A week has passed since roughly 150 day hikers were stranded overnight in the Columbia Gorge by the Eagle Creek fire. As they process what happened, at least one hiker is questioning a key decision by officials who orchestrated the rescue.

At the time, federal employees were already in the area to fight the Indian Creek fire and keep hikers away from that blaze.

One of those employees was posted several miles up Eagle Creek trail, to enforce the partial trail closure due to the Indian Creek fire. And after the new fire started on the afternoon of Sept. 2, he evacuated a small group of hikers by walking southeast with them to the end of Eagle Creek trail, at Wahtum Lake.

The large group would exit by the same route, but not until the next day. The 150 hikers spent several hours without any radio or cell phone contact with authorities, until a U.S. Forest Service ranger arrived.

"It just seemed like a huge missed opportunity to have radio contact with ... people who were stranded by the fire," said Sarah Carlin Ames, 53, of Portland. "It was just desperately confusing being there on the ground."

Carlin Ames and her husband, Peter Carlin, 54, are former Oregonian reporters. They were hiking the trail with their three children: Anna, 22, Teddy, 19, and Max, 15.

Stephen Baker, a regional media officer for the U.S. Forest Service, was unable to provide answers because the people involved in the decision were still busy fighting the fire.

"The top priority was just getting everyone to safety and we're really glad that happened," Baker said.

The hikers interviewed for this story described the federal employee as either a U.S. Forest Service ranger or U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service officer, but all said he was stationed at the High Bridge, more than three miles in from the Eagle Creek trailhead in the Gorge, to keep hikers away from the Indian Creek fire. At the time, teams from various government agencies including the U.S. Forest Service had been working on the Indian Creek fire since it started in July.

By the time the Eagle Creek fire started around 4 p.m. on Sept. 2, many hikers had already walked several miles up to the trail closure at High Bridge, then returned to Punch Bowl Falls to cool off.

Among them were Carlin Ames and her family, plus Rob Dones, 28, of Portland and Aaron Hamilton, 25, of Vancouver.

Dones had arrived at the trail earlier in the day with a couple friends, including a woman he met since moving to Portland two weeks ago from California. "I asked her to just show us a local spot to go for a hike, so she took us to the Gorge," said Dones, an Air Force Reserve medic. "It was kind of like my first date with her."

Hamilton and his friend were also relaxing at the waterfall, after hiking to High Bridge, when they saw a column of smoke down the trail. "I wanted to assess the situation myself and see what we were dealing with," Hamilton said.

As more than 100 hikers at Punch Bowl Falls discussed what to do, a helicopter flew above and dropped a canister. Inside, there were two notes. One said the fire was moving quickly and hikers should head toward the Columbia River. The second, scrawled on a yellow banner, said to ignore the first message. "Stay put. We see you. Danger!"A former wildland firefighter, he worked for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources every summer from 2011 through 2016. Based on what he saw, Hamilton was certain: "We could not go through."

Aaron Hamilton, 25, of Vancouver, stands near Punch Bowl Falls with a banner that emergency personnel dropped from a helicopter. The banner held instructions for the hikers stranded by the Eagle Creek fire.

A teenage girl who had cell phone reception called 911 and was talking to a dispatcher from the Hood River County sheriff's office, Dones said. He asked to speak with the dispatcher, to get a clearer idea of any instructions for the group of hikers.

The dispatcher told Dones the group should start hiking up the trail to safety, but didn't say how far that would be. "All she told us was there were going to be 'rangers waiting for you at High Bridge with supplies and they'll hike you out,'" Dones said. It would be their last contact with dispatch; they never regained cell reception.

Dones, Hamilton and a few other hikers took the lead organizing the group and tried to set a calm and positive tone. The group included all fitness levels and ages, including a two-year-old and 10-year-old.

As they trekked up toward the bridge, a Forest Service helicopter tracked their progress, Hamilton said. "That was kind of comforting to me, knowing they've got eyes on us, they know the size of group we're working with," Hamilton said.

Dones, Hamilton and Carlin Ames expected to meet the same man whom they'd encountered earlier in the day at High Bridge, guarding the gate where the trail was closed.

"I just assumed he was going to be at the gate waiting for us," Dones said. "But he wasn't there."

Plus, a gate on the bridge was locked. The group discussed how to proceed, and a couple people familiar with the trail said there was likely only one way a Forest Service ranger would be hiking in to meet them: the Eagle Creek trail, which continued to Wahtum Lake north of Mt. Hood.

They decided to forge ahead, and together they removed the gate. Since they didn't know where the Indian Creek fire was burning, Hamilton ran ahead for 15 minutes at one point to make sure the trail was safe.

A gate blocked Eagle Creek trail at High Bridge, so hikers stranded by the fire had to move it and crawl underneath to escape.

Eventually, around 9:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., they met the ranger who hiked in to meet them. She was identified by The Spokesman-Review in Spokane as Sharon Steriti. Steriti could not be reached for comment but according to Carlin Ames and Dones, Steriti had initially set out to help the smaller group of hikers. Once she was on the trail, fire officials told her she would instead help more than 100 people.

Steriti told the hikers a military helicopter would drop supplies and evacuate a couple of people, including the two-year-old. But it was too smoky and dark for the operation, according to the Oregon Military Department.

Still, the group was happy to have the ranger with them.

"Sharon was so solid, so reassuring," Carlin Ames said. "It was such a relief to have someone with a walkie talkie."

As the group stopped for a few hours rest on the cold ground, with many shivering in tank tops, shorts and even bikinis, firefighters and search and rescue volunteers began to arrive. Soon after dawn, they started hiking the remaining miles to Wahtum Lake and arrived by midafternoon.

Carlin Ames said the lack of information was most frustrating. "It just seemed there was someone making decisions that was in contact with (the man posted at High Bridge) that could have made it go more smoothly," she said. "But hey, no one died."

Hamilton had a more positive take. "Once the game plan was given to us, I was like 'OK, they know people are out here' ... I don't think it could have gone much better. Everyone got out."

This story has been updated to reflect the following correction: an earlier version of this story incorrectly described a military helicopter winch as broken. According to the Oregon Military Department, all their helicopter winches work.

-- Hillary Borrud

503-294-4034; @hborrud