Our last day hiking at Lake Tahoe coincided with the eruption of massive wildfires to the west. We drove home through a pall of smoke and ashes. Relatively clear air didn’t appear until the Oregon border but the smoke soon caught-up with us. And has been hanging around ever since. The drought (now between severe and extreme) had already been here for awhile. Actual water falling from the sky (rain!) is but a distant memory. So the situation is hot, smokey, and dry.
The upside is that the smoke suppresses the lightning which caused a lot of the smoke in the first place (ah, the irony of weather 
). The downside (and this is a totally trivial one compared to people losing their homes and lives to wildfires 😥 ) is that going outside for a hike is potentially yet another health hazard. But, after several days dawdling around the house (and being thankful we had one to do that in), we decided that a short hike in the Forest was an acceptable risk (it seems like everything we do these days involves some sort of conscious assessment of risk). And so we did an assessment and then went for a hike.
There were cars parked at all the trailheads we passed but, except for two people who we let distance-pass us, we had the trails to ourselves. We picked a route that had us briefly in the sun at the start but in the shade for much of the rest of the hike. It was pleasantly cool when we started but had gotten a lot warmer in just the two hours we were on the trails. Unlike at Lake Tahoe, where we could both see and taste the smoke choking the trail, here we were only aware of it when we got a haze-dimmed view of the mountains to the east.
The Forest itself is dusty, crunchy, and a little dull at this time of year. It has given-up on attractively colored wildflowers and is starting to shift Big Leaf maple leaves from vibrant green to the yellows of Fall. The madrone bark, which usually sloughs-off in sheets, has been curled into tubes by the lack of moisture. The forest floor is littered with madrone straws. Yet, even in late summer, in a year of discontent, the Forest offered us some moments of solace in Nature, along with things to look at and enjoy. It was a short hike, but a good one. 🙂 And for that we are thankful.
BOOTS on the TRAIL 
Right. Photos from my (ma)drone orbiting over the forest. 😉
LikeLike
You could do a whole coffee table book with your various Madrone photos. People would even be confused, expecting aerial photos.
LikeLike
Thanks! Madrones are endlessly fascinating for a whole bunch of reasons. We had two summers in the last few years with bad smoke from wildfires in our vicinity. The irony this year is that we haven’t (fingers crossed) had any big fires locally; the smoke we’re getting is all from huge fires in central and northern California. 😦
LikeLike
Your madrone photos are lovely. I think that’s my favorite tree. 🙂 But I never like hearing about the smoke and the drought. We’ve been traveling fulltime and haven’t experienced a summer in Ashland for the past eight years…but friends tell us how difficult it has been. It makes me sad for our beloved Rogue Valley.
LikeLike