Call it 'another fire story'

The last time I nearly got trapped by wildfire, it was the Crazy Horse Fire. It happened Aug. 10, 2003, at the height of an historic fire season that filled valleys with smoke and residents with fear. Drive around Northwest Montana today and you'll see many of the tree-thinning projects that resulted from that fire season.

Tired of smoke filling our lungs and blocking our views, I joined three friends that day for a drive down the Swan Highway and a hike on the east side of the Mission Range. West of Condon, we headed up Kraft Creek Road and then hiked about three or four miles to Crescent Lake, an alpine lake.

While swimming, we heard a slurry bomber flying low. I figured it was coming up from the bomber base in Missoula to attack the fires raging in Glacier National Park and the North Fork.

About midday, we headed down the trail. As we rounded the shoulder of the mountain blocking our view down the drainage and across Glacier Lake, we saw a big wildfire on the slope right above the parking lot, about a mile and a half away.

A heavy helicopter with a bucket scooped water from Glacier Lake as we hiked out, and a smaller helicopter cruised the drainage as if looking for people. And there were lots of people to see — we passed several parties heading to the backcountry, including one family with small children.

As it turned out, everyone eventually got out. On our way back to the highway, we passed close to the fire's exploding front and encountered a lone volunteer fireman setting up a roadblock on Kraft Creek Road. He asked us if we knew what was going on.

What was going on was the Crazy Horse Fire, I learned the next day. Everything gains a little sense of order once it gets named. By the time the fire burned out, it had covered 11,132 acres and cost $10 million to fight.

You would think that getting trapped at the end of the road by a wildfire would happen only once in a lifetime to someone who doesn't live and work in the forests, but they also say lightning never strikes twice in the same place (tell that to someone manning a mountain-top lookout).

This year to escape smoke filling the Flathead Valley, I headed to a high place as far away as possible in Montana — the Beartooth Range. Coincidentally, the friend who joined me was also with me in the Mission Range the day the Crazy Horse Fire went crazy.

We drove to Big Timber, crossed I-90 and headed south on the Boulder River Road, past the Road Kill Cafe and McLeod down a rough road that would put the North Fork Road to shame. About an hour and a half after we left Big Timber, we arrived at Hicks Park and spent the night near the start of the Upsidedown Trail.

The next day, we hiked seven miles and 3,300 feet up the switchback trail to the Lakes Plateau country, over 9,000 feet in elevation. The peaks surrounding us topped 10,000 feet. Wortleberry bushes ripe with berries covered the ground, and unnamed lakes lay splashed across the countryside (if this was Glacier Park, a naturalist would have been assigned to name these lakes decades ago).

Our first night on the plateau, a lightning storm blew in from the west. But along with the rain and wind came smoke — thick, acrid, pungent smoke. Looking west as the sun set, toward the long narrow box canyon with its single-lane road, we wondered anxiously about a workable exit route. Staying high above the tree line until we knew more made sense, so we hunkered down for the night.

Around past midnight, the storm receded and stars filled the sky — one of the many rewards for trudging with heavy packs into the high country. The skies were clear and blue with no smoke for the next two days. We climbed a rocky peak and spotted a plume of smoke far to the west — by our calculation, it was at least two drainages west in the midst of the Absaroka Range, a good distance away.

Things turned ugly the third day, however, as a plume of orange-black smoke topped with a white cumulus cloud formed above the Boulder River canyon. We hiked on down to the trailhead that day and started the long slow drive out to the Interstate.

About 30 homes are scattered along the Boulder River — some owned by celebrities like Tom Brokaw and Michael Keaton — along with several large church camps. A man along the road told us the fire we saw was in the Paradise Valley, all the way across the Absaroka Range, maybe 20 miles away. He thought that was a safe distance and he was in no hurry to leave.

Aspens glowed amber in the strange light as we crept along at 10 mph. A broken-down camper trailer blocked the road at one point, and car after car with Oregon or Washington plates passed us, heading into the box canyon, possibly to a church camp.

Closer to the pavement, we passed the first of six state fire trucks racing down the road at high speed with their lights flashing. In the rear-view mirror, I saw the coolers, tarps and other supplies — these guys were in for the long haul.

At a gas station in Big Timber, I listened to concerned residents quiz a sheriff and his deputy about the situation. They were on their way into the Boulder River canyon, the sheriff said, to close it down and evacuate people. I could imagine the bottleneck.

We drove on to Bozeman for the night. From the freeway, we could see the smoke plume top out far above the 10,000-foot peaks, reaching 30,000 feet or more. In places, the interior of the plume glowed orange. This was one hot fire.

The plume was visible from our motel room window in Bozeman, but that night the plume collapsed, filling the Gallatin Valley with thick smoke. At breakfast, we learned the rest of the story. The fires (plural) had names and a history.

The Wicked Creek Fire started Aug. 9, the day we arrived at the Hicks Park campground on the Boulder River. Lightning ignited tinder-dry vegetation in the Paradise Valley about 27 miles south of Livingston.

But strong easterly winds had blown flammable debris all the way across the Absaroka Range to the Boulder River. Now there was a new fire — the Hicks Park Fire. Within 12 hours, the new fire had covered more than 1,000 acres. We'd gotten out of the high country in the nick of time.

Some people say life is all about the choices you make. In that case, good choices would require a rational mind and good information.

But sometimes your bad luck is offset by good luck. Why did we leave Crescent Lake just in time to get out ahead of the Crazy Horse Fire? Why did we leave the Lakes Plateau just in time to get out ahead of the Hicks Park Fire?

Call it luck, call it fate. I call it another fire story.