Did you continue to Huntington or turn back to Courtright? Were you able to get a cell signal to find out where the fire was heading? Kinda tough to make decisions in the backcountry when you don't have info about what is going on. Looks like Huntington in the distance in your first photo. I think that exit is blocked now, as the fire jumped the road between Huntington and Shaver. Over 200 campers were evacuated by Chinook helicopters out of Mammoth Pool reservoir. A lot of them probably lost their cars, RVs , boats and gear.
Glad you guys made it out without issues.
Yes we continue to Huntington Lake even through it was obvious we were going closer to the fire, yes that is Huntington in the first photo and were concerned about that exit getting blocked.
No we did not have cell signal, Gary did have a GPS Text device, It is a good thing to have but it was painfully slow to get a reply back, the fire was so new it was hard to get correct information.
There was no denying this huge plume of smoke next to us, and you are absolutely correct it was very hard to make a decision on what to do.
Basically this is how it went down. We woke up early to a beautiful morning at Thompson Lake, I recall smelling a faint bit of smoke as I lied in my sleeping bag well before Sun rise, I had slept under the Stars and was just taking in the nice morning and did not think to much of the smoke as it was so faint.
The plan was to get a early start to Ershim Lake were we had planed on staying two nites,relaxing and taking in the high country.
We were all packed up and on the trail by 7:40am, It was around 10am I had stop to chat with Noah for a minute and he pointed out the smoke. We talked about it on the radio and decided to continue on to Ershim lake.
At the lake we were starting to get replies back on the GPS text but again the info was spotty at best.
By continuing on to the lake it had narrowed our options, We no longer had enough Gas to go back, so it was stay by the lake, or beeline it out of there.
The issue was some of the group thought it was safer to stay at the water and some thought it better to get out well we still had a chance.
We ate lunch as we pondered our options, Yes it was safer at the Lake, but by staying our exit could be cut off, to continue on would mean wheeling into the nite.
In the end we took a vote, it was decided we would continue on. It was after 3pm when we left Ershim lake.
We made to the end of the trail by 8:30 PM, We went down to the main road and aired up the tires as fast as we could, We put the extra gas we had in the tanks as we were all running low and we were not sure if there would be gas at that hour in Shaver.
We made our last group stop at the Gas station in Shaver, The guy's that drove there regs filled up with gas and headed for home, Steve and I headed back to our tow regs out on Dinky Creek road. It was after 10pm when we got there the air was clear there was no smoke, I was beat and decided to sleep in my camper and drive home in the morning. Steve and his wife live in Washington so it was camp next to me for the nite or go find a hotel.
They ended up camping there for the nite. We were awaken by thick smoke and ash at 4am the next morning.
We loaded up in the dark as fast as We could and got the hell out of there.
There was now road blocks on Hwy 168 you could only leave you could not come into Shaver.
As I drove the Hwy 41 back to the coast the text messages were coming in on how we had made the right decision to get the hell out of there.
It was a wheeling trip that I well remember for a long time. God send to anyone still stuck up there!!!!!!!!!!
was on us like stink on sh*t.
