One hiker's eerie night trekking past a North Cascades wildfire

Mike Campos emerged from days of backpacking across the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in north-central Washington to learn that a spreading wildfire had blocked off a 40-mile stretch of trail between him and his goal of walking to the Pacific Ocean from Montana.

Campos is what’s known as a “through hiker”: somebody who hikes the entire length of a long trail.

You might have heard of people walking from Mexico to Canada on the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail.

Mike Campos has done that walk, and the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail, and, most recently, the 1,200-mile Pacific Northwest Trail from Glacier National Park in Montana to Cape Alava at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula.

“I think I just passed 13,000 miles in the last six years,” Campos said during a trailside interview in September in Olympic National Park, more than 1,000 miles from where he started walking in June.

For the past six years, the nomad raised near Houston, Texas, has worked seasonal jobs near national parks to save up enough to hit a trail again.