Earlier in the week, my friend texted me and asked if we wanted to do a hike with her and two other guys from her church. I pressed for more details and found out that these two guys were hiking the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT) in sections, and they invited my friend to join them on this particular section, which would be around 14 miles in total, but not a lot of elevation gain. It would be our longest day-hike of this season, however. So, we figured out some logistics for this point-to-point route, and planned to get up early that morning.

Saturday morning rolled around and we picked up our friend and headed out to Hwy 267, where the TRT crosses and we met the other two guys, and then we all rode together on a forest road out to Watson Lake for our trailhead.

We were on the trail before 7:30 a.m. and had about 14 miles ahead of us for the day. But it was beautiful out. To start, it was a little brisk, but it got warmer as the day went on.

This was a different hike for us for two reasons: One, we were hiking with three other people and usually it’s just the two of us; and two, we didn’t really have a “destination” on this hike, which kind of goes against my rules about a hike, but I made an exception for my friend.

The first views of the lake on our route.

We stopped for a quick snack along the trail and then kept moving along.

In under 5.5 hours, we made it down into Tahoe City.

After we finished our hike on the TRT, my husband and I decided to go to Reno to run some errands. As we crested the summit at Mt. Rose on Hwy 431, I looked up at the sky ahead of us and saw smoke. As we continued driving down the hill, we tried to get a better look at where the fire was and how big. (It turns out, we spotted the smoke within 20 minutes of the fire starting in the Davis Creek Regional Park Campground in Washoe Valley. The cause of the Davis Fire remains “under investigation,” but from what we’ve heard, it was human caused.)

By the time we were approaching South Reno, we got warnings on our phones about mandatory evacuations in the area, and from a short distance, we could already see that traffic on I-580 was at a standstill. We decided the best action for us to take was to turn around, forgoing our errands, and head back up the hill to our house.

On our way back up Hwy 431, we turned off on the dead-end road to Winters Creek Lodge of Mt. Rose Ski Resort to see if we could get a better view of the fire. As we approached the end of the road, it was lined with a dozen or more vehicles all doing the same thing we were doing.

The Davis Fire was fast moving and the dry, windy conditions weren’t helping. We were on edge for evacuation notices for the next week or so as the fire made its way mostly north and east, but it was also spreading west up the ridge towards Mt. Rose Ski Resort, which is only seven miles (as the crow files) from our house. Two days in, and the fire was at 5,000 acres with 0% containment.

The dry, windy conditions continued, but were forecast to dangerously intensify on Wednesday – upgrading to a “Particularly Dangerous Situation,” which is a step above a Red Flag Warning. Fire crews were exhibiting grave concern, expecting their inability to stop the progress of the fire on Wednesday, with predictions that the fire could run another seven miles that day alone. Thousands of homes in South Reno were evacuated and thousands more were put on high alert for potential immediate evacuations on Wednesday.

All day Tuesday we heard non-stop air traffic above our town – between the fixed-wing aircraft flying around the fire and strategically dumping retardant and the huge Super Scoopers flying overhead and skimming water off of Lake Tahoe to drop on the Davis Fire below the ridge – it was a busy day.

For about an hour, the four Super Scoopers’ flight path was over our house. Each of the four of them flew in succession overhead about every 10 minutes. Airstrike efforts dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of water on the Davis Fire.

Hwy 431/Mt Rose Hwy, the primary route from our town to Reno, was closed. The national forest areas and trails (including portions of the Tahoe Rim Trail) in the vicinity were closed, as well, and some mountain biker out on a closed trail was nearly killed by heavy machinery that was working on fighting the fire. Herds of local wild horses were seen fleeing the fire. Thousands of residents were displaced, including some of our friends. Most of the area schools were closed for several days.

We prayed and prayed for the fire to be stopped in spite of the terribly dangerous Fire Weather predicted for Wednesday – including wind gusts of up to 70 mph along ridgelines. And because of the windy conditions on Wednesday, all aircraft were grounded. The silence, compared to the day before, was almost eerie.

The Wednesday evening fire update from the crew exhibited nothing short of a divine miracle. As the crews provided fire status and operational updates to the public, they, too, were in disbelief when they announced that the footprint of the fire was held and had not changed all of Wednesday – in fact, crews were even able to achieve 37% containment on the southeast perimeter. Nobody could believe it. The dangerous winds came, the dry air was still present. But by the grace of God, and the hard work of the fire crews, the fire did not advance.

Some people lost their homes and/or businesses – the Davis Fire destroyed 14 structures (including 11 homes and one church) in its path. But it could have been so much worse. On September 25, the Davis Fire was deemed 100% contained after burning nearly 6,000 acres. But it could have been so much worse. Thank God it wasn’t.

TRT: Watson Lake to Tahoe City hike
Total Distance	14.32 mi
Total Time	5:28:13
Total Ascent	1,198 ft
Max Elevation	7,909 ft

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