Hiking the Fresno Dome Trail. Smoke in the Air.
Saturday we hiked Fresno Dome in the Sierra National Forest. It was part of our hiking two-fer. After starting the day in Chowchilla, the result of our Friday Night Halfway drive, we drove up into the Sierra foothills, hiked at Angel Falls near Oakhurst, then drove up into the high Sierra to the trailhead for Fresno Dome
This trailhead is a fun jumping-off point for reaching a peak. It's only about a mile each way to/from Fresno Dome from here, and the trailhead is already pretty high in elevation. At around 7,400' here at the trailhead the peak is not quite 300' higher.
Oddly for being at such high elevation already, one of the first things we did on the trail was go squishing through a wet meadow. I mean, you'd think of pooling water being down low, not up high. But meadows are a natural part of the environment, and this one was under snow until not that long ago this year. We marveled at the colorful wildflowers as we carefully picked our steps across it.
With the tough winter weather up here come fallen trees. Heavy snows and strong winds knock them down. Come the spring, rangers and volunteers try to cut away the worst obstructions to make the trail passable again. In a few places we had to climb over fallen trees that hadn't been cleared yet. At times like that we wondered if we were still on the trail.... Then we'd see a spot like this (in the picture above) and it'd be clear that, yes, this is the trail. I mean, sawn logs like these are an even clearer trail sign than a literal sign saying "Trail". 😂
The trail climbs a small rocky dome about 1/2 mile in. You might almost think, "Woohoo, this is it!" And you'd be mistaken. It's merely the point at which you can see Fresno Dome. It looks all remote and forbidding there in the background. We even wondered, "Do we have enough energy to go all the way?" as the thin air up here about 7,500' was starving our sea-level-acclimated lungs of oxygen. But we knew the peak was not as far as it looks, so we continued on.
Where There's Smoke There's Fire. Somewhere.
Another thing you might notice in the photo above is that the sky looks pale. That's because there was significant wildfire smoke in the sky on Saturday. We noticed it as we were driving into the foothills from Chowchilla. The smoke lingered as we drove further northeast up to Oakhurst and grayed out the sky above us while we hiked Angel Falls. "Where's the fire?" we wondered- literally! At Angel Falls a fellow hiker explained that there's a wildfire burning just east of Fresno. That's 50 miles away!
We hoped as we were driving up the mountain to Fresno Dome that we'd get clear of the smoke. That's not a crazy hope; it's a real thing that smoke often hangs lower in the atmosphere, and driving up over 7,000' is often enough to get above it. Indeed there were points on the drive where it seemed the sky was getting bluer... until it got gray again.
With climate change, wildfires are occurring more frequently and also become more severe when they do occur. Part of our surprise about the breadth of the effect of this wildfire, with its 50+ mile radius of smoke, is that we hadn't seen it reported anywhere in the news. Not that long ago a fire like this would be statewide news, even national news. Now it seems we need to look up local what's-on-fire-today conditions the same way we look up a weather forecast. 😰
Keep reading: Atop Fresno Dome & Back Down
This trailhead is a fun jumping-off point for reaching a peak. It's only about a mile each way to/from Fresno Dome from here, and the trailhead is already pretty high in elevation. At around 7,400' here at the trailhead the peak is not quite 300' higher.
Oddly for being at such high elevation already, one of the first things we did on the trail was go squishing through a wet meadow. I mean, you'd think of pooling water being down low, not up high. But meadows are a natural part of the environment, and this one was under snow until not that long ago this year. We marveled at the colorful wildflowers as we carefully picked our steps across it.
With the tough winter weather up here come fallen trees. Heavy snows and strong winds knock them down. Come the spring, rangers and volunteers try to cut away the worst obstructions to make the trail passable again. In a few places we had to climb over fallen trees that hadn't been cleared yet. At times like that we wondered if we were still on the trail.... Then we'd see a spot like this (in the picture above) and it'd be clear that, yes, this is the trail. I mean, sawn logs like these are an even clearer trail sign than a literal sign saying "Trail". 😂
The trail climbs a small rocky dome about 1/2 mile in. You might almost think, "Woohoo, this is it!" And you'd be mistaken. It's merely the point at which you can see Fresno Dome. It looks all remote and forbidding there in the background. We even wondered, "Do we have enough energy to go all the way?" as the thin air up here about 7,500' was starving our sea-level-acclimated lungs of oxygen. But we knew the peak was not as far as it looks, so we continued on.
Where There's Smoke There's Fire. Somewhere.
Another thing you might notice in the photo above is that the sky looks pale. That's because there was significant wildfire smoke in the sky on Saturday. We noticed it as we were driving into the foothills from Chowchilla. The smoke lingered as we drove further northeast up to Oakhurst and grayed out the sky above us while we hiked Angel Falls. "Where's the fire?" we wondered- literally! At Angel Falls a fellow hiker explained that there's a wildfire burning just east of Fresno. That's 50 miles away!
We hoped as we were driving up the mountain to Fresno Dome that we'd get clear of the smoke. That's not a crazy hope; it's a real thing that smoke often hangs lower in the atmosphere, and driving up over 7,000' is often enough to get above it. Indeed there were points on the drive where it seemed the sky was getting bluer... until it got gray again.
With climate change, wildfires are occurring more frequently and also become more severe when they do occur. Part of our surprise about the breadth of the effect of this wildfire, with its 50+ mile radius of smoke, is that we hadn't seen it reported anywhere in the news. Not that long ago a fire like this would be statewide news, even national news. Now it seems we need to look up local what's-on-fire-today conditions the same way we look up a weather forecast. 😰
Keep reading: Atop Fresno Dome & Back Down