Granite Mountain Wildfire?
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From the pictures, it looks like the fire is smack dab in the middle of the Granite Mountain climbing areas. |
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Looks pretty freakin close to me, but they said it was moving west... Started west of the main wall too. |
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As of about 8pm the fire reached the top north ridge on GM. I believe it was at about 5,000acres at the time too. The wall proper and approach from the south isn't touched (yet) but the fire started on the south and has swept around to the north and west sides of GM. |
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Recent Heatmap from this afternoon.. looks like it went right up and over the wall?? |
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Wow, I really hope that map isn't correct. From the looks of it over there the fire was on top of the wall, but not at the base. I guess we'll just need to wait until access is allowed and check it out for ourselves. |
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What a bummer. Do they still think natural causes? Rock slide with sparks? |
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eerily reminiscent of what Hayman did to Sheeprock about 11 years ago. Hopefully it doesn't get that bad. |
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Stupid humans. |
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Updated Info on INCI. |
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like mentioned above, the silver lining is maybe this will clean up the approach and descent. |
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That is a really good point, I'm curious myself. However if it's bad enough up there the rock might need the extra month(s) of monsoonal rain to wash off the char anyways before it would even be climbable (presuming the falcon closures get lifted)...man, I really hope it isn't that bad. Such. A. Bummer. |
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I was mountain biking today a brought a camera along to get some images of the fire, from this view it looks like the main cliff/front porch area is safe for now, but the summit is getting torched |
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I hate to see that great ancient old juniper tree on top of The Crawl damaged. Always enjoy walking by that old guy on the way down. |
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Paonessa, |
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I took those pictures on Thursday afternoon but I heard from a few folks that watched the fire on Thursday night and saw it crawl out of the top basin and possibly down near the right side of the main cliff, I don't know how true this is or how much has burned in that area but hopefully the damage along the cliff and front porch area will be minimal. |
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Sorry to bear bad news, but it looks like the climbing area was fully engulfed early on (before Zach's photos above). I found this image on Flickr Granite Mt fire on Wednesday June 19th - you can see a bit of smoke still coming from burning vegetation from above and to the right of the crag in Zach's pic. The thick plume coming from both sides of the Flying Buttress has me particularly bummed about the condition of the Classic, Coke Bottle, and the Front Porch area in general. Now the hope is that the fire wasn't too hot under most of the crag when it burned through, but the Forest Service infrared data aren't promising. |
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That image taken Wednesday is heartbreaking, it looks like the whole Mountain is going to be quite a different place. This whole event is very unfortunate, having been caused by the negligence of one or several very stupid people who couldn't tell that it hasn't rained in a while. |
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Further update from the Prescott Daily Courier, based on insight from hotshots on the scene and afterwards: |
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Thank you for posting all of that information Larry. I should have cited that quote I sated earlier from The Prescott Courier about the Juniper so others could confirm which one it was. |
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Yikes, this is all really sad. Just 10 days ago I was thinking that I should go up and check out Granite Mountain; I haven't been up there yet since moving here 2 years ago. |
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Has anyone been up to the front porch to see the damage yet? If anyone has pictures of it please post! Heartbreaking to think one of the finest climbing areas in the country went up in flames. just hoping someone will post a photo showing that the rock didn't take too much damage and is still beautiful and climbable. Always thinking of you Granite Mountain |