It is the summer of 2021, and I am out west for what was meant to be a short stay. But I have decided to linger. I need to see where all the smoke is coming from. Smoke is everywhere, and people are wary. As with the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when the clouds of dust blew all the way from Oklahoma to Washington, D.C., the smoke from this summer’s disasters has blown across the interior, all the way to Massachusetts. By late July, the National Interagency Fire Center’s situation report will have listed a total of 37,009 wildfires across the country, burning almost 3.4 million acres.
Originally, Salt Lake City was my westernmost destination, but I decide to keep pushing it, following the smoke, the region a hazy blur as I drive. A new phrase, heat dome, is on everyone’s lips. This basically describes what happens when warm oceanic air becomes trapped in Earth’s atmosphere by high pressure, but perhaps it is easier to picture a lid being placed over a piece of meat cooking on a kettle grill. We, and the land, are the meat. People keep saying it has never been so hot, and that subjective impression is backed up by the facts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that over “a six-day period during the middle of June 2021, a dome of hot air languished over the western United States, causing temperatures to skyrocket. From June 15-20, all-time maximum temperature records fell at locations in seven different states (CA, AZ, NM, UT, CO, WY, MT). In Phoenix, Arizona, the high temperature was over 115 degrees for a record-setting six consecutive days, topping out at 118 degrees on June 17.”
DAVID GESSNER is the author of 12 books, including Leave It As It Is; Quiet Desperation, Savage Delight; All the Wild That Remains; and the forthcoming A Traveler’s Guide to the End of the World. He teaches at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he founded the journal Ecotone.
Salt is one thing we should still have a surplus of in the future, and here, where the ocean used to be, it is everywhere.
Though extreme, heat in Phoenix is to be expected. But records are also being set in Salt Lake City, where it hit 107 degrees, and in Billings, Montana, where high temperatures averaged 100 degrees for six straight days, reaching a record 108 degrees. There is no relief by the ocean either. During Canada’s record-breaking heat wave, tens of thousands of dead clams, mussels, sea stars, and snails are found on a beach in Vancouver. In the Pacific Northwest, Portland breaks all records, and Seattle, which from 1894 to the present had only three days on record when the temperature reached 100, now reports three days in a row of hitting triple digits. Glaciers are melting atop Mount Rainier, where summer temperatures are normally near freezing, and where the thermostat atop the 10,000-foot peak will register 73 degrees.
The other day, before reaching Salt Lake, I took a hike along the Escalante River. I ran into no one and enjoyed the freedom of wandering by the water while staring up at the great battlements of stone. Above me swooped swallows feasting on insects. I took a break from the apocalypse to birdwatch under the giant gnarled cottonwoods. More swallows, and woodpeckers, towhees, rufus hummingbirds, and a chickadee-size bird I couldn’t identify. They were all that mattered for the moment.
That was what I needed. For a couple of hours, I could believe there were Edens left on Earth, and both this knowledge and the experience itself buoyed me.
But. The inevitable but.
When I was back on the road, the feeling quickly faded. As I headed toward the town of Escalante, the reality of the burning
