Escape from the Napa Firestorms

Trip Leaders Build Expectations - On Sunday morning
everybody is looking forward to a great week!

October 10, 2017, San Francisco, CA. I need to record my experiences over the past 48 hours. This week I was supposed to be on a Backroads bicycle trip to Napa and Sonoma valleys. I got in one good day of bicycling and then the "roof caved in" on the vacation.

Some 20 of us began cycling Sunday morning at Yountville Park, at the corner of Lincoln Ave and Washington St. in Yountville – the heart of Napa Valley. It was a warm, calm day with temperatures drifting into the 80s but no significant wind. After a screaming downhill down the Silverado Trail in which the gathering winds were at our back, we began a climb up Buhman Road to the southwest of the town of Napa. A short visit to the Artesa Vineyard – mostly to take pictures of the Carneros viticultural area – was followed by a descent to lunch at the Etude Winery. After lunch we biked from Napa County to a much poorer Sonoma County (based on the distinctive drop in pavement quality).

Passing from Napa to Sonoma counties one encounters a
rapid increase in potholes and pavement cracks.

The view from Artesa Winery looking back at the foothills
of Carneros Valley. 24 hours later many of these hills
were in flames and the view was in smoke.

At the Ravenswood Tasting Room in Sonoma

The weather got much warmer as the afternoon wore on. I maintained a good enough pace to stop for an extended tasting at the Ravenswood tasting room, a mere four miles from our destination. I tasted and bought zinfandels from the maker famous for zinfandel, and two shirts. I also got a chance to circle the Sonoma Plaza, and visit the Old Barracks where the California Republic was declared. 

Our group filtered in to the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn during the late afternoon, and we enjoyed a delightful dinner Sunday evening. There was some discussion of the following day’s ride, which would bring us from the Sonoma valley to the coast through the town of Santa Rosa. We went to bed thinking Monday's biggest challenge would be the long, difficult climb up the Sonoma Mountain Road. 

By about 10PM, the wind really began to howl to the point of shaking the windows. In the morning, as I stepped outside, I immediately smelled wood smoke. Two people walking by said something about Sonoma and Napa being on fire. I grabbed my cell phone and searched for “Sonapa and Noma Wildfires”. I had just woken up, and I was a little disoriented. Tellingly, Google knew exactly what I meant.

As it turns out, the wind caused an explosion of wildfires throughout the territory north of San Francisco bay. One of the largest began just west of the town of Calistoga (where my rental car was parked). This was called the Tubbs Fire. Wildfires are given names based on a geographic feature near their point of origin – in this case a small side road called Tubbs Lane. The wind was from the Northeast, so the Tubbs Fire spread quickly through the remote mountains between Calistoga and Sonoma County. It was believed to have started around 10PM, but by midnight it had reached the northern suburbs of Santa Rosa. There, people woke each other up by banging on doors as the fire moved faster than people could run. There were many stories of people rushing to escape with just the clothes on their back. Two hospitals were forced to evacuate overnight, and there were pictures of patients being wheeled down the street in hospital beds. 

So much for having lunch in Santa Rosa on Tuesday.

The hotel was operating with about half its staff. Breakfast was late and there was no distinction between groups – everybody formed a line. The Backroads leaders were nowhere to be seen during the 7AM hour, but we were fairly certain they were communicating with corporate headquarters and assessing the situation. By text I made sure that we were not required to be packed and ready in accordance with our original schedule, which had the group cycling out of the hotel at 8:30. 

At about 8AM the leaders showed up to tell us that the trip was canceled. We would all be deployed to the places we were supposed to be on the last day. Several of us had cars at the Solage Resort in Calistoga. This seemed to be impossible -- the other side of the Tubbs fire -- but Google Maps indicated that the road to Calistoga (due north of us) was still open.

Not so much.

Route 12, the Sonoma Highway, was closed before Glen Ellen (at Madrona Road)

Our Backroads leader, Lauren, discusses evacuation options with local law enforcement
in the distance by the police car.

It turns out there were several fires to contend with. South of Sonoma, along the north shore of the bay, there was the “37 Fire” that burned the grassland around State Route 37. This closed that major connecting road and escape route to San Francisco. On our way north, long before we got to Calistoga Road (and the Tubbs Fire), we ran into closures due to the “Nuns Fire”. In fact, we ran into the Nuns Fire itself. Billowing smoke could be seen on the hillsides on either side of the road, and a emergency vehicles blocked the road. We were forced to turn around and return to the hotel.

Along Route 37 we encountered the devastation from the early morning "37 Fire"

This was mostly grassland, with some cattle and some burned-out structures.

Some areas were still smoldering.

About an hour later, the 37 Fire to the south had burned itself out. Backroads decided to take us all to San Francisco. Some fast phone calls booked us all at the Hotel Vitale (at a quoted price of $375 per night). The drive there was thankfully uneventful, and we said our goodbyes to the trip leader in front of the hotel.

My problem at this point was that I had travel paraphernalia all over northern California. My rental car was in Calistoga with my bike case. I had my luggage and my bike with me in SF. My reservations and return flights were from Sacramento on Wednesday morning. I had connected with United back in Sonoma and re-booked myself to return Wednesday instead of Saturday.

