13.19 miles of hiking • 2500' elevation gain •
With limited access to the internet, we were having a difficult time in deciding where to hike to avoid smoky conditions. We ultimately decided to hike up to North Lake from the Gilbert TH at the end of Twisp River Road. We were the only ones at the TH around 11:00 am. It was really hot and windy out. I had a bad feeling about this day, and a number of times we considered not doing the hike or even turning around once we got started. We even started out by hiking in the wrong direction, a mile out on the trail that leads to Twisp Pass, even though we had previously hiked that trail and should have known better. We eventually got back on track and made it up to North Lake. We had clear, beautiful skies, and the lake was lovely. I still wasn't feeling comfortable about the hike, so we did not stay long and we quickly hiked back to the TH. When we arrived at the car around 5 pm, after a few moments, we saw a note on our windshield. It was from the forest service ranger advising that a fire was approaching and provided the name of the area of the fire and the name of the road we needed to take for evacuation. Oh my. It was intense for us at that moment. Once we got out the road maps (thankfully, we had a few and a full tank of gas), we located the area of the fire and our route out. We were very thankful for the note from the ranger. When we made it out, we were south of Carlton and Twisp and cars were streaming along 153 to the south. Unfortunately, we were camped along Highway 20 above Winthrop and could not get back there, so this basically ended our vacation. As we were driving south to Wenatchee, truck after truck of brave firefighters raced by us. It was surreal, with smoke from the Twisp and Chelan fires in every direction. Once out of the area, we were really sad to learn that three firefighters had died fighting that fire. We hope things calm down for the Methow Valley area soon. Very sad.
