Got up a little early and ready to go but it is too dark. Have to wait around for awhile for enough light. Spent some time just looking at the sky and the stars. Always a treat to see the sky in total darkness. Start hiking when there is enough light to see the trail and just before 6, I enter the Norse Peak Wilderness. About 52000 acres and was created by the 1984 Washington State Wilderness bill done under Governor John Spellman.

I don’t hike very long before I enter a zone of utter destruction. This destruction was caused by the 2017 Norse Fire. Started simply by a single lightning strike but ultimately there were 17 lighting strikes. 47280 acres of forest land were consumed by this fire. I end up walking for the better part of 2 days in the burn zone. There is an occasional oasis of trees that somehow escaped the conflagration. I can’t even imagine the inferno that this fire created. Reading posts on the Guthook application from this year one hiker pleaded: Lord please get me out of this burn zone. Another hiker: I hear trees falling all around, this is a killing zone.

I probably had to climb over or go around about 40 trees. Massive destruction. I do hear one tree fall to the ground. Not close to me.

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Hard to get enough pictures of Mount Rainier but you can see the one below was taken from an oasis of trees, through a burn area and reaches out to the mountain.

I pass by a hiker going north and I ask him when I will ever get out of the burn zone. His response: eventually.

I do get to an oasis in the destruction and there happens to be a stream where I can get water and two large camping areas. One close to the stream and one about a tenth of a mile away. I use the one away from the stream thinking it will be less popular. I was wrong. Very soon there were 6 other hikers that decided to camp there. We were tent cheek to tent cheek and two people even decided to just sleep without a tent. Pad and sleeping bag under the stars. The only issue with this many hikers in the same area is that I generally start getting ready at about 4 am. I hate to wake them up but it is almost impossible to pack up in silence. Zippers tend to make a lot of noise especially when there is no other sound. When I got ready for sleep, I noticed I had a pretty nasty blister. It does not bother my walking at all.

• Miles: 14.5
• Steps: 34706
• PCT Mile: 2335
• Elevation: 6209
• Location: https://w3w.co/productions.trout.dressy