My apologies. Transmission of the following message was delayed due to the Microsoft/CrowdStrike service disruption. References in the post to “today” refer to Thurs., 7-18, and references to “yesterday” refer to Wed., 7-17.

I took the day off biking yesterday (Wed. 7-17), and Trudi and I hunkered down in Winthrop, WA to do some planning for the rest of the trip. It turned out to be a good day to be indoors. Air quality in the area has been poor due to a wildfire known as the Pioneer Fire that has been burning not far from Winthrop since June 8, and yesterday there was also a “Red Flag” weather warning for “dry thunderstorms and abundant lightning.” The Pioneer Fire is only 14% contained and is expected to continue to burn until late October. Here are a couple of weather/smoke/fire reports we saw last night.

All of this is bad enough, but this morning, the news got even worse. Yesterday’s electrical storms started a fire along Hwy 20 (also known as the North Cascades Highway) and the road was closed last night over a 10-mile segment just west of Washington Pass. This is a stretch of highway I am due to take tomorrow (Fri., 7-19). What to do? The options were not good. This is a remote area and there aren’t any convenient alternative routes–the detour we would need to take due to the closure is about 300 miles long.

I had a short bike ride today, about 12 miles, from Winthrop to Mazama, WA (pop. 158), which was as close as we could find lodging to the base of Washington Pass. It is about 18 miles from the new wildfire, named the Easy Fire (because it is near a pass known as the Easy Pass). The fire has now grown to 300 acres, according to a recent news report. Here is a sign I saw just as I was headed out of Winthrop.

About 20-30 minutes further down the road, a truck stopped ahead of me and the driver, Margo, called out to me as I passed. She said she didn’t know whether the road closure sign had gone up before I passed that point and wanted to make sure I knew that the road ahead was closed due to the fire. How nice of her! Margo, who recently relocated to the area from New Hampshire, said she heard the fire was burning “pretty good” and was not optimistic that the road would be able to be reopened anytime soon.

I reached Mazama on my bike at about the same time as Trudi arrived in the car. We conferred with a couple guys at an adventure sports outfitter near our hotel, and they encouraged us to drive to the area east of Washington Pass to assess how bad the smoke was and how comfortable I would be riding through there on a bike in the morning. That seemed like a good idea. If necessary, our plan was that Trudi would meet me in the car where the road was closed, and we would then drive the 300-mile-long detour to get to the other side of the closure so I could resume my bike trip west from there. Or, if the road should reopen, I would just ride straight through, and she would take the same route in the car.

We drove west past Washington Pass almost to the next pass, Rainy Pass, where we encountered this road closure sign.

It was there that we met several firefighters who had been working on containing the fire. They indicated that efforts were being made to reopen the road as soon as possible. They said it might happen later today, or possibly tomorrow or over the weekend, but that fires like this are unpredictable and weather conditions could extend that timeframe.

I had thought that forest firefighters wore heavy protective suits and asked about this. They said that the clothing they wear is fire resistant, and this is all they wear, in addition to some heavy gloves.

Temperatures yesterday reached the mid-nineties, so we didn’t do much, but did enjoy looking out over the Chewuch River which ran in back of our hotel, the Rio Vista. There were a number of deer in and around the river. At one point, Trudi counted seven of them. Here is Trudi being observed by a deer while she dipped her toes in the water.

Other than worrying about the road closure ahead, I enjoyed my short ride from Winthrop to Mazama this morning and wasn’t bothered too much by the smoke in the air. The smoke seemed to get worse as the day wore on, however, and in the afternoon we both felt our eyes were becoming irritated by it. I passed the Methow River a number of times on the way to Mazama.

I also passed Goat Creek and had a pleasant ride on Goat Creek Road.

The deer in the area don’t seem to be too rattled by traffic, including passing bicycles. I’ve encountered several deer who raise their heads to look at me as I ride by but aren’t scared off by my presence and go on foraging as if I wasn’t there.

I added an app for the Washington State Department of Transportation to my iPhone and started regularly checking reports on mountain passes in the state. Late this afternoon, it was reported that Hwy 20 had been reopened to traffic, but it also cautioned that “unplanned pass closures are possible due to wildfire activity.” The fire continues to burn, and depending on wind conditions and the like, the road may need to close again. My current plan for tomorrow is to ride about 40 miles from Mazama west over the Washington Pass and Rainy Pass, including the now-reopened stretch of Hwy 20.

I’ve learned that the level of smoke in the air due to a wildfire in the area is unpredictable. The Air Quality Index (AQI) in the towns we’ve been in the last two nights, Winthrop and Mazama, has varied between 70, which is considered moderate and tolerable except for the most sensitive groups, and 160, which is getting into the level that is considered unhealthy for everyone, not just sensitive groups. Climbing a mountain pass is challenging enough without having to deal with poor air quality at the same time, and we are hoping that the air will be as clear as possible for the climb ahead of me tomorrow.