One year we hiked into the Enchantments through forest fires; it is strange that the trails were still open. Since the hike in takes two days, we spent one troubled night in the forest with small fires glowing on the ridges around us. Once we were in the Enchantments there was little fuel for the fires and plenty of water. If necessary, we felt we could even move to the upper basin where there would be no chance of fire. In the days that followed, helicopters buzzed about carrying firefighters to, dumping water on and observing the fires. On one of our climbs, we saw a helicopter hover over our camp as we sat on the summit. Returning to camp we found they had dropped a note:

AREA CLOSED - EXTREME FIRE DANGER
YOU ARE TO PACK UP & LEAVE THE
AREA IMMEDIATELY.
CHARLES F. BANKO, DISTRICT RANGER

What the ranger knew, and we did not, was that a major storm was approaching and previous storms had been “dry,” with lots of lightning and no rain. They were concerned that what was already a record bad year for forest fires was about to get much worse. But it was too late for us to start hiking out; if we did, we would be in dense forest as night fell and did not want to repeat our experience of the hike in. We elected to stay where we felt safe – near the water and away from trees, at least for the night. Later, the helicopter returned and hovered over us; we picked up the yellow ribbon from their message and waved it at them to show we had gotten it. The helicopter left with no further instructions. Now they knew where to find us if things got bad.

We were pretty bummed out by this rude expulsion; we wanted to stay longer. Such is the nature of the Enchantments that we did not know how long we had been there. I finally dug into my pack and determined that I had dinner for that night and one for the next day. That night the storm arrived and dumped torrents of rain. It was so wet the next day we decided to hike out rather than spend another day. We arrived in Leavenworth and headed straight to a cafe for our first real meal in a week only to find every restaurant in Leavenworth overflowing with firefighters. The night's storm had extinguished the fires—and their jobs.