My hike began benignly, with a boardwalk leading over a wide, tumbling section of Placer Creek. The trail, designed by historian Dick Carron, gently meandered through tall spruce and fir trees. The AllTrails description listed it as a moderate, four-mile hike with a 744-foot elevation gain, and the simple description foretold a change in the story. I was here, in Wallace, Idaho, a town built on the bones of a mining boom and anchored in the story of a man I had only ever met in a book: "Big Ed" Pulaski. The trail ahead, they say, is the same path he and his fire crew fled down, a desperate race to escape the most catastrophic forest fire in American history, an inferno that earned the name, The Big Burn.
A Book, A Man, A Journey
Inside the covers of books lies an opportunity to connect. They drop a pin on your mental map, a place you never knew you had to visit. For me, that pin landed squarely on Wallace, planted by the words of Timothy Egan's The Big Burn. This historical account of the worst fire in American history was also a human drama played out against epic natural forces, depicting the challenges a small group of men bravely faced.
Big Ed Pulaski reached out from the pages of my dog-eared copy, read over and over again, and befriended me, drawing me into his narrative.
Here was one man, who by following his moral code not only saved lives but his actions rippled out to affect countless others. This act of courage in the face of impossible odds echoed my own struggles.
Learning of the historical trail that followed Pulaski’s footsteps, I knew I needed to walk it, to breathe in a now silent air as an act of prayer where once that sky had cracked and burned, and to pilgrimage in the very footsteps of those who faced the unfathomable.
Like life, there is a path that starts in a certain way, only to reveal twists and turns that uncover previously unforeseen challenges. Ed Pulaski knew these woods but could not have predicted the inferno about to engulf them on August 20, 1910. This is why his story captured my heart and my imagination. He rose to a challenge that was unforeseen, and he survived.
The Fire and the Forest
The trail itself is a quiet, deliberate ascent, following the West Fork of Placer Creek.
Climbing slowly up the switchbacks, my quadriceps cramping with each step, sweat mixed with trail dust dripping along my neck and back from the heat, I paused. But I wasn’t thinking about stinging eyes or aching muscles. I was thinking about the various twists and turns of life, and what Ed Pulaski must have experienced during those two days in a raging forest, putting fear aside and survival on automatic.
The air, cool and fragrant, is heavy with the scent of pine and damp earth, a world away from the "hurricane-force winds" that, according to Egan, set off "a veritable red demon from hell." With every step, walking along the creek felt like walking back into history, as if I might glimpse the past around the next corner. The soft path of packed dirt winds through the forest, a thick green cloak that "belies the damage and tragedy of that century-old fire." Even as I stand under the towering new growth, a few charred pillars of the original trees remain as reminders of that fateful day as if tattooed onto the forest floor with « Never Forget » as their slogan.
The book chronicled the challenges these men faced—a wall of fire and their desperate scramble for survival. But the woods, in their quiet way, told a larger story, one of rebirth, of overcoming obstacles, and of doing hard things. Like them, I know about hard things. As a breast cancer survivor, I understand the will to survive, the fight to keep going when the path ahead seems insurmountable. This trail, with its moderate but steady elevation gain, could be seen as a physical manifestation of my own struggle. Placing one foot in front of the other felt like an act of resilience, just as it had been as I went through chemotherapy. Keep moving forward became an anthem of perseverance.
No beeping machines chorused the start and stop of infusions; only birdsong echoed through these Bitterroot Mountains. No astringent aroma
of disinfectant hit my nose, only the simple, sweet scent of the forest floor wafted up to greet me.
As I reached the end of the trail, where the small, dark opening of the Nicholson mine adit sits across the creek, I breathed in the scent of evergreens and slugged down some water. Here, in this tiny, dark space, Pulaski held his crew of 49 men at gunpoint, saving them from the inferno outside. The walls of this tunnel hold a hundred years of silence, a solitary memory of the frantic breathing, the cursing, and the prayers that must have been said inside this belly of the Earth.
The contrast between Pulaski’s rugged, uncompromising actions to save his men and the unforeseen challenges of life, like a breast cancer diagnosis, is not lost on me as I rest on a bench overlooking the adit. Both feel raw, both are about survival. Both require courage in the face of the unknown. Life presents each of us with struggles, but courage is not just about a single heroic act; it also unfolds in the quiet, determined steps we take every day. And in both, we find a way to make it through.
Ed Pulaski saved his men because it was the right thing to do, and by doing so, became a hero. I came to Wallace for a book. Walking the story gives me the courage to step into another day.
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With my view from here,
MaryRose