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It was October of 1996, and my boyfriend Gary and I were on a backpacking weekend date. We planned to hike the Pine Ridge Trail up to the Sykes Hot Springs near Big Sur. It is approximately 20 miles round trip.
Gary and I had been dating a few months. We worked together at an environmental engineering firm. Everybody there was very “campy,” like in terms of enjoying the outdoors, and we all loved going to hot springs. This was just one of the local ones that everybody wants to check off on their lists of hikes that they’ve done.
It was supposed to be just a beautiful, natural hot springs in the middle of nothing. The perfect hippie weekend. Doesn’t that sound romantic? It would have been.
Between a Rock is a Los Angeles Times series that shares survival stories from the California wilderness.
We’d heard in the news that there was fire somewhere in the vicinity, as was normal in California that time of year. But it was small and far away, so we weren’t concerned.
It must have been a Friday afternoon. We had all the gear and parked at the parking lot. The hike has a steep initial incline, and it seems endless. It’s all giant redwoods, and it’s beautiful. There is no visibility of the sky. You can only see up the hill so far or down the hill. It’s mostly a straight hike up and then you’re almost there.
But when we were maybe a mile or so up this hill, we started hearing this strange sound behind us. The sound I really won’t ever forget.
This “oh, cha cha cha, oh, cha cha cha.” We have no idea what it is. We don’t see anything.
I knew running would only make it worse. I had no weapon. I thought, ‘Wow, I guess this is how it ends, I’m only 31.’
We keep hiking. Eventually, we see these guys coming around the corner behind us on the trail with this chant. They’re in yellow hard hats and yellow jackets, and they’re in formation, two by two. It’s like 10 guys, and each is carrying an ax, and they don’t really have anything else.
When they did come by us, we still didn’t understand what they were. It was like, “Is this a fraternity? Who does this?” It was only when they overtook us that we realized these were firefighters marching up the same hill.
When they came upon us, that’s when they said, “You’re headed into a fire zone. We’re going in that direction. You should probably leave.”
We looked at each other, looked at them, and they passed us. They stopped only so long to tell us that. We hesitated. We really wanted to see Sykes!
What to do if you see a wildfire on a hike
But, instead, we [hike back]. There are a lot of fire trucks, a lot of personnel and a lot of people like ourselves. And it wasn’t just the people from the Sykes Hot Springs trail. There’s a lot of very popular campsites in that vicinity. I think Big Basin was right there.
We had been at the campground awhile, and they [announce] they’re evacuating us to Pfeiffer Beach.
So, we set up sleeping bags with what felt like 100 other campers on Pfeiffer Beach.
And about 3 a.m., we were woken up again with the blaring of a blowhorn with an announcement saying, ‘You have to leave this area, we’re using this for staging.’”
They gave us a new destination to evacuate to and wait out the fire. The thought at first from the firefighters was: “We’ll get it under control, and you can leave in an hour.” And then, “We’ll get it under control, and you can leave tonight. [Then] we’ll get it under control, and you can leave tomorrow. And then it was, ‘No, you’re going to have to leave this area.’”
But, it was after 3 a.m., and this city girl was done. We drove to a motel, and that might have been the end of our relationship. We were tired and irritable, and this was the hiking trip from hell. We never saw the fire. We never smelled it.
I wouldn’t have done it now. With age, I’m more sensible.
Wildfires are so scary. [Fire] moves, and it moves quickly. Here in L.A., I have my fire app, and my air-quality app. Now the minute you send me back down, I would have given up. What was this, “No, we’re going to do it at any costs?” We weren’t the only ones. There were a lot of us there. We all had this mind-set of, “We will do it any costs. We will just wait it out.”
A Long Beach couple wanted to visit Lukens Lake, but a sudden shift in weather left them stranded with no overnight gear.
When there is a fire, stay home. Not only for your own safety but to get out of the way of the firefighters.
Gary and I are still friends. We talk about once a year, and we always talk about this hike. Neither of us has ever since tried again to get to Sykes. Someday maybe! But the water isn’t as high as it was back then. It was a moment, and I missed it.
[We] are in awe of this experience and laugh at our stupidity. We lived to camp another day.
Marjorie Almer lives in L.A. managing her family’s property. She enjoys swimming and surfing in the ocean, playing guitar and practicing yoga. She dreams of planning a yoga and guitar retreat someday.
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