We’ve been keeping a close eye on the wildfire the last few days; the Emigrant Fire had grown to 19 500 acres since 26 August. Today we walked into the area affected by smoke from that fire. At first the smell was faint, but as we walked around the mountains and towards the fire, the smoke became thicker. I crossed the highest point on the PCT in Oregon late in the morning, and descended for most of the day after that except for a small climb up to camp. Today’s mileage was again 16 miles, 25.7 km.

In the morning, we could faintly smell smoke from the Emigrant Fire. There was a slight haze in the air which made the sunrise on Mt Thielsen that much more spectacular. We packed up camp and headed off. The trail was graded so gently once again, I could barely tell we were climbing.

After about an hour, I reached a vantage to look out over the valley. Behind me, I could see Mt Thielsen above the forest and was surprised by how much ground I’d covered.

A couple of hours later, I’d climbed to the highest point in Oregon, and Washington for that matter. At 7560 ft, 2304 m, it didn’t feel as dramatic as California but just up ahead there were still good views over Oregon.

In the afternoon, the haze in the valley became thicker, and the views were more obscured. I began to see the smoke in between the trees and I knew we were starting to get closer to the fire.

At the end of the day, we climbed up to camp on a ridge in the trees. We had a water source here, but getting to it meant a 15 minute walk down the steep side trail to Six Horse Spring. Unfortunately there were no horses today, and we had to carry our water all the way back up ourselves.