Smoke and Fire...

Another windy day... it blew like stink all day. The weather weasels were predicting wind 6 - 8 this morning... it was 28 gusting to 35. Not even close.

Fortunately, the passengers had a spirit of adventure and a sense of humor. I let them know before we boarded that there was going to be some wave action and spray; “Nothing scary, just a bit of wind and some waves. These boats are built to handle this mountain weather.”

It was plenty busy all day. When I stepped out of the office after checking weather before the sunset cruise, I was surprised to see some smoke coming over the mountains... “Hmmm; something must be burning in Idaho.”

We loaded passengers for that cruise and headed into the 2 -3 foot waves. As we came out of the protected bay, I could see a slight plume of white smoke - not the stuff that was coming over the mountains. When we got south of Elk Island, we could see that it was coming from an area between Bear Paw Bay and Jenny Lake. I called it in on the radio to have the information on the location forwarded to the NPS.


The wind really kicked up as we headed for the western side of the lake; I estimated gusts over 45 mph. The wind was blowing the tops off the waves. The boat, crew and passengers handled it fine. In the hour and a half we were out, the smoke in the sky magnified exponentially.
Here’s how the sky looked in the marina area...


No idea where the fire is located; since it is coming over the mountains, I’m assuming Idaho.