Aborted hike

I had planned to skip this Saturday's hike since Brian and his brother from Minnesota are coming for a visit starting on Sunday.  However Patti tempted me with a hike I could not refuse.

Cabin Lake/Four Lakes Creek/Cube Iron Pass in an 8 mile loop with optional scramble up Cube Iron mountain.

How could I refuse?  The hike had:

1. lakes
2. mountain pass
3. mountain top
4.  loop,   and
5. was in a location I has never hiked, or had driven in Montana.

 I looked on Google Earth and was sold:   (the white line on the right side is the forest service road to access the trail head)

We all made plans for an early start on Saturday morning as the drive would be well over two and a half hours one way towards the Idaho border.  Friday night I read some news articles before going to bed and fortunately discovered an article about two fires near Thompson Falls totaling over 800 acres near where we planned to hike.

The Thompson River Complex is a group of four fires which started Friday, August 1st and are burning approximately 6 miles east of Thompson Falls, Montana. The Spruce and Spruce 2 fires merged on Thursday, August 7th and are burning in the Spruce Creek drainage. Those two fires will now be referred to as the Spruce Fire. The Koo Koo Sint fires 1 and 2 grew together on Wednesday and are burning in steep, canyon breaks north of Highway 200, east of Thompson River and south of Koo Koo Sint ridge. Those fires will now be referred to as the Koo Koo Sint fire.

A major concern for the departments involved is Highway 200 and the potential of rolling debris from the Koo-Koo-Sint fire to interfere with traffic.

Uh oh.  I checked and found the fires were near the road we would take to hike to Cube Iron Mountain.   The Spruce fire is approximately 8 miles north of the Koo-Koo-Sint fire.

Then I discovered:

Yesterday forest road No. 603 was closed in the West Fork of the Thompson River drainage, where the Spruce fire is burning.

 This is the road we would travel on between Hwy 200 and Cube Iron Mountain.

So, our wonderful hike was canceled.  It doesn't look like we will be hiking here anytime soon:

According to Randy Hojem, district ranger for Plains/Thompson Falls area, the community should expect to see smoke and fire activity through the months of September and maybe even into October.

“What it’s going to take for both of these fires to go out is a season ending event,” Hojem explained. “We’re going to have smoke in the air here until September and October most likely.”