Cabin Journal

Fire and Ice

A week ago Saturday, as I bicycled home, what looked like clouds of smoke to the north started ballooning up into something ominous and dark, with clouds reaching thousands of feet into the sky. It was the start of what became known as the CalWood fire, and that night I watched from my backyard as flames consumed hillsides of pine trees about 7 miles to the northwest.

All summer long I had been watching the progress of fires across the West, horrified by the pictures of forests and towns being consumed by fire. All summer long I had been breathing in the smoke from fires on the West Coast and on the western slope of Colorado. But this latest fire was hitting close to home. I knew these hills, had hiked and driven through them, and one of my favorite places to hike looked to be burning as I watched.

Two days later, under dry and windy conditions, another fire started, even closer to my home in Boulder. When I read the list of closed streets and canyons, and the areas of evacuation, I knew them all, could picture what was being destroyed. My route to the cabin, the South St. Vrain Canyon, was closed as it became the northern containment line for the CalWood fire.

Meanwhile, another fire, the Cameron Peak fire, in the county to the north had been burning since August, covering the whole Front Range, including Denver, with thick smoke that made it difficult to be outside.

With at least four wildfires burning unpredictably, I came to the cabin last week, hoping to find the sweet spot between the fires where I could breathe clean (or, at least, cleaner) air. But winds from the southeast carried the smoke from the CalWood fire into Meeker Park, and I was soon engulfed in smoke. The landscape (above) is beautiful and horrifying at the same time, because the smoke, like fog, softens everything, and the mountains, trees and grasses have a gauzy look. The sun setting behind Longs Peak (below) looks spectacular until you start to breathe the smoke, your eyes start tearing and your chest hurts. It’s not beautiful; it’s deadly.

But just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. A fire that started near the western edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, driven by strong winds, beetle-killed pines and extreme drought conditions, consumed 100,000 acres in one day. So powerful was the fire that it leapt over the tundra—a treeless and usually cold terrain at an altitude of 10,000 feet—and sparked fires in the trees below, before heading toward Estes Park.

As the fire, ironically called Troublesome, came down into the eastern side of RMNP, the tourist town was evacuated. I watched the videos and photos of streams of cars heading down the only two open roads under dark orange skies that made daylight into night.

The fires were close enough that Meeker Park was under a pre-evacuation order (meaning, get ready), and most of my neighbors at the cabin headed down into the valley to find shelter. I spent a frantic two days reading every alert that came across my phone and computer, trying to track the fire’s progress to see how close it was to the cabin, hoping that the forecasted snows would arrive before the flames.

As I write this, a blanket of snow has tamped down the fires for now, but fire experts say the fire is so hot that it’s still active, lurking in burnt trees and under the ground, ready to emerge again once the snow melts, the temperature rises and especially if the winds pick up again.

In normal years, heavy snows would be blanketing the high country, and any fire danger would have ended in September at the latest, but it’s almost November now, and those of us who live near the fire are being told to remain alert.

Last spring, it felt like my world went upside down with a pandemic that closed most of the local trails and parks. Although many opened again this summer, the season ended with the national forests and RMNP closed because of fires or the threat of fires. For the fires to be followed by snows that once more shut down our world could seem like irony or something more ominous.

Although right now it appears that I, and the other residents of Meeker Park and Estes Park, dodged a bullet, the gun is still loaded. The conditions that caused the fires—mainly a hotter planet—won’t go away with one snowstorm.

Something’s Blowing In

As the last of the aspen leaves fall from the trees, pushed along by strong winds over the last few days, I feel a shift in the world. It feels like the last few months of smoky and hot weather have ended and something else is opening up. Perhaps the jet stream that was holding everything in place has finally broken down, and new fresh air is coming in. Everything seems lighter, like months of stagnation have ended, and there’s a new world coming. It’s more than the arrival of winter, which has been delayed by our still warm weather and lack of moisture.

Like a tipping point, this time between the heat and dryness of summer and the snow and cold of winter is  brief. It’s like being on the top of the roller coaster, after you’ve slowly, agonizingly climbed up from the bottom, and you’re poised at the top, before the rush downward to something you don’t know. But at the top, there’s a pause, a hush almost, as if everything has been leading up to this moment.

This week, the path along Mill Creek in Rocky Mountain National Park was strewn with dried aspen leaves, as if laid down for royalty or for a wanderer to follow to some unknown but sacred place.  In the creek the bright leaves clung to the dark rocks, thick enough to form small aspen dams. Above me, the tops of the aspens danced in the wind, beckoning me to join them. I let them sway me, while keeping one eye on the trail, in case someone came along and caught me in the act of rapture.

The air was redolent with the smell of drying vegetation, while the wind gathered up the last of the aspen leaves and sent them soaring and tumbling through the air. For now, let the winds carry me where they will.