did get clear advice to go the other way early on and chose to ignore it.
    - 6y ago
gdubs 6y ago
Definitely a very risky time to be out in the wilderness, anywhere west of the Rocky Mountains. And that’s probably understating it. It’s really something to see the entire west coast on fire right now. We live up in a forested valley in northwest Oregon, and got blanketed with smoke yesterday. Happened quickly and was the worst smoke I’ve experienced since the Camp Fire blew into Los Altos, CA, a while back. Our area of Oregon hit the top of the wildfire risk chart yesterday for the entire west coast, at “critical” — hot and dry with gusts of winds reaching 65MPH. Happily woke up to relatively calm, clear-ish skies today. We’ve spent a decent amount of money getting rid of brush, and trees, to create a “defensible zone” around the home. That’s one of the most impactful things that can be done to mitigate the risk — make sure flammable plants and trees are far from the house, use hardscaping (stone, gravel) around the foundation, and keep anything within 30-100’ well irrigated. Also, don’t allow leaves etc to gather under porches, gutters. Make sure vents are well screened. The forest becomes more wilderness but we’ve been doing a bunch there as well: limbing trees up to reduce the risk of “ladder fires”, getting rid of brush, cleaning up old access trails in case a fire crew needs to come through. Fires are pretty awesome events — experiencing them first-hand gives you a sense of scale that’s impossible to convey through pictures alone. The people in this story had quite an experience, and it’s fortunate how many people escaped that fire. But fires are both natural, and increasing in destructiveness due to a combination of factors (including climate change). Definitely stay aware, and if you live in a wildfire zone, get moving on preparations and preventative measures. This is the future, folks.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  Yeah, the air in Portland last night took a nosedive pretty fast. It wasn't quite as bad as during the eagle creek fire, but pretty close.
dvt 6y ago
With @kepler1 on this one. This is an overly-dramatized Instagrammer's take on a pretty low-stakes situation with plenty of leeway. I'm not even particularly outdoorsy and I've got crazier stories (involving bears, pulling people out of overturned cars, etc.). I was out kayaking this weekend, and even though we were just barely 2 hours out of LA, we were acutely aware and tracking smoke/fires in the San Bernardino Mountains. With that said, hiking into a high-risk area with already a few known fires nearby is just stupid and it could've been really bad. I'd like to hope they learned their lesson.
- xiainx 6y ago
  There are several other subthreads about this already, but there's not really any evidence to suggest these folks made a bad or risky decision. The area they were hiking too was above treeline, so not really at any risk of burning in a wildfire. And the "known" wildfires nearby were either nearly completely contained, or hundreds of miles away. You can complain about their photography all you want, but I suspect most experienced hikers would agree that these people didn't make any bad decisions here.
- lucaswoj 6y ago
  We live in Mammoth Lakes and are in the wilderness almost every day. Whether it’s avalanches, thunderstorms, or something else, the risk and beauty go hand in hand out there.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gregorymichael 6y ago
props for exposure -- the platform this was published on. this was a beautifully presented story.
lizzard 6y ago
If you are interested in stories like this, and how people make life or death decisions in difficult situations, I recommend Laurence Gonzales's book Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.
- lucaswoj 6y ago
  Yes! Also American Alpine Journal accident reports.

129 points by twohey 6y ago

Maybe I'm just being harsh, but after reading several times and figuring out what was going on, it's an instagrammer's slight inconvenience and detour being dramatized (or implied, given the photos and hour-by-hour narrative) into a life-or-death hike out, yet with "smoked salmon and mussels accompanied by biryani rice". They had a weeklong backpacking trip planned, hiked to where they thought they would start it, encountered smoke and potential fire, and had to hike back out. Leisurely. Enough to get a solid 9 hours of sleep. Doesn't quite qualify as the life-in-jeopardy kind of event that the polish and presentation of the blog make you think you're in for. I'm a little more interested to hear about the folks who were actually in danger and barely escaped.

yread 6y ago
Yes, while complaining about 4000ft of elevation and 13 miles. I wonder what was their program for the rest of the week if that sounds like a lot
- kingkawn 6y ago
  The Hiking Gatekeepers: Stop! Who would cross the Blogpost of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see.
- moultano 6y ago
  That is objectively a lot.
- arcticfox 6y ago
  That is a lot for most people. Obviously the upper bound on what's possible is massively higher, but if you take a mildly fit person off the street and put them through 4k feet & 13 miles w/ a 45 lbs pack, they'll be feeling it. An out-of-shape person would be completely destroyed at that point.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Add elevation to this. Reds Meadow is already at 7,500 ft. I believe the 4k ft mentioned is net climb for the hike, not necessarily a peak elevation of 11,500 ft., though passes in the region certainly rise above 10,000 feet, and peaks top 14,000 (Whitney). With a full pack, unacclimated, making 10+ miles is a pretty good day. 13 miles outrunning a forest fire is respectable.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  A lot of the 8 to 10 thousand foot climbs around here are multi-day because lugging 60 pounds of gear up 4000 feet through 10 or 12 miles of approach is hard work.
- xiainx 6y ago
  Don't forget that they were also almost 9,000' above sea level, carrying heavy backpacks (probably at least 25 pounds), and breathing in wildfire smoke. The AQI in Mammoth was in the low 200s on Sunday. Also, they had 7 days to complete the rest of their hike. I suspect the stats for the hike out weren't too difficult, but the cumulative effects were.
- vondur 6y ago
  4k feet of elevation gain is a bunch, and 13 miles is no joke. I mountain bike regularly, and most of my rides average around 1300ft of gain. 4k feet would be a long tiring ride.
- lucaswoj 6y ago
  We started those miles at sunset, after a full day of hiking, and in thick smoke
lumberingjack 6y ago
Some times these park trails have a waiting list months long now with this fake virus even longer and people just like this know someone and hoop the line. Half the hike is just getting a spot these days.
- mav3rick 6y ago
  What's fake about the virus ? Is the fire fake too ?
arethuza 6y ago
Yeah - I think you are being a bit harsh but it just appears to be a personal account of a trip that went a bit wrong.
vegardx 6y ago
You're being a bit harsh. There are some good lessons in what you shouldn't do, perhaps not intended so, but still interesting. We don't have many forest fires here in Norway, but we do have very harsh winters. Every year a family or group of people are trapped in a blizzard and die. And most of it could have been avoided by following the "Norwegain Mountain Code"[1], which I imagine is similar all over the world. Turning back before it's too late, seeking shelter, and not exhausting yourself when you realize that you're in trouble. I'd be very worried if people in my group started getting nauseous. That's when you start making those deadly mistakes. [1]: https://english.dnt.no/the-norwegian-mountain-code/ https://english.dnt.no/the-norwegian-mountain-code/
- nick_kline 6y ago
  Probably getting sick was a combination of exhaustion, breathing smoke and anxiety.
- hinkley 6y ago
  > Turning back before it's too late, Turning back the millisecond the danger is known. There are certain warning signs that should not be ignored. Each group sport has them and over time you learn to follow some protocols or you have to find yourself some new friends. For cycling in the Midwest, it's lightning strikes. There is no place to shelter and the storm can move faster than you can, so after the first strike, everyone is counting time to see if they're getting closer. If they are, you turn back for shelter, even if home is in front of you. Most of the time that's a foreshortened outing, but on one occasion we had to double back to the half-way point and wait it out. Even though that meant a lot more time out there and a longer route than we planned. When they mentioned the black smoke and continuing forward, it made me angry. I had a sudden flash of the conversation that had us holing up, dripping wet, in a little town in the middle of nowhere. It was clear who was going to win the argument before we turned around, even though it wasn't what we wanted to hear. We all knew the rules, clearly these people don't. (Over the years I've come to recognize how above average that group was in organization skills, but one should still aim for a solid grip of basic safety routines from inclement weather to common injuries and avoiding/treating heat stroke and exhaustion)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
xiainx 6y ago
As a somewhat avid backpacker, I found it interesting. I was in a similar situation hiking near the SQF Complex earlier this summer. You're right that they weren't in immediate danger from the fire, but hindsight is 20-20. In the moment these events can be incredibly stressful, especially when your mouth, eyes, and head hurt from breathing in smoke, you don't know exactly where the fire is, can't see very far, and are limited to walking speed. While they were able to get a good night's sleep (I would have just hiked through the night), I wouldn't characterize this as a "leisurely" hike out.
atarian 6y ago
I saw this story on the Chronicle and had the same takeaway, but that's probably because I knew there were people who barely escaped with their lives via helicopter (like you pointed out).
nick_kline 6y ago
That seems unfair. When I've been backpacking, there is not much info about anything like a sudden fire that could move randomly around you. That could easily kill you. Even with help there were 200+ people who were surrounded by fire. There weren't a lot of extra resources to help a small group.
starpilot 6y ago
Yeah, it's a little harsh for a story titled "Escape from x." The story pretty much ended when they decided to turn around from the fire, point 3 in their map: https://www.jmeshe.co/escape-from-creek-fire/photos/6959453 https://www.jmeshe.co/escape-from-creek-fire/photos/6959453. The trip got cut short, but it wasn't much of an escape. Then again, wildfires can move 100 miles in a day, about 10x faster than a human. Like a viral pandemic, you have to make decisions before it feels dire. It sounded like though that they got enough information early on via satellite communicator to realize it wasn't an immediate threat. I think the author is guilty of mild over-dramatization.
davidpaulyoung 6y ago
Correct.

varjag 6y ago

Reminded me of a (granted, much more dramatic) August Tale in Neil Gaiman's Calendar of Tales.

paranoidrobot 6y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was known well ahead of time that there were going to be severe temperatures and a high risk of bushfire, right? Given that, who in their right mind decides that this is a good time to go hiking in this area?

pixl97 6y ago
In California pretty much all summer has been a high risk of fire. Something like 24 major fires occurring currently. So if you want to go hiking at all you are taking on some risk.
- derwiki 6y ago
  If you want to go multi day backpacking you’re taking on some risk. But most hiking is very low risk. I just spent some time in Mammoth and there are dozens of day hikes that are low fire hazard (I’m looking at you, Convict Creek trail).
xiainx 6y ago
There was a heat wave, yes, but other than that not a particularly high risk of wildfires early this weekend. The wind wasn't terrible and there wasn't a Red Flag Warning issued (that's a fire weather warning). They started their hike on a long weekend, the last long weekend of the summer over here. And late August / early September is one of the best times of year for hiking in the Sierra. The bugs have died off, temperatures remain pleasant, the thunderstorms have usually passed, and after Labor Day (the first Monday in September) the crowds die down. In the high country, wildfire risk is usually low as well, so smoke is really the only thing to worry about. This fire grew remarkably fast, from 0 to 100,000 acres in about 36 hours, and happened to be rather close to the location they chose for their trip. Sure, they should have known that smoke from wildfires was a risk during this trip, but it's pretty reasonable to not expect this kind of impact going into your trip. In general, this time of year is a very good time to head into the mountains.
- ihunter2839 6y ago

zaroth 6y ago

> One of the best decisions we made that evening was choosing to only bringing the best snacks and dinner option available. Which happened to be smoked salmon and mussels accompanied by biryani rice. This ended up being just the magic we needed to keep morale up as the evening came to an end. Exactly this. Never underestimate how important a good snack can be to improving morale in a difficult situation. In many situations just a bit of chocolate can literally be the way to lift the mental fog of war and make it significantly easier to keep plodding through whatever stressful situation you are dealing with. A good snack really does work magic.

kepler1 6y ago
Well, by contrast I took it to show how much of a non-event this story really was. At least for the rich folks in this story. If the person is sleeping 9 hours and dining on smoked salmon and mussels, is it really the "escape" from danger they made it out to be?

quipsdefaux 6y ago

As beautiful as the smoke haze can make things, you don't mess around with bushfire. Glad they got out. t. Australian

davidu 6y ago

I appreciated this write-up. The line between "mildly interesting story with some great photos" and "we made a wrong turn or wrong decision and died" is a lot thinner than I think this post makes clear. There are very few roads and people in the High Sierras, and Red Meadows pack station is basically it when it comes to services. Surrounded by smoke, changing winds, and uncertain information, they had to try and get information through very low bandwidth, high latency satellite text systems (I have an InReach, and it's great, but leaves a lot to be desired). I'm impressed with their retelling of the story and am glad they made it out safe.

cactus2093 6y ago
I agree. I was hoping for some lessons or takeaways though, but maybe there is so much luck and randomness involved that it’s hard to generalize. But was it really the best choice to leave an area with other cars and people and rangers around and hike through the woods, camping overnight so close to a fire? Seems crazy, although maybe the chance of getting trapped would have been higher if they didn’t do that. Glad everyone seemed to get out out ok though.
- dvt 6y ago
  > maybe there is so much luck and randomness involved that it’s hard to generalize They were hiking in the mountains during a heatwave with already a few fires nearby. The takeaway is "don't be stupid" but I doubt they learned their lesson, because their particular situation was pretty low-key.
  - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
    This is a pretty uncharitable opinion. The Creek Fire exploded to 130K acres in a couple days, definitely not typical.
    - distrill 6y ago
      It's unfortunately becoming more typical.

sailfast 6y ago

This looks harrowing and I appreciate the person taking the time to share their experience and their lessons. Total technical aside: is this a submarine for a new version of exposure?

LandR 6y ago
How harrowing can it be when they were comfortable enough to stop and camp for the night?
- lucaswoj 6y ago
  Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
derwiki 6y ago
I had to go back and double check to find out what exposure is. Maybe? But maybe just using the platform for its use case. Maybe it’s both.
lucaswoj 6y ago
Jaymie is a long time fan of the platform, with articles going back to 2013.

iandanforth 6y ago

If you know someone who is about to leave on a backpacking trip in California, please slash their tires.

thenoblesunfish 6y ago

I feel pretty dumb for reading this whole thing. I kept waiting for the part of this story where they said "yeah, maybe the first time people told us to turn around, or the second, or the third, we should have actually turned around". At least hindsight is supposed to be 20/20 :D Also, is it an "escape" if you walk toward something dangerous for longer than you should, and then turn around. D- guys. You made it, but BARELY.

URSpider94 6y ago
I don’t know what you’re talking about. They literally turned around and tried to leave the very first time someone told them to do so. The rest of the trip was them trying various ways to get out that were blocked by fire.
- grey-area 6y ago
  Look at the map, they were told early on where to go and went in the opposite direction towards the fire, though the text skips over this without explanation as to why.
  - ksdale 6y ago
    I was under the impression that they went back to the car, and the road out appeared to go through the fire. The recommendation to go the other way would have meant hiking out, which, even though it was what they ended up doing, was not obviously the best choice early on?
    - grey-area 6y ago
      They could have driven the other way, the way they finally chose to drive, parked and started to walk to Red's Meadow and the other car. I agree they probably had reasons for the choice like not wanting to lose car 1 in the fire or get stuck up a mountain on foot without the car if the fire reached them. But they did get clear advice to go the other way early on and chose to ignore it.
  - 6y ago

gdubs 6y ago

Definitely a very risky time to be out in the wilderness, anywhere west of the Rocky Mountains. And that’s probably understating it. It’s really something to see the entire west coast on fire right now. We live up in a forested valley in northwest Oregon, and got blanketed with smoke yesterday. Happened quickly and was the worst smoke I’ve experienced since the Camp Fire blew into Los Altos, CA, a while back. Our area of Oregon hit the top of the wildfire risk chart yesterday for the entire west coast, at “critical” — hot and dry with gusts of winds reaching 65MPH. Happily woke up to relatively calm, clear-ish skies today. We’ve spent a decent amount of money getting rid of brush, and trees, to create a “defensible zone” around the home. That’s one of the most impactful things that can be done to mitigate the risk — make sure flammable plants and trees are far from the house, use hardscaping (stone, gravel) around the foundation, and keep anything within 30-100’ well irrigated. Also, don’t allow leaves etc to gather under porches, gutters. Make sure vents are well screened. The forest becomes more wilderness but we’ve been doing a bunch there as well: limbing trees up to reduce the risk of “ladder fires”, getting rid of brush, cleaning up old access trails in case a fire crew needs to come through. Fires are pretty awesome events — experiencing them first-hand gives you a sense of scale that’s impossible to convey through pictures alone. The people in this story had quite an experience, and it’s fortunate how many people escaped that fire. But fires are both natural, and increasing in destructiveness due to a combination of factors (including climate change). Definitely stay aware, and if you live in a wildfire zone, get moving on preparations and preventative measures. This is the future, folks.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
Yeah, the air in Portland last night took a nosedive pretty fast. It wasn't quite as bad as during the eagle creek fire, but pretty close.

dvt 6y ago

With @kepler1 on this one. This is an overly-dramatized Instagrammer's take on a pretty low-stakes situation with plenty of leeway. I'm not even particularly outdoorsy and I've got crazier stories (involving bears, pulling people out of overturned cars, etc.). I was out kayaking this weekend, and even though we were just barely 2 hours out of LA, we were acutely aware and tracking smoke/fires in the San Bernardino Mountains. With that said, hiking into a high-risk area with already a few known fires nearby is just stupid and it could've been really bad. I'd like to hope they learned their lesson.

xiainx 6y ago
There are several other subthreads about this already, but there's not really any evidence to suggest these folks made a bad or risky decision. The area they were hiking too was above treeline, so not really at any risk of burning in a wildfire. And the "known" wildfires nearby were either nearly completely contained, or hundreds of miles away. You can complain about their photography all you want, but I suspect most experienced hikers would agree that these people didn't make any bad decisions here.
lucaswoj 6y ago
We live in Mammoth Lakes and are in the wilderness almost every day. Whether it’s avalanches, thunderstorms, or something else, the risk and beauty go hand in hand out there.

deleted 6y ago

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gregorymichael 6y ago

props for exposure -- the platform this was published on. this was a beautifully presented story.

lizzard 6y ago

If you are interested in stories like this, and how people make life or death decisions in difficult situations, I recommend Laurence Gonzales's book Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.

lucaswoj 6y ago
Yes! Also American Alpine Journal accident reports.