We hiked up China ditch in the Wilson Crk drainage. We had to hike in 1 1/4 miles to the trailhead, the two-rutter was eroded out from the Soda Crk fire. 330,000 acres burned last year and it torched every inch here.
The mining barons contracted (enslaved) Chinese labor to channel the tributary creeks down to hydraulic mining sites downhill by the Snake river. The ditches eroded and the BLM finished filling in and made a great hiking trail.
The amount of hand labor that went into the excavation and the stacked rock walls is amazing. A lot of the 1880 rock work is still intact and supports the trail.
I thought I was a hard worker. I thought I had worked my ass off on the rigs, on my own land, these people worked at a level that I can't imagine.
The Soda Creek fire burned over 53 square miles, an irregular amoeba on the BLM maps. Down to the irrigated flats near the river and all of the sage brush foothills and canyons for 40 miles.
We drove up a little ways on our side of the valley one night last summer and could see the fire 20 miles away, half the horizon in flames.
Below shows the inferno along Wilson Creek. It burned every molecule, even the stumps.
In some of the SW exposures the landscape seemed almost Martian, only dirt and rocks.
It was a good hike, humbled by the power of natural fire.
Jennifer had an appointment so we hauled ass out and made it back to Eagle by 3:30.
The nice thing was the green sprouting....life again...nature responds.
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