By the time long-distance hiker Derek Hu reached Washington’s Stevens Pass on the Pacific Crest Trail, the engineer from Taiwan had crossed 2,467 miles of mountains, snowfields, forests, and deserts, starting at the border with Mexico.
Smoke from the rapidly growing Little Giant Fire, just northeast of Stevens Pass, had led some hikers to abandon their quest to walk from Mexico to Canada along the West Coast’s mountainous spine.
“The Stevens Pass is very smoky,” Hu said. “Some of the hikers, they just get into the Stevens Pass and then they turn back because of all the smoky air.”
But Hu continued into the jagged North Cascades…