Still Beating

Words + Photos: Evan Wishloff

The forest was silent. 

Or what was left of it, anyway.

Scorched tree trunks stood like ghosts. Ash crunched underfoot. 

I was in Idaho at Stanley Lake with local resident, Heidi Dohse, nearly a year after the Wapiti Fire burned over 129,000 acres of the Sawtooth wilderness. She parked her van just off a forest road - her bike on the back, ready to go for a ride.

We were here to see the aftermath of the tragic fire of 2024.

What remained was silence.

Scars.

And a second chance. 

“I went from being an 18-year-old athlete to somebody stranded in the coronary care unit.”

That’s how Heidi Dohse describes the moment everything changed for her four decades ago. She went into the hospital for what was supposed to be a routine knee surgery. She was fit, healthy, and preparing for her next season of sport. But doctors caught something strange.

Her heart was beating at 270 beats per minute. 

They said they weren’t sure how she was still alive. 

It was 1982, and few treatment options existed for her rare arrhythmia. She became one of the first people to undergo an experimental ablation procedure. 

It worked, but not without consequences. 

She would have to depend on a pacemaker for the rest of her life. 

As Heidi adjusted to this new reality, the forest was still thriving. 

Trees grew tall.

Trails cut through alpine meadows.

Riders and hikers passed through without a thought of what might come.

Heidi didn’t think of herself as somebody with heart disease.

Not yet.

“I was just a girl with a bad electrical system. And we fixed that.”

But something quietly brewed, just out of sight. 

On July 8, 2024, lightning struck in the forest northwest of Stanley. 

A single spark.

It smoldered, crept, and grew, eventually becoming known as the Wapiti Fire.

At first, it seemed manageable. Crews kept watch. Containment lines were drawn. Plans were in place.

The same could be said for Heidi. 

For years since her first diagnosis in 1982, life looked stable. 

Work. 

Travel. 

Adventure.

But in 2010, the fire inside her had breached containment. 

Doctors diagnosed her with heart failure. Her condition wasn’t just an electrical issue anymore. It was structural. 

She needed open heart surgery. 

And just like that, the calm turned to crisis. 

For Heidi in 2010. 

And for the Wapiti Fire in 2024. 

It had jumped its lines and was now a raging inferno that threatened the entire valley. 

A few days after what was thought to be successful open heart surgery, Heidi almost bled out. She was rushed back into emergency surgery to fix her heart. 

She hadn’t just endured open heart surgery, but emergency surgery again just days later. 

Heidi couldn’t pretend to be somebody normal anymore.

“I didn’t want to be another sedentary person with heart issues… And I realized, as long as I had a goal, I didn’t have to be a victim.”

Still in the hospital, she set her sights on LoToJa, a grueling 200+ mile bike race from Logan, Utah, to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. 

It was an audacious target for somebody going through heart surgeries and reliant on a pacemaker.

But it was her goal.

Stanley was evacuated.

Smoke poured over the Sawtooths. Ash fell from the sky like snow, blotting out the sun. 

For days, the town sat empty as fire crews dug in. 

They fought for cabins. For homes. For the community. 

While in the hospital, recovering from her surgeries, Heidi’s fight began, too.

Her first workout? A lap around her ward in the hospital. 

As the days wore on, so did the lap tally she kept on the whiteboard in her room.

When she finally got to go home, she did her first bike workout on the trainer.

Four minutes.

For most people, it wouldn’t even be worth putting shoes on for.

But for Heidi, it was everything.

It was movement.

It was life. 

After months of battling the blaze, winter finally descended on Idaho. The Wapiti Fire was finally contained. 

Fire camps were dismantled. Weary, soot-covered firefighters finally got to return home. 

The crisis was over.

Five months after her surgery, Heidi completed a leg of LoToJa.

Eighteen months after her surgery, she completed the race solo.

“When I crossed that finish line, I knew I wasn’t broken anymore. I was more than a heart patient. I was who I wanted to be.”

As Heidi loaded her bike onto her van after another ride through the Sawtooths, she reflected: 

“I ride through the remnants of the Wapiti Fire often. It was a tragic fire, but the landscape will heal.” 

Green has already started to return. 

It always does.

Wildflowers bloom on the edges of the burn. Grass shoots up out of the charred ground. Birds chirp. 

Nature is healing.

Marked.

Scarred.

But still beating. 

“We all carry burn scars,” she adds. “Some seen. Some not. What matters is how we keep going.” 

Featured Gear: Swagman Swivel + Swagman Skaha made Heidi’s trail access and van life setup smoother, leaving more time for the ride!