We'd driven through the night and staged two cars, with about a 2 hour drive between them, for a through hike.
We both fell in a river within the first hour. I fell first. It seemed to have a thick enough layer of ice to walk across the top, but it did not. Helicoptered out like a cat and between the snow pants and gaiters actually managed not to get wet. He tried another approach, walking uphill to a narrower section and jumping. Landed face first in the river. Kinda wish I'd had the camera ready. We were both fine and carried on. The rain started around noon, and was relentless. 1/4" my ass. I'll need to buy some new rain gear because it did nothing to keep the water out. But we had layers of synthetics and as long as we were in motion, were fine. It was harder to walk in the sludge with rain beating down on our faces, but we carried on. By the time we were at the base of the final peak, which could have been avoided, we decided to go for it anyway. We summited, and were fine. We kept moving. It was cold out, but beneath our layer of synthetics we were sweating.
The adventure started when we got back to the car.
Rain turned to snow. Fast falling snow. Luckily we were in his car with 4 wheel drive, or I'm not sure we'd have made it. Stupidly, our dry change of clothes were in my car.
By the time we were in the car and in motion, there were at least 6 inches of snow on the dirt road, and building. It was hard to see where the edges of the road were, but I'm pretty sure that I would not have driven off of it. Unfortunately, I was not the one driving. Flash of panic. Now we've been sitting for 20 minutes. In our drenched clothing. With the heat on full blast. We're going to die. How far along was the last house? Pretty far, I think. It's -10 degrees out there. How much gas do we have? We'd be better of naked. What were we thinking leaving our clothes in the other car? Obviously we weren't. Ok, we have to do something.
I don't know why the first thing we tried was having the girl push. But that's the way it usually was. He'd get us into a mess and it'd be my responsibility to save the day. Perched on a tree above a rushing river, pushing his kayak out from under it with my feet because he thought he could jump it. Yeah. So we were getting nowhere with him steering and me pushing. The edge of the road was a ditch filled with muddy water. I don't even know how deep, but this is a small car without much clearance. 4 wheel drive but low to the ground. I started collecting sticks. Getting colder and more and more worried. Forcing sticks under the tires. Why am I the one outside? Put them behind the wheels, behind! Maybe we can reverse out the way we came in. Get out here and help! I convinced him he was stronger and we switched places. He pushed from the front and I reversed out. Tires spinning and ohmygod friction! I'm moving, ohmygod we're out ! We're on the road! Get back in here!
I stayed in the drivers seat. Took it slowly and carefully, down the very center of the dirt road. The sun was up before we made it to pavement, but we made it to pavement.
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