going all out!

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!