Damn Fools and Bad Roads

What the hell is a shirtless dude doing standing in the middle of a snow-covered road up at 9,000 feet in the Bighorn Mountains?

It was an excellent question, not one that Andrew had much time to think about from behind the wheel of his Suburu Outback, which he was revving through the snow directly at him.

The guy didn’t seem particularly worried about the thousands of pounds of metal hurtling in his direction. Instead of jumping the hell out of the road, like most people would, he stood his ground and waved his arms at us to stop.

Andrew hit the brakes and the guy moved to the driver’s side to talk.

 “I need you guys to help,” he said. (Or something to that effect, since I don’t remember our dialogue verbatim).

 “My pickup got stuck in the snow a couple miles up the road and I left my coworker there.”

He thought we might be able to help dig and push him out of the rut.

The man’s face was broad and ruddy. He was carrying some extra pounds on his frame — made all the more apparent by his shirtless state of affairs. The run down the road got him panting and his cheeks and torso were flushed red. I’d have pegged him at maybe 40.

The dude’s appearance was an unexpected development in our plans, which were already starting to look doubtful. Andrew and I had decided to West Tensleep Trailhead and snowshoe into the base of Cloud Peak. If things went well, we could maybe, just maybe, get to the summit.

This was the first time I’d seen Andrew for over a year, in which time he had been a ski instructor in Maine and then thu-hiked the Appalachian Trail. Now he was driving west to a new ski job in Salt Lake City, a journey that brought him through my neck of the woods. I was determined to give him taste of the Wyoming mountains I’d been playing in since I’ve seen him last.

What I hadn’t counted on was the dirt road to the trailhead being totally screwed the way it was.

We were perhaps three miles out from Highway 16 and it was already looking unlikely that we would be able to drive the full nine miles to the West Tensleep Lake where we planned to start our hike from. The deep snow on the road meant that the only way to travel was to stay within the ruts made by previous vehicles. It was no easy task going uphill, and when the ruts weaved crazily to the left and right.

I had to admit that it would have been too much for my Mazda Protégé, but even Andrew’s Suburu was struggling to keep on track. It was getting bad enough that I was ready to suggest that Andrew turn it around so we could try our luck somewhere else.

 Now we had been recruited to some kind of rescue mission for the pickup and some unidentified coworker (is this some demented form of corporate team building?) The coworker was a woman, but I didn’t inquire about any relationship status. