I like hiking in burn zones. It may be an acquired taste, but I find it fascinating to observe the process of a forest reestablishing
itself after a fire. And, despite the tree carnage and scorched earth policy, there
is also great beauty to be found in an old burn zone. Unfortunately, too much of a good thing
can also be bad and if recent fire seasons are any kind of indicator, we all will have more than ample opportunity to learn to love burn zones in the near future. At any
rate, the site of the B&B Fire at Santiam Pass still remains one of my
favorite places to hike.
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| Beauty in a burn zone |
At Santiam Pass, the fire began life as the Booth Fire in mid-August of 2003 while further to the north in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness, the Bear
Butte Fire birthed into fiery existence. Eventually, the two fires joined forces as
one and the two fire names melded together to become the B&B Fire. Even
though the fire burned virtually in uninhabited wilderness, over $38 million
dollars were spent to combat the fire. I'm not sure if the expenditure was worth the investment for when it was all over, the fire had consumed
over 90,000 acres. Unfortunately, in our current era of megafires and gigafires, a
90,000 acre fire is just another small kilofire.
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| Through-hikers hike through a new forest |
The Pacific Crest Trail, at
Santiam Pass, goes right through the old fire zone and while temperatures were
hot down in our valleys, a chill wind up here kept things cool as I set foot on the
famed PCT. Although the story of this hike was walking 10 miles through a forest of ghostly
white snags, there is a veritable young forest forming on the ground and it won’t
be long before the epic views encountered on this day will once again be
blocked by flourishing trees.
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| The PCT angled up through a burned forest for mile after mile |
The Pacific Crest Trail headed
steadily uphill in the open sunlight and incessantly switched back and forth across an open slope as
it worked its way up to the craggy slopes of Three-Fingered Jack. In places, beargrass covered
virtually every square inch of available soil below the forest of dead trees, imbuing the rough terrain with a parklike vibe.
Beargrass blooms every other year and when it’s beargrass time on this section
of the PCT, the results must truly be spectacular.
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| Huckleberry bushes decided summer is over and done with |
A few of the usual late-summer
flowering suspects were putting on a subdued show, those suspects being most notably light
purple daisy-like aster and fleabane, bright red skyrocket, and occasional
yellow rabbitbrush flowers. We are getting close to autumn’s song and
accordingly huckleberry bushes were blazing red in vegetative mimicry of the
B&B Fire.
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| Sun-bleached snags against a cobalt sky |
There are a couple of side trails
leading down to the Berley Lakes or Square Lake but my order of business was the
Pacific Crest Trail and I stayed on track when I arrived at those enticing
trail junctions. The trail climbed at a consistent rate of ascent and a steady stream of PCT through-hikers
passed me by. Ninety-six year old great-grandmothers may have also passed me by, because my pace was as slow as a lethargic turtle going up all those miles
of inclined trail, but I'm blaming the views and camera.
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| What a view! |
The views became more and more astounding as the trail gained elevation, thanks in part to the B&B Fire clearing out the view-blocking forest. Directly south of the trail
was the pointy spire of rugged Mount Washington with the Three Sisters looming
further beyond. Periodically, Three-Fingered Jack waved hello with one of its non-middle fingers showing above the ridge crest directly in front. To the east was the
symmetrical cone of Black Butte with the vast central Oregon outback stretching out into the summer haze. The surrounding geology and geography were
spread out like a large-scale three-dimensional atlas diorama, all covered with a fuzzy white layer of ghostly white snags, left courtesy of the B&B Fire.
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| Some of those surrounding lakes and scenery |
There were plenty of lakes
scattered in all the topology cited above and to the east, lakes Booth, Martin, and Square reposed in the basin sprawling west of Black Butte. There is
supposed to be a cross-country way to leave the PCT and hike down to Martin
Lake and return by way of the Square Lake Trail but the jump-off point was not
obvious, so I stayed on the PCT like a good boy.
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| A rare section of green forest |
At about the four-mile mark, the
trail left the burn zone for a real honest-to-goodness green forest. Good thing
too, for the chill breeze had long since failed to be and the day was getting
to be quite warm out in the exposed and treeless fire zone. I ate lunch at a rocky viewpoint overlooking an expansive vista of Maxwell Butte and surrounding terrain extending into the McKenzie River drainage.
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| View to the Mount Washington and the Three Sisters |
After lunch, it was back the way I had come but
the major difference was that I was walking downhill (and there was much
rejoicing) instead of slogging up to some higher unseen place in my life. Also,
instead of staring at the grassy parklike slopes inclining upward in front of me, I very much enjoyed a wide and expansive five-mile view of Mount Washington, the Three Sisters, and an entire county of
dead trees under a blue sky. Simply beautiful, and the entire day confirmed my
feelings about hiking in an old burn zone.
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| Path through spent beargrass and dead trees |
For more photos of this hike,
please visit the Flickr album.
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