Mt. Wilson
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I had returned to Kilpacker basin for the Labor Day holiday weekend in 2020 with an extra day off to try El Diente Peak and Mt. Wilson again. I completed the ascent of El Diente Peak on Sunday and was ready to tackle Mt. Wilson.
On Monday I was up again at 5:00 a.m. and hiking, but something was different. It was much harder to catch my breath and I didn't see any other headlamps. I made it to timberline and finally saw why breathing was so difficult—smoke! The whole valley was full of smoke. 
I decided to wait for sunrise to see if the morning winds would clear the smoke away. I enjoyed a pop tart breakfast and watched as the morning winds blew in more smoke. Wait, what? More smoke? Visibility kept dropping, and it was hazy and indistinct just looking at the ridge across the valley.
What really bothered me though was the absence of other hikers. As in nobody. Not a soul. It was a holiday, the trails should have been full of day-hikers and other climbers. I was concerned that I had missed a significant change in the weather forecast (the forecast I saw predicted a storm late Tuesday after I would have already left). Or maybe the smoke was from a local fire, but since the other campsites were still occupied when I left camp, it was unlikely that a Forest Service Ranger had hiked in to evacuate the area and missed my campsite. Continuing to hike would be slower, since it was hard to breathe, so I decided to turn around and try again another day. If I had run into any issues, there would have been no one around for assistance. I got back to my campsite and the visibility was even worse. Looking around, I saw now all the campsites were empty. Where was everyone?
I rested a while, took some pictures, and kept a lookout for other hikers. Then boredom set in. Do I stick with the plan to hike out tomorrow? Or hike out and deal with holiday traffic jams trying to drive home with everyone else? Or hike out today but camp at the trailhead? I finally decided to head back to the trailhead so I could get an early start Tuesday. As I started hiking out, I finally saw some other people out for a day hike. Once I got back to the trailhead, I decided that I might as well start driving home since it was late enought to put me well behind any traffic issues. On the way home it started raining about 11:00 p.m., an hour from home. That's when I heard the forecast for heavy snow in the front-range mountains and possibly eight inches in Boulder. I'm glad I didn't wait and then have to drive through that weather.
Pictures