Fire, Fire on the Mountain

Bell’s Canyon has been a personal favorite of mine for quite some time. I can remember many childhood camp-outs and hiking to Lone Peak (the tallest peak nearby.) This canyon also provides some great climbing. While spending a night up there to climb the Middle Bell Tower I woke up having a hard time breathing, didn’t think much of it until I woke up again to a loud mechanical noise. When I got up to investigate I discovered there was a massive fire one canyon south of us and the entire area was under a dense cloud of smoke. The forest service was on top of it by helicoptering buckets of water from the lake we were camping nearby. Good thing I had my camera, needless to say we didn’t make it to the climb that day.