The scent of smoke was the first thing I noticed when I stepped out of the tent. Acrid and burning, it hung thick in the air and nearly obscured the rocky cliff face opposite our camp. “I wonder where the fire’s at,” I remarked to Britta. It was our fifth day out of Lima. While we’d had some smokey days before, none compared to this one.

I’d dutifully checked the CDT report of fires and trail section closures back in Lima and knew there were no closures in the area, but just because the trail wasn’t closed didn’t mean we wouldn’t be walking through a haze.

We packed up and headed out. Unlike previous times, our sense of smell refused to adjust to the smoke. There was just too much. The sun rose a brilliant crimson, half hidden by the haze. The sky glowed brown above the faint outline of distant hills. We’d only been hiking for a half hour or so when Britta complained, “The smoke is burning my eyes. And I feel a bit nauseous.”

“My eyes are watering,” I admitted. “You could always wet your Buff. Let it filter out some of the smoke particles.”

Several hills later, Britta had had enough. When the trail crossed a stream, she bent down and soaked her Buff and then positioned it over her nose and mouth. I grinned at her appearance. “You look like a bandit.”

Half a mile later and I wasn’t grinning anymore. A headache was forming deep behind my eyes, and my throat felt raw. I gave in and dampened one of my bandanas, tying it around my face. It was a bit heavy to breathe through, but the relief of clean air was instantaneous. “Now we look like a couple of bandits,” I said wryly.

“Or like we’re on a covert rescue mission,” said Britta. “Or like we’re in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and it’s up to us to save the world.”

“Thankfully, it’s not.”

We gradually walked out of the thickest smoke, and by lunchtime we had both removed our makeshift smoke masks. A haze still clung to the horizon, but the worst was behind us – at least for the day.

Smoke wasn’t our only challenge. The stretch between Lima and Leadore was mostly exposed desert, and extremely hilly. The trail would go up up up and then as soon as we’d reach the top we’d just be headed down again. Good cardio? Definitely. Enjoyable hiking? Slightly less so.

We resupplied in the tiny town of Leadore and headed back out to the trail the same afternoon. The foliage along the trail has started to turn bright shades of red and yellow, and is a reminder that Winter is Coming, and we’re racing it up to Canada.

The trail became much nicer out of Leadore – we were back in trees, and there weren’t the constant ups and downs for the most part. Along the way I saw some enormous elk, a fox, and the shiny black hindquarters of a bear racing madly uphill and away from us. The smoke, however, returned. One night as we set up camp, Britta wondered aloud, “What are the chances that we end up burning to death?”

I glanced around at the smoke hanging heavy in the trees and replied, “Hopefully not as high as it sometimes seems to be.”

Twice we woke up to find ash dusting our tent. Visibility decreased until all we could really see was whatever hill we were on. Surrounding mountains became nothing more than a mirage, and when we were ridge walking anything below us was just a white abyss.

As we got closer to our next town, Darby, we started hearing from other hikers that the trail was closed ahead. And sure enough, by the time we reached town, the next huge section of trail was closed due to the fires, and reroutes were in effect. We now get to enjoy a full 90 miles of highway road walking. There is a bright side: highway walking means we’ll run into towns more often, and as Britta put it, “Ice cream every day!”

It’s never a dull day on the trail.