Smoke Season (Bikepacking In a Burned Landscape)
the American West got its Fifth Season about 12 years ago since then every year towards the end of summer the smoke rolls in for a week or a month or sometimes longer I remember that in the beginning neighbors asked each other do you know where it's coming from I haven't heard that question in a few years it flows in from too many fires now to pinpoint it it comes from British Columbia from Oregon and from closer to home once Chris and I watched the bright Embers of a hillside burning in the dark from our bed over the years smoke season has become as personal and as inevitable as any other season checking the air quality has become as familiar as checking the weather and if we stayed inside on every Smoky day we'd go stir crazy so on a lightly hazy morning we decided to hit the road for a weekend bike trip a couple of hours from our home [Music] how are you feeling about this trip right now I'm worried that the heat is going to slow us down a little bit this afternoon there's a heat advisory in place for this area and it's honestly like smokier than I think we were expecting but it's it's like the last kind of summery weekend and this is our chance to get out so we're going to we're going to try and do it [Music] we just left the town trail head in winthrip at the start of our trip and of course we got here and we had each forgotten multiple things but the most important thing is that Chris forgot a helmet hi Chris hi what do you have there I have a shiny pre pre-cued uh rental helmet because I left mine at home now we're finally ready to ride a little bit little bit later than we meant to but that's all right windr lies in the middle of the matow river valley in north central Washington surrounded by forests and national parks the valley relies on its proximity to Recreation and a Wild West theme to draw tourism dollar behind this tourism based economy is a small tight-nit community of yearound residents we happen to know a few of these fine folks and that'll come in handy later what a fancy new helmet let climing begin how far do we have to go we have about 20 miles it's like 3:30 we'll [Music] [Music] see oh that's a cool situation yeah oh it's got a a native name this Valley is the ancestral homeland of the meow people in the late 1800s many were forced by the US government to move on to a reservation east of here though some refused the orders in state recently the descendants of some of these people have been working with a local conservation group to regain legal ownership of some of their lands this parcel whose name translates to the hummingbird property is one such place [Music] broken pavement 8 [Music] Miles we just ran into some friends and they told us about a swimming hole it's late but it's hot yeah so we're conflicted I mean now that you say that we're conflicted I feel like the answer is pretty obvious about what we should do go swimming yeah I think we're going to go [Music] swimming W that's cool it really is like a water slide here we go [Music] we have to find a place to Camp I mean we could camp here we could but that would set us up from probably too big of a day for tomorrow probably so for the last like 10 years that we've lived in the Northwest we have a fifth season they call it smoke season and you never really know when it's going to show up but it does and there's a lot of not nice things about it but one nice thing about it is that it makes sunsets spectacular they are golden for hours it's not just the golden hour well it's about 6:15 and we've completed about half of the miles that we had hope to today uh definitely don't regret that swimming hole though no so but if you are playing bike Packer bingo at home and you have a square that says well we didn't get as far as we planned to today you can put a little thing on that square anyway the temperature's dropped it feels great we're biking uphill that what it is I don't know estimating another 5ish miles before we just find a flat spot by the creek I call three three you said three miles earlier okay okay three three to five okay or two who knows who really [Music] [Music] knows I don't know man maybe we can find something better this looks too flat [Music] well our last trip was in Europe and I got to say one of the nice things about biking in the US like yeah we don't have great biking infrastructure but we have great camping just like the ability to just be and not have to worry about someone coming and yelling at us because you're not allowed to sleep outside it's nice when you live in this state with a ton of public land yeah [Music] yeah good night [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] good morning we both slept great so starting off the day well this whole vlogging thing is kind of hard so I need to tell you something to make the rest of this day Mak sense one of our favorite things about traveling by bike is getting to know the history and the culture of an area the nearby town of conol has a tiny Museum but it's run by a couple of retired volunteers who we had arranged to meet at 2:00 today what feel like I need hair and makeup we haven't decided what we're doing today I want to go the long adventurous way but because we were trying to make it to konali by 2ish we're probably going to end up going the short smoother way but we don't have to make that decision now we can make it in 7 miles so we should hurry yeah get out of Camp save as much time as possible [Music] smoke season is fairly new but fire has been a part of these forests forever small frequent naturally occurring wildfires actually improve Forest Health by clearing dead trees and underbrush and recycling them back into the soil smoke from these small fires stays localized in shortlived rather than blanketing whole states for weeks at a time unfortunately in the early 1900s state and federal land managers started putting out all Fires at any cost leading to a buildup of wood and underbrush in Western forests this Overstock of fuel combined with unsustainable logging practices and Rising temperatures has meant that many of today's fires burn much more intensely instead of small fires that improve Forest Health we get catastrophic blazes that wipe out whole Mountain sides the good news is we're actually fighting fire with fire like many Native groups did for Millennia we've begun treating Forest with a combination of forest thinning and setting managed fires in the fall and spring when they're not likely to burn out of control this is costly and timec consuming so it'll be a long time before our forests return to a Natural Balance again in the meantime the smoke has become a part of life for those of us that live in the west it's only 68° but I'm literally dripping sweat it never looks as steep as it really is we've been on the road for like 2 hours now and we've gone about 7 miles honestly we haven't stopped to film that much either so we can't even blame that it's just been Steep and it's gravel and we're just kind of slow so but this is the longest and like most sustained climb on this trip um so hopefully things will get a little bit easier soon we can make up the time try and get to conelli by two from here if we go on our original route the top of the first climb is 3 miles and uh so an hour 1, 260 ft and then the second climb and then the third climb and then after that it's mostly downhill down and then I guess yeah the other way is 5 miles of much more gradual up that and and then it's downhill for 15 18 miles into conell on the smoother Road Less adventurous way okay and let's go [Applause] okay well we've made a measurable distance on the [Applause] map if we get phone service at the top of any of these passes we'll call and reschedule and see if they can maybe meet us at 3:30 or 4 otherwise we're just going to keep on grinding and trying to go as quickly as possible but we just passed another friend yeah good yeah who basically told us well it gave us enough information for us to realize we're not getting to kolot too you guys are going to conelli awesome are you guys going to try to get there tonight yeah I mean at least it's almost downhill well not really but kind of yeah up there and then there's like three more CL I'm saying tonight yeah yeah yeah we're supposed to be there at like two oh yeah apparently the road is in really bad shape after the high point I was like I cannot believe people ride their bikes here cuz it used to be the old Vicious Cycles loop I I think my revised uh expectation is Maybe by Sunset yeah that Lake was our original goal for last night yeah which would have set us up much better for 2:00 but we got distracted by a swimming hole it's all down then back up then down then back up then down hill from here this is only the first CL [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I'm pretty sure we just heard woles howl [Applause] that's cool I've only heard that a couple times in my life it's awesome to be in a place where you can hear that we're nearly to the top of the second climb and I feel like the smoke is getting worse you can taste it it's not [Applause] like like a beautiful Green Forest but it does have its own kind of Beauty somewhere on one of the descriptions of one of the trails or something around here that I was reading it said the fire opened up a lot of views yeah yeah that's that's generous that's a nice way to put it we did it yay climb number two done [Music] so it is now 3:00 and we still have a mile to the top of our last big climb of the day we'll see how much longer it takes us at least so far the road has been rutted there's like a big rot in the roaded which is not great for cars but most of the roaded is totally ridable there's more than enough room to move your bike now you're hello hi um this is this is Chris I talked to you a couple days ago or talked to someone about coming to visit the um Museum in conelli and okay the person you need is my brother one moment okay hello hello hi my my name is Chris I talked to someone a couple days ago about um uh visiting the the museum and my wife and I are way behind schedule so I don't know if we'll be able to make it in time to to visit uh there's no time limit well okay Midnight's a little rough thanks so much problem bye bye bye all right sit out in the cell [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] we just stopped at the sitting bowl and used their phone because phones don't work down here so now we're heading over to the museum to meet Kelvin and he'll let us in I'm actually like one of the streets is called Silver Street is this a silver min Min in town it was a silver mining town which we learned from Calin hi hello you must be Calin yes y all right come on in do a few lights he was full of stories many of which echoed what we had learned the day before when we stopped at the Historical Museum in Winthrop on our way out of town about how the first European settlers in this region were here for gold and silver but when the ores dried up or the prices dropped many left this is now basically a tourist town started out as mining town and then as they do was m shut down we learned that life was hard for those who stayed because of the remote location lack of water and frequent fires he told us that the final stage of a Gold Rush is the con man era when elaborate schemes are cooked up to make a quick buck and then overnight the whole thing disappeared and the guys all the money went to Canada he also told us that in the early 1900s in this area when someone wanted to move closer to town they would just roll their entire existing house down the road on logs rather than build a new house because cut Lumber was too expensive it rolled along probably looked very much like something from Egypt I was going to say 2008 BC and what did you give the people lunchtime they got beer and at the dinner at the end of the day they got a bunch of beer yeah so good stories it was I feel like it was worth it I think so yeah it was really cool [Music] we just left shanali after getting coffee and a burrito which is kind of becoming a routine in small towns going to little coffee stands and getting a coffee and a burrito now you have a long like a 12 M climb ahead of 10 m climb 10 m climb but the first mile mile and a half it's pretty flat as we go around the lake it's a really nice way to start do you want to hear the disappointing statistics about this climb what are they in the first five miles we do about 1,000 ft of climbing okay and in the second 5 miles we do about 2,000 ft of climbing okay this is our life now we're just going to climb so just enjoy the whole thing enjoy as much as you can we had planned for a route to go through the small town of twisp but the helpful people at the bike shop and winr had talked us into taking another route this one was supposed to be shorter but much prettier especially as we got closer to town so at least we had that to look forward to as we pedal up what ended up being a long hard climb on tired legs doing it magic love it fish yes [Music] [Music] [Music] you're doing it I did it yeah stay down my bike that switch back was steep proud of me proud of you babe oh my God I will cut me off you're going to get [Music] buzzed okay I'm [Music] done I made it [Applause] [Music] Lun this is really the kind of downhill I enjoy yeah the kind that doesn't go by too fast yeah that's true that's true but it's not all downhill back to en there's one more climb which I'm kind of dreading we saved the most exposed climb for the hottest part of the day we know you're here for a bike video so there's only so much we can include about what it's like to live in a fire dependent place but there's so much more to say about the ways the local trees have adapted to periodic blazes helping them repel Flames or regrow after a fire how fires have become so frequent locals struggle to afford or even get home insurance with Wildfire coverage how afterwards the wild flowers erupt across the landscape and we spend weekends excitedly searching for morel mushrooms how fire can affect the water table changing the course of streams we could go on and on but I guess what we want you to take away is that this is something of a love letter fire is hard on this place in these communities but there's a beauty to these Landscapes before and after a fire to see it it pays to stay curious [Music] gotcha
2025-01-10 22:40
