Hop-a-long and I raced down the 3500 ft drop to the Post Office to get our packages before it closed at 1pm. Whoever we camped near was still asleep when we left.
Plugging along, as soon as the descent began, we saws the fire on the other side of the canyon sending up an enormous amount of smoke and covering quite a large area. We walked down seemingly straight toward it. It switchbacked downward for the most part, but definitely still made my knees hurt a bit, so I had to go a bit slower.
I found Hop-a-long at the Belden Town “Resort” which pretty much consisted of the entire town minus the “Post Office/Museum” and a small convenience store/RV park about 2 miles down the road. She had found Trooper, Cowboy, and Tracks eating breakfast, so we joined them and before long Snow Turtle, Aggassi, Swanson, Bird, and Freebird joined us.
Immediately, the forest service began telling us our options. Their first spiel went something like this: the PCT is closed between Hwy 70 (Belden) and Hwy 36 (Chester) due to the Chips Fire. All the side trails in the vicinity connecting the two highways are also closed. The fire started small but has grown. It was human caused and is only 10% contained. Option 1: walk Caribou Rd up to the end and take a bike path to Hwy 89 and walk/hitch to Hwy 36, then walk/hitch to the trail crossing. Option 2: walk/hitch Hwy 70 16 miles to Hwy 89 for 36 miles, then walk/hitch 5 miles to the trail.
We sorted through food, blogged, snagged a shower from Funk and Troopers cabin, and drank some beer while we mulled over our two options. In the process of drinking beer on the porch, the forest service came back over in a panic mode and told us not to hike up Caribou road because the fire had spread that way and they were going to evacuate all the campgrounds and RV park.
If we had to hitch it, we definitely weren’t going anywhere that evening to get stuck on one of those sides of the roads.
That night, we all crammed into one cabin: Funk, Trooper, Cowboy, Shep Dog, Chef, Pocahontas, Hop-a-long, Dead Animal, and I. In the morning, the fire had spread even more and had dumped ashes all over the deck.
Dead and I began hitching right outside of Belden Town and got a ride down to the corner store from the Post Office lady, but then were stuck there for five hours.
During that five hours, pretty much only forest service people passed who can’t pick anyone up in a government vehicle. We got talked to by several of them ascertaining that we weren’t trying to walk through, and then by the cops. One of the cops pulled the dick cop move of questioning us about who all was ahead of us in that cop tone with his arms crossed and his sunglasses on in the shade.
“So you don’t know who was a day or two ahead of you?” He asked for a last time.
“No, I caught everyone I knew directly ahead of me in Belden,” I replied.
“You didn’t see any non thru hikers? Like around midnight?” He kept at it.
“No…its not uncommon to night hike though.”
Grunts, “you know you have to hitch around to Chester?”
“Yeah, but we’ve been standing here for 4 hours…wanna give us a ride at least to the next road?” I asked annoyed that by talking to us cars wouldn’t even think of pulling over.
“We have to go to Belden Town. Sure you didn’t see anyone?”
I’m sorry, I thought cops were supposed to help people. My bad. All those taxpayer dollars. I may not be a resident of California, but I’ve sure spent enough money in your broke ass state in the last three months for a 16 mile ride.
Eventually, one of the cooks at Belden Town took pity on us since he had some time before work, turned around and picked Dead Animal and me up and subsequently Cowboy and Shep Dog down the road since they gave up on hitching and began walking. Hwy 70 was a very dangerous road to walk on: curvy, no shoulder, and high speeds.
“If I’m late, I’ll just tell him I drove hikers to the next road. You guys give us a lot of business, they won’t care,” he said.
He dropped us off at the “Y” of Hwy 70 and Hwy 89 where a bus was supposed to make a non route stop there on the way to Chester if hikers were there. We had 20 minutes to spare, so we threw our thumbs out in case anyone would take us sooner when Joe picked us up in his truck. A former Navy guy who now fixed appliances kindly drove us all the way to a Chinese restaurant in Chester.
There, we found Heehaw, Kristo, and Swiss Army who were the last ones to make it through the walking detour. I inhaled two lunch specials.
As Dead and I wandered around, a blue truck came up and rolled down the window, “Do you guys need a ride anywhere? We’re looking for hikers to help.”
“We need to charge our phones, but we’ll be done in an hour,” Dead said.
“Ok, we’ll be back here for you then!” She said.
And they were, Ron and Karen came back and drove us to the trail where PipersMom had left trail magic coolers.
We got back and hiked to the first water. All the same suspects were there listening to Kristo and Heehaw play guitars except Hop-a-long, Funk, and Trooper who got later rides and didn’t make it that far that night. Overall, it worked out, but mostly sucked because the half-way point was burning.
On the pct-l, reports have been coming in over the Chip’s Fire explosion and saying it’s going nuts, there are more evacuations and Hwy 70 will probably soon close.