Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Lions Fire

Lions Fire (from Mammoth Lakes) - Sierra Nevada  2018

Just prior to leaving, there were three fires in the Sierra of concern to Mike.

- The Ferguson Fire, near Yosemite and El Portal, ended up closing access to Yosemite National Park for some days. By the time Mike started driving the fire had been 100% contained, but smoke remained in the area.

- The Donnell Fire, in the area of highway 108 (route over Sonora Pass) was still burning while Mike was in the mountains.

- The Lions Fire, just south of Devils Postpile National Monument, was still not close to being contained.

Mike had planned to hike out of Devils Postpile towards Lake Ediza, but just after picking up his wilderness permit, he looked northwards towards the direction of his projected backpack. Yikes! Smoke from the Lions Fire was extremely heavy and ominous-looking, and drifting right over his backpack locations.

Plan B was therefore put into effect: no backpack, instead, car camping. (Just like in 2015.) He had thought that this eventuality was come to pass, so he had brought along a goodly amount of car camp equipment in his Toyota.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You seem to have brought the fires back with you. According to LA Times article Marin county is now burning. Smokey at home? P

Mike Mundy said...

Very little smoke, surprisingly enough!

BTW, lots of fire/smoke posts can be found on the blog!