Trip to Kermit’s, Part 1: The Drive During Which We Almost Died

A few months ago I decided it was about time I paid a visit to Kermit and her family.  They moved to another state about a year before ODD and I moved back to Utah from California and I had yet to see where she was living.  I figured last week would be as good a time as any with ODD’s fun ER rotation.  My sister, Teeny, was having her spring break from school that week so I asked if she wanted to come, too.  We decided to make a road trip out of it and planned to leave on Tuesday.

On Monday it snowed.

I know.  It’s April.  Welcome to freaky Utah weather.  It snowed on Easter, too.

So on Tuesday morning I checked the weather.  It was still stormy but no longer actually snowing where we live so Teeny and I said a prayer and away we went.  We made fairly good time but after a couple of hours there was a deceptive road sign which, coupled with some odd google maps directions, led us down a wrong road.  We didn’t realize we’d gone off our path for quite a while so on our way back to where we got off we decided to take a different road that would meet our path again farther down the road.  It was a state road we found in our atlas and as we began traveling on it we realized it went over a mountain (the atlas was not topographical).  The farther and higher in elevation we went the worse the roads got.  We quickly went from dry roads to snowpacked ones.

Teeny took this before we got to the bad roads.  Not too bad.  At least you can still see the road here.

Occasionally I would have a moment of white out and it was rather miserable.  As we reached the top of the mountain the wind began whipping snow everywhere.  I took the turn the atlas told me to and after two minutes it was just too, too dangerous to continue.  I couldn’t see anything.  There were flags on the sides of the road that were almost covered in snow and they were the only thing I could rely on to keep myself on the road.  It was a complete and utter white out.  The wind was insanely rough.  While driving on both of these roads we saw only one other vehicle and it was a snow plow.  We saw it right after we turned around to go back the way we’d come.  I thought I could drive in the tracks it left but the wind was so bad the tracks were covered by snow, literally, within seconds of being plowed.

I’d never seen snow like that before.

And, believe me, I’ve both seen and driven in some serious snow living in northern Utah most of my life.

So after conceding it was far too dangerous to attempt we turned around to go back the way we’d come.  I was going a max of five miles an hour because of the wind, snow, and visibility yet when I went to turn back onto the road we’d just turned off of the car began sliding and I had absolutely no control.  Not only were we sliding but with the wind and our weight we actually seemed to accelerate.  I steered the best I could to prevent us from hitting anything but regardless of my maneuvers we didn’t stop until we plowed directly unto a huge snowbank.  A spray of snow cascaded over our windshield as we finally ground to a halt.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life.

Miraculously we missed a stop sign by a couple of feet.  After making sure everyone was okay I tried to back out of the bank but the car wouldn’t budge.  We’re talking about my four-wheel-drive Subaru Forester here.  Did I mention the snow was like nothing I’ve ever seen before?  Yeah.

Thankfully I was able to open my door enough to squeeze out into the blizzarding snow.  Teeny’s door couldn’t open at all because of the snow.  With only my hands I dug some of the frigid snow away from the back tires.  I was so full of adrenaline I didn’t even feel the cold and wet.  After clearing a little snow I tried to back out again.  No go.

I had Teeny climb over into my seat and give it a try while I climbed around to the front of the car and pushed.  Nothing.

Trying to remain calm, I climbed through the snow around to the back of the car again to do a little more digging.  Teeny climbed out through my door and joined me.  Together we hugged and said another prayer.  We thanked Heavenly Father for keeping us all safe and asked Him to help us get ourselves out or send someone by who could help us.  After closing our prayer we turned to start digging at the snow again.  Within thirty seconds a huge plow rumbled toward us.  We stood up as it approached and it slowed.  The man driving saw we had a problem and joked that we weren’t driving a snowmobile.  I replied with, “Oh!  Why didn’t anybody tell me that!”  It was nice of him to lighten our mood.  He told us to get back in the car while he cleared some of the snow away then he would pull us out.

Back in the car we talked to Peanut about what had happened and I said another prayer of thanks.  After a few minutes Snow Plow Man came over to one of our windows and said he was about to hook our car up so he could pull it out and gave me some instructions.  We had been stuck pretty good and even with all our digging I don’t know if we’d have been able to get ourselves out.  In conversing with Snow Plow Man we found out the mountain had been pounded with snow for the last two days and the snow plows were having a hard time getting around because of it let alone any other cars.  Had I not been confronted with almost being killed I would have thought to take a photo of our predicament as well as the spot we were pulled out of.  As it is I will never forget what it looked like.

Once we’d been pulled free Snow Plow Man watched to make sure we were safely on our way.  We slowly snaked our way back down the mountain until we reached dry roads again, then went all the way back to where we’d turned off our planned path to continue that way.  Even that way we had to go over another mountain and the wind and snow were awful, though not nearly as bad as on our little detour.  At the summit I was so sick of being blown all over the snowpacked road I called my dad to have him check how much longer we’d be in such bad conditions.  If it was much farther I was going to turn around and try another day because I’d had enough.  He assured me in only a few miles the roads would get better.  We pressed on and within 15 minutes, much to my relief, we were driving on dry roads again.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful.  We lost a couple of hours with our “shortcut” and didn’t make it to Kermit’s house until nine or ten with all our potty/nursing stops.  Around Moab Teeny took a turn driving but after hitting a town with a million stop lights she asked for a rest.  She’s still learning how to drive a manual transmission so all the stop lights were giving her anxiety. The kids were such troopers.  Wingnut napped on and off, Peanut didn’t need the DVD player until we were over halfway there, and I didn’t get any speeding tickets along the way.  We were all glad to be escaping the spring snow storms in favor of 70 degree weather.  Our faith was strengthened and we’re grateful we made it to Kermit’s in one piece.