Three Fires started a long way from home. It ended close to it.
Trail Feast lives in Liberty Lake, and I grew up in Spokane. So when it came time to light the last fire of the series, it had to be Washington. We just crossed the mountains to the wet side to do it, and set up camp in the Olympic Mountain Range, high enough to look down on the clouds.
Washington film by Carlos Antwuan, CA Films
Getting there
October 9 through 11. If you've spent October on the west side, you know what the sky likes to do, and it did all of it. Guests drove in on dirt roads through cold and wet. Some brought dogs. At least one rode the whole way in the passenger seat in a bandana, looking like it owned the truck.
The ridge made it worth the drive. On a clear morning you could stand at the edge of camp and watch the fog sit on the water below like a second floor.
Oysters in the river
The Hamma Hamma River runs cold and fast off the Olympics. A few miles downstream, the folks at Hama Hama Oyster Farm grow some of the best oysters in the state. So we took the oysters back up to the river they grow on.
We set up on the rocks with the water rushing past and shucked them right there. Then they went onto the fire, roasted in the shell in the Gozney Tread Pizza Oven until they bubbled, and got passed around on trays while the river did the talking. That's about as close to the source as a meal gets.
The fire
The first night was ten courses, all cooked over open fire. Chef Kiefer and I worked the line under the canopy. Plates went out in rows, finished one drizzle at a time. Boards came out stacked with grilled bread, spreads and pungent sauce. Meat came off the bone, got carved with the Benchmade knives and passed hand to hand around the circle. A torch put the last touch on a few courses, right at the table. Drinks got poured into wooden cups.
The menu leaned into where we were. Ash-crusted albacore tuna with seaweed shoyu and chicharrones. A whole lamb off the fire. Steelhead trout with sweet pepper vinegar, finished with flaming bone marrow fat and caviar.
The last stop of a long run has its own feel. You know the rhythm by then. You also know it's the last time you'll set this particular table.
Mornings
Emily Dresser from Do Yoga Outside ran camp as our yoga teacher and camp host. Mats went down on the gravel, and people stretched out the cold and the late night before coffee.
Around the fire
After dinner, nobody went to bed early. Chairs pulled in close, the fire burned down, and the conversations kept going.
Moose Shamandi put it this way: "My favorite part of this trip would probably be having the 10 course meal, the environment, the ambiance, getting to talk and get to know these people you've never met before and become friends. You want this to be a lifelong thing."
He came for a memory, he said. "Not only for just this weekend, but that is going to be for a lifetime."
The log comes home
The peeled log from Dan Pacitti of Rune Mgmt made the trip one last time. Guests carved their names and initials alongside the ones from every stop before, under the Trail Feast and Benchmade marks burned into the top. After four fires, it's carrying a whole season of names home to Liberty Lake.
Three fires, done
Three states. Three weekends. Twenty-four guests at this last table, every one of them holding a Benchmade Bugout knife with coordinates on it. The series is over. The knives aren't going anywhere.
"People are here to build lifelong friends, and they do," Emily said. "The connections that we get to be a part of out here make this event more special than you could ever imagine. It's something that you have to feel."
Thanks to Benchmade for riding along, to Chef Kiefer for every cold morning at the fire, to Hama Hama for the oysters, to Carlos Antwuan of CA Films for catching it all on camera, and to everybody who pulled up a chair.
What's next
Emily said it best: "Come be a part of this. Have conversations that last all night long. Sit around the campfire. I want you to be able to feel what it feels like to belong out here. And you will."
We're planning to double it in 2027. More fires, more places, same long table. Dates are coming. sign up to get on the list below.
