A long time ago, my brother jake called
me into his room. When I walked in, he pointed to a new poster he
had on the wall. This poster was a map of all the major ski resorts
in the united states, and it had informations about each resort. As
he was pointing to the map he looked at me and said “so what do you
think?” I told him it was a cool looking map, to which he replied
“ we should try and ski as many of these as possible (by ski I mean
snowboard). I looked closer at the map and started to list off all
the ones I had already been to, which was a small number when
compared to how many were on the map. We both decided that would be
a pretty sweet thing to attempt.
Now fast forward a couple years. At
the time, my brother was living in las vegas, and I was living in
southern california. He calls me up one day and tells me that he has
a plan. He knows that I am coming up to visit in the near future,
and pitches the idea to me that when I am up there, we should hop in
his car early one morning and drive to the Elk meadows resort in
utah. we can snowboard all day, and then drive back that night. Plus
he gets an awesome student discount there! Since I am never one to
turn down adventure, I tell him that I am in. over the next couple
weeks he finds out all the important info, like how to get there
(this was before the days of everyone owning gps and navigation
systems) and how much it will cost. We got up early on the morning
we had planned to leave, and loaded up our snowboards, some fat kid
snacks, and also some snow chains just in case the roads were bad,
and then we were on our way in the smooth blue 84 volvo. Now this
car was a typical “first car”. Seems like we worked on that car
all the time and by work on I mean search all over the county to find
almost non existent parts that were over priced. There was almost
always something wrong with it whether it was the constant oil leak,
or broken sensors or pcv needing replaced. My brother used to joke
that the only way to fix everything on his car was to just turn the
radio up till you couldnt hear any of the noises. All in all a good
car to learn that cars are lots of work. So there we are making
good time flying down the road, jake behind the wheel, and me leaning
over making sure to keep the wires hot wired together. ( another one
of the peculiarities of this car was the overdrive would not stay in
gear unless someone physically held the wires coming out of the
center of the stick shift together. This became the passengers most
important job when on the highway) we made great time getting to
utah, and soon began our ascent up the windy mountain roads to the
resort. The roads were clear, so we were doing about thiry five miles
an hour around the switchbacks, when all of a sudden we lost traction
and began to slide. The car suddenly learched forward once the rear
wheels cleared the black ice, only we were no longer facing the same
direction that the road went. We shot forward into the giant snow
burm on the side of the road. Upon impact we didnt stop, but rather
were launched up and almost completely over it. Snow came flying over
the windshield so that neither of us could see, while all our stuff
in the back seat came flying forward. When we finaly came to a stop,
the car was no longer in the upright position on the wheels. It was
not completely on its side, but pretty darn close. My brother opened
his door till it hit the ground and then sorta fell out of the car.
I pushed me door open and then held it in place so it would not come
crashing back down on me as I attempted to exit the car like I was
leaving thru a hatch in a submarine. As soon as I stepped off the
car into the snow I sank up to my thighs. I made my way back to the
road where both of us stood staring at the car in disbelief, jake
just smiling away the whole time. Our first reaction was the typical
“holy crap I cant believe that just happened!” and was shortly
followed by, I hope this doesnt ruin our trip. After a few moments
we both begin trying to figure out how we are gonna get the car back
to the road. We grab the chains out of the trunk and begin putting
them on, only to discover that since the back right tire is in the
air, it spins while the other one remains motionless. We figure
people get stuck all the time, so the resort should have a tow truck.
Jake starts heading up the road to the resort. After a few min I
see a tow truck driving by, he slows down when he sees me on the side
of the road next to the car. By this time, jake has returned to the
car and is in good spirits at seeing the truck. The guys asks if we
need help, and of course we admit that we do. While he is hooking his
truck up to the car, he tells us that we have made it farther up the
snow burm than anyone else he has seen, to which jake replies without
missing a beat “if your gonna do something, might as well go all
out”. The tow truck driver laughs as he climbs back in his truck
to pull us out. About this time another car comes driving by. As
they roll down their window and slow down to make sure we are
alright, we make sure and let them know that we now hold the record
for distance off the road up the burm. They just shake their heads as
they drive away. Eventually we are back on the road and continuing
up the road to the resort. We have a great day of snowboarding, and
get in some good practice working on 360's and 180's. Sometime in
the late afternoon we decide we should probably start heading back.
We get in one last run, then load up our gear in the car. We do a
quick once over on the car to make sure nothing important is falling
off or destroyed and then we headed back out on the road. Everything
was smooth sailing till we got a little ways past st george. We
managed to get to the winding canyon road at the same time the sun
was sitting a little ways above the horizon which made it impossible
to see the road ahead of us. Normally this wouldnt be too big of a
concern, except that there are huge drop offs that lead to certain
death. We tried using the sun visors, and our hands to block the sun,
but it was of no use. I looked out my side window and tried to keep
an eye on the lines in the road while jake hugged the inside and used
the bumps on the side of the road as his guide. My eyes were strained
for what seemed like forever tyring to keep track of the road, before
we finally made it out and were able to finish our drive. What a
great trip!
