We had a layover day at Sheep Creek, so on Aug. 14, Jim and Jerry went for a hike, while Tom and I ferried across the river and hiked upstream to do some fly fishing. We had been warned about bears at Sheep Creek, so we had hung our food high in a tree, though we had left the rest of our gear on the ground.
When Tom and I returned from a long day of fishing, I saw that our tent had been knocked down. I was a little surprised because it had remained standing in an amazing microburst on an earlier trip on the North Platte River in Wyoming. Then I noticed my waste bottles (we can't fit a groover in our boats, so we use bottles). It had been punctured and scratched. Upon further investigation, we found a small first aid kit that had been bitten up, a fuel bottle full of denatured alcohol that had been repeatedly bitten and drained, and my toiletry kit, which had been well chewed and dragged away from the camp. Other items had been scattered. When we looked at our tent more closely, we found four or five bite marks--one of them was a perfect impression of the bear's teeth--and some large holes where he had clawed at it. He had apparently been so intent on mauling items on the ground, that he ignored a day bag with some food in it that had been hung on a clothesline. We dubbed him "Poo Bear" because he seemed to enjoy my waste bottle and the blue goo deodorizer that he found in my toiletry kit. We decided that somewhere on the MF was a drunk, blind (denatured alcohol) bear with a blue mouth. That night we moved our tents very close together and were happy to leave Sheep Creek the next morning.
As we paddled off on the 15th, we felt like we'd had a fair amount of excitement. However by the end of the day, the bear episode seemed pretty minor.
The wind really kicked up on the 15th. We paddled with a strong tailwind, and when we got to Grassy Flat 2, the wind was howling--probably blowing 30mph or more downstream. As we pulled into camp, we could see a lot of smoke over the ridge on river left a bit upstream of us. We saw a bear make its way through camp heading downstream, and joked that Poo Bear was following us. Jerry set up his tent, but Tom left most of his gear in the boat. He felt pretty uneasy about Grassy Flat 2. Jim, who is a city firefighter and an avid hiker, headed up the ridge to see if he could spot the fire and the rest of us watched the smoke pouring over the ridge. The light got very strange--the sun was a blood red ball casting an orange glow over everything. The wind kept howling, and we wondered when we would see the flames top the ridge.
Jim returned from his hike reporting that he had seen the fire. It was fairly small, he said, and about 2.5 miles away. We uneasily watched the smoke for perhaps another hour until suddenly we saw a line of fire come over the ridge just upstream of Grassy Flat 1. We watched in fascination as the fire slowly moved along the ridge. Trees would explode into flame as the fire reached them. I got really nervous, but Jim and Jerry seemed sure that the fire would move along the terrain behind the campsite, and not reach it. Tom, however, started packing his boat. We watched as the fire moved closer. I decided to make a mad dash to the toilet before the fire got any closer (the others laughed at me, but they weren't laughing the next morning when they didn't have a toilet to use). As I came back down the hill from the toilet, I could see that the wind had blown embers about a mile downstream into our meadow and across the river downstream of us.
Suddenly the wind shifted and it changed things dramatically. The flames in our meadow started charging toward us at an incredible speed. The fire roared through Grassy 1. Embers were flying everywhere on both sides of the river. Flames were shooting up everywhere--we had flames 360 degrees around us and they were getting close. We could hear the fire roaring--what an incredible sound--and could feel the heat from the flames at Grassy Flat 1.
We started jamming our gear in our boats. Things got a little scary as the flames grew closer. I don't believe that a commercial or raft-supported group could have gotten out of there safely with all of their gear intact. Certainly we waited a bit longer than we should have before we started packing--we were pretty engrossed in watching the fire--but once the wind shifted the fire moved incredibly quickly. We think that once the embers hit our meadow, it took less than 15 minutes for the campsite to be burned to the ground. At one point Tom and I looked up from our packing to see that Jerry had gone up to the fire to take a picture. Jim recognized the danger and went after him. The wind shifted and suddenly the 6-inch flames that Jerry was taking a picture of were 6-foot flames. Jerry and Jim sprinted for the river with a 6-foot wall of flame chasing them.
Once we got on the river we felt pretty safe, but it was an amazing feeling to be sitting in the middle of a roaring forest fire. There was a quote in Newsweek, "You can't imagine the feeling of pending doom when smoke blacks out the sun and embers rain down." That quote fit the mood exactly.
We paddled downstream as hard as we could (there was a terrible headwind) with the fire keeping pace. The smoke was so thick we could hardly see in front of or behind us. We finally pulled ahead of the fire shortly before Survey camp. We saw some of the guides from the commercial trip camped there running downstream toward their camp; they had apparently gone upstream to check on the smoke that they were seeing. We told them that the fire was heading their way and they didn't have much time to pack up. So they started packing. That group and the one camped at Wollard Creek, just across the river, ended up camping at Elk Bar that night. Our group camped at a small spot just upstream of Veil Falls. We wanted to find a safe place in case the fire came through during the night. Our spot was a small sand bar with rock cliffs on both sides and very little foliage.
It was fun to exchange stories the next morning. Apparently the fire reached Survey, but stayed in the trees above the camp. There was a commercial group camped at Wilson Creek the night of the fire. They were so busy watching (and videotaping) the fire on our side of the river, that they didn't realize that the fire had jumped the river until suddenly they had flames all around them. They quickly packed up and floated across to Grassy Flat 1--the fire had already gone through there--and camped in the burnt out camp for the night.
The next two days of the trip were almost surreal. The smoke was terrible--visibility of perhaps 1/8 mile. Breathing was not pleasant. Ashes rained down the entire time making everything sooty and filthy. This was certainly the most memorable MF trip we've done.
I do want to apologize for leaving some trash behind in Grassy Flat 2. When we arrived at our camp, I put my waste bottle and bear trash away from the camp. I did not want to attract another bear. In our haste to evacuate as the camp was burning down around us, I forgot about the trash, and didn't think of it until we were a mile downstream. At that point, it didn't seem reasonable to go back for it. I hope that you can find someone to pick up my trash on their next trip down the river. I don't believe it burned up because it was at the base of a tree on the rocky sand bar, probably safe from the fire.
We do have some pretty impressive pictures of the fire. We'd be happy to send you some copies if you would like.
Good luck with the remainder of the fire season. Our thoughts are certainly with you. The MF is one of our favorite rivers, and seeing it burn down before our eyes was a terrible thing.
Marnie Knapp
Denver, CO
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