Backroads told us that those of us with rental cars in Calistoga were expected to wait in SF until the roads opened up. At that point, Backroads would shuttle us north to pick up our cars. I knew right away this would not work for me. I still held hope on Monday evening that the roads to Napa would open up Tuesday, but, I needed a “plan B”.

Plan B went like this: I would take my bike to a bike shop and have it packed and shipped home. I would book a flight late Tuesday from San Francisco to Sacramento. Then I would make use of my reservations for a hotel Tuesday night and flight Wednesday morning. As for the rental car and the case, I had a discussion with Enterprise Sacramento and they agreed that they would retrieve the car when the roads opened. And, when the car was retrieved, the case would be dropped at the desk at the resort where the car was parked. Backroads agreed to take care of shipping the case home.

By mid-morning Tuesday it was clear that the fire situation was getting worse, not better, in Napa Valley. Roads were closing and opening, and the entire situation was unstable. It appeared that the car was safe – the fires appear to be out in Calistoga at the northern end of Napa County. But, two other fires – the Patrick Fire and the Atlas Fire – were blocking the roads up the narrow valley. Plan B was executed without a hitch, and I was back home eating dinner with Robbie Wednesday evening.

Backroads has offered a complete refund, or a credit toward a future trip. Enterprise expects they will eventually recover the car and is likely to add a towing charge. Still, it cost me about $1000 to get myself and my equipment out of town and to get everything back in place.

Or course I view my personal expense and inconvenience in perspective. As we were checking out of the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn, we encountered a couple who had just lost their brand new home in Glen Ellen to the “Nuns Fire”. They got a knock on the door and had to evacuate with the clothes on their back. According to the news there are over two dozen deaths and hundreds missing. The destruction in Santa Rosa is near-absolute. The pictures of burned out neighborhoods look like cities after a World War II bombing campaign. And, some thirty souls (probably more) did not get a chance to escape. If the winds had blown a few degrees further south, my outcome might have been much worse.

It’s difficult to convey the suddenness of this disaster. It was truly a “fire storm”.  Everyone turned out the lights Sunday night thinking Monday would be a normal Columbus Day holiday. The weather service did issue a “red flag” warning because of the high winds and low humidity, but that applied to all of Northern California. There were zero existing wildfires at 9PM on Sunday. By 2AM Monday, major portions of Wine Country were engulfed in flames or wallowing in smoke.

It’s also amazing that I experienced what may be the “last normal day” for much of Wine Country.

The "Last Normal Day" overlooking Carneros Valley
from the Artesa Winery -- now an "evacuation area".

Several of the fires closed roads that we rode on Sunday. The Ravenswood tasting room was closed Monday because of a loss of power, and it was surrounded by tendrils of the Nuns Fire on Monday evening. During the screaming downhill run along Silverado Trail, I remember seeing Chimney Rock and Stags Leap wineries. They are both in the area of the Atlas Fire, and possibly damaged or destroyed. On Wednesday Calistoga was evacuated, and Thursday afternoon the Sonoma Mission Inn closed down and evacuated.

The damage to this tourist mecca may be long lasting. Our evacuation van trip south from Sonoma went through a burned-out wasteland. Several fires are single-digit percent contained. Most wineries have survived the initial few days, but if the winds return and blow the wrong way for an extended time, vineyards, hotels, tasting facilities and other infrastructure will be destroyed.

Smoke from the fires reached San Francisco
on Monday and Tuesday mornings.

Everybody is hopeful that reinforcements arriving Tuesday and Wednesday will help ease the situation, but experienced firefighters say these things last a lot longer than expected. There is no rain or even cool weather in the forecast. It may take years to recover.

I should say thank you to the companies that have helped me through this. Hilton allowed me to make several changes to my reservations past the cancellation deadline. The Sonoma Mission Inn fed everybody Monday morning with a skeleton staff. They worked hard to update open and closed roads, and did what they could for the worst off. Enterprise Rental Car is not charging me for a "loss of use", and they are working hard to recover the car at minimal expense. United kept operating in the smoke at both SFO and SMF airports. And, Backroads made the right decisions at the right time (although a little more help with transportation around their home base would have been nice). 

The Flattest Hundred

Fairfield, CA. Yesterday I finished the flattest and fastest metric century of my career. The Sacramento Century Challenge begins literally in the shadow of the state capitol building, and winds south through the flat delta of the Sacramento River. The only hills were the few times we climbed up from the plane of the farmland to the top of the levy. I think we did that three times..

I Need Some Encouragement on My Diet

It was a bright, cloudless day that began in the 50s and ended in the 80s. We experienced the lightest of wind during the day, and at times it was hard to tell what direction it was coming from.

California highway maintenance crews were repaving one of the connecting roads, and this created a mile-long single-lane road.Thus, on the way out and the way back cyclists would gather at the entry point and chat. It was a unique ability to meet with people (other than the rest stops).

There Were Several "Tree Tunnels"

Most of the delta is farmland, with many vineyards. But, there were several areas where the trees along the road were spared as the land was cleared.

I'll write more, but I wanted to post some of the pictures from the ride before I checked out of my hotel room and lost the high-speed internet connection.  

Our View at the Start and the Finish

It was amazing how I could enjoy scenery with so little hills, but as you can tell, there were lots of neat things to take pictures of:

The morning light through the trees on the river.

The Vineyards

View from the top of the levy to the road ahead.

Bike Virginia

Staunton, VA. We are now four days into the six-day Bike Virginia 2017 event. The weather has been excellent and the cycling, while challenging, is world class. There are hills. On every day on every ride there are hills that are sometimes long and sometimes steep (but never both -- at least so far!). These are the uplands that surround Interstate 81 as it winds South and passes out of the Shenandoah Valley. The first three days were in Lexington, where the Maury River passes under I-81 on its way to a confluence with the James River in Glasgow, VA. Thus, the Maury flows south. The second three days (Monday through Wednesday) were in Staunton, VA, where the North and South rivers flow north to join in Port Royal and form the Shenandoah River.

Both towns are surrounded by hilly farm country, which made for challenging but beautiful days of cycling. The temperatures are in the mid-70s, sometimes warming to the low 80s. From Lexington we rode to Natural Bridge, a rock formation that forms a bridge near the James River and Glasgow. From Staunton we rode to Natural Chimneys, a rock formation in the form of a large chimney. In between there were hard hills and amazing views.

My own experience was triumph. I worked hard to prepare for these days, knowing the hills would be unforgiving and relentless. I'm happy to say that, while I never did the hills fast, I was also never out of breath at the top and never had to stop to rest. I was the tortoise. The hares blew by me on several of the hills, only to stop to catch their breath at the top. I plodded along and waved hello as I rode past. My corpulent frame ensures that nobody catches me on the downhill.

Day One was an approach to Goshen Pass from Buena Vista. The middle-distance route (44 miles) turned before Goshen Pass, and made its way back through the town of Lexington. We rode among the buildings of the Virginia Military Institute, and in the shadow of Washington and Lee University. This ride included grunt-worthy hills all the way to the end, and many of the riders were talking about it for days.

Day Two was a little less challenging. I chose to do the metric century, which brought us south from Buena Vista to Buchanan, Virginia. This meant a long, slow downhill to the James River, and the Buchanan rest stop. It was followed by a long, slow uphill out of Buchanan on the service road on the other side of I-81.

Character Counts Century (Cambridge, MD)

So, as always in these rides, I should thank the organizers and all the volunteers who gave up their time on Saturday so that we could pedal through their town.

Cambridge, MD, Saturday, May 6, 2017. Maryland's Eastern Shore is formed from the outwash of glaciers from the last ice age. There is no underlying rock formation to erode away, and thus no river or stream valleys. It's mostly salt water marsh interspersed with flat, rich farmland. It would all be marsh if it were not for modern drainage systems. As a result, when one plots out the ride on Ride with GPS, the elevation profile is essentially invisible. It hugs the bottom of the graph so much that, at first glance, one wonders if there's a bug in the application.

Wind, however, is a different matter. There is some thought that flat terrain will allow the winds to become more severe. I've done rides in hilly terrain, however, and it didn't seem as if the topography interfered with the wind that much. It is possible, however, that the nearby Chesapeake Bay intensifies the gales because the water and the land gain and retain heat differently.

All this atmospheric physics leads to one real fact on a real bike on the real roads of Dorchester County, Maryland: It was windy! For the first thirty miles we struggled and crouched close to our handlebars as we beat our way south the the 30-mile rest stop. I was really glad I re-rigged my century bike to a dropped-bar configuration.

At 30 miles, however, as everybody was assessing whether they could do all the miles and finish the ride, we took a right turn. That made all the difference in the world.

For a brief spell after the rest stop we had a cross-wind. Then, for the next 25 miles or so, we enjoyed the speed and silence of riding on flat terrain with a steady tailwind. You could hear birds chirp, and cars approach from a long distance. You could hear cyclists behind you having a conversation. The sun came out and we all remembered why we love to bike.

Much of this ride goes through the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge was established in 1933 to protect migratory birds along the Atlantic Flyway. It has been deemed the "Everglades of the North", and designated a "Wetland of International Importance" by the Ramsar Confederation. (I think the Klingons abstained from the vote, however.) It is also home to the largest population of bald eagles along the East Coast north of Florida.

I'm not sure I saw many birds, but I did see lots of trees and lots of water. There were miles and miles of riding in which you could look into forests on either side of the road without seeing a single structure. Forests are nice because they serve to break the wind.

As I finished 60 miles, the noon siren wailed in downtown Cambridge. Timing is everything, and the rain began moments after I stopped. A light drizzle appeared as I climbed off my bike, and by the time I was driving out of the parking lot I had to use my windshield wipers.

About 1000 riders braved the early May chill and wind (and risked getting wet). The rest stops were well stocked and the turns were well marked. At key intersections in Cambridge local police helped separate bicycles from traffic.