One Forest Fire Can Ruin Your Whole Day

Saturday, September 2, 2023

What Happened

The past few years in the Pacific Northwest have seen an increase in wildfire smoke that’s drifted into cities and towns and sent air quality ratings skyrocketing into danger zones. This is bad news for everyone, but us lung folks feel it in a different way, i.e., not good. So it was today.

We’ve had a pretty good summer this year, with few days 0f air thick enough to force us inside. But the Camp Creek Fire sure got in the way today. The fire was sparked by lightning in the Mt. Hood National Forest on August 24. When first discovered it was 35 acres; by August 30, it had grown to  almost 2,000 acres with 0% containment.

Thus, smoke.

Ask me how many apps for air quality I have on my phone. (Seven) We’re fastidious AQI checkers around here. Which is why we changed today’s 70 mile route out to the Gorge –and the really big hill I sidestepped last Wednesday– to a route 25 miles south of us, in the spectacular farmland and forest roads of the Molalla River Valley. I was excited. This 75 mile route would have taken us back up the not-uphill (according to my husband– ahem) forest road we’d ridden in early June. I wanted a measure of my increased fitness (because that ride almost killed me in the spring.) (And I almost killed him– Mr. Oh, it’s mostly level indeed.)

Air quality was OK when we started, but I could feel the smoke in the back of my throat. When I noticed my sad right lung had started to ache, it was time to check the AQI again. And there it was: 3.6x the World Health Organization’s designated safe level of 2.5 particles in the air.

Now, this wasn’t going to kill me. But once lungs get irritated, i.e., really ticked off, by all the crud that’s pinging inside them, there’s no telling how long it will take for them to settle down. (Think BIIIIIG temper tantrum.)

Then I began to cough. Again, nothing that would kill me. Just a sign I needed to back off on my exertion level. By then, we’d decided to postpone mature roadside decision-making and ride into the nearest town, grab a coffee, and see if the air would clear and my lungs would settle down.

Nope.

So our 70 mile ride turned into a 31 mile ride.

What I Learned

You’ve heard of doom-scrolling? That horrid practice of sitting up late into the night on your device, scrolling through all the bad news of the world? Today I reimagined doom-scrolling as doom-thinking, a cacophony of anxiety-provoked, fear-fed screeches about the worst outcomes imaginable. But today, just as the chorus of  I’ll never be able to______  started tuning up, I did an Oh shut up,  followed by a Just get over it, and ended with a resoundingly definitive This is just what’s happening today. Look at how beautiful this countryside is! 

And it mostly worked. Except for a jangle of fear when I started pedaling too fast, or got into dread-of-weird-breathing at the top of a long slope upward, I saw what we rode by. I began to realize that fear is what often keeps me on the edge of a meltdown. And as I tried to flex my newly discovered mental muscle,  I realized we could simply try this ride again when the air clears.

Tip: what helps soothe disappointment is dinner at a sweet Thai restaurant.

Oh, and Mr. It’s mostly level studied the elevation chart of the abandoned ride and said, “Oh, look– there’s an elevation gain of about 1,000 feet. I guess it really isn’t level.” Luckily he’s cute when a sheepish look crosses his face.

Thanks for reading. Here’s hoping you have a sweet alternative if you encounter a disappointment today.