Not Fun Snow Drive - Roaming Together - So Much World, So Little Time

Posted on December 27, 2021March 9, 2022 by jim

a.k.a – This Really Sucks Snow Drive.
This album is out of sequence, but we spent so much extra time driving 5mph through this that I had no time to catch up on the last couple days of photos tonight. I would much rather be de-stressing with a beer than looking at a laptop screen.
Photos are all Colette’s 1920’s camera phone, low quality but they pretty much tell the story.
We did NOT count on a 9,600 foot pass on our route, and we certainly didn’t count on a snowstorm blowing through or 17 degrees. Not sure how we missed that, shame on us.
I wondered why a paved county road would be in such terrible shape, until we rounded a corner close to the summit and saw the broken-down snowplow sitting on the side of the road with a service truck. Mystery solved.
I’ve been in a lot of crazy vehicular situations, but I have never been more nervous behind a wheel than this. Must be getting O-L-D.
When the road signs warn of 10% down grades (500+ foot drop for every mile traveled), and the plow truck hasn’t pushed or salted… Pucker factor of 10. At least if we crash, my butt will be stuck to this seat.
Manual shift, 5-10mph, even with our winter tires and rims on with Continental Winter CrossContact tires, the car’s antilock went nonstop for a good 10 minutes as we skidded around curves and down continuous grades.
If we had somewhere to pull off, I would have put on the chains in a heartbeat.
Colette was smart enough to stare at her phone and make mewling noises like a newborn kitten while we played "what’s the least icy spot in the road". I think she’s over there visualizing the amount of Audi and Pod parts the search and rescue team will be gluing back together down the mountainside…
I’m glad she didn’t count my Gerry-style concatenation of expletives into new words that would make a sailor blush.
The good news – as elevation drops, the temperature goes up, the snow level goes down, and the road start to clear up. We’ll be around to post a real update with better photos tomorrow. Right now we’re busy looking at our routes for the next couple days to make sure there’s none of this nonsense again.