Day 123
Four months on the trail. After a big ascent early in the morning, we finally diverged from the Timberline Loop trail, thus our direction of travel led us away from Mt. Hood.
It was surprisingly clearer that morning, but as we got further north, we encountered another thick smoke coming from the Indian Creek fire that has closed the very popular alternate route from the PCT, that is Tunnel Falls.
Taking a gummy break at the Eagle Creek Trail junction
Helicopter scooping water from Wahtum Lake to fight the fires
We watched helicopters continuously grab water from Wahtum Lake to suppress the fire. It was surreal watching the action from the trail. We spoke to firefighters at the lake regarding the status of the fire and they were working nonstop to control it. We thanked them for their hard work and we continued our hike.
It's unfortunate most of the beautiful sections of Oregon is closed this year due to multiple active fires. However, there is always another time to come back and see the sections I've missed.
That night we camped amongst an old burned area, with dead trees scarred from the fire. We made sure that we weren't too close to any dead tree that could potentially fall on us in the middle of the night.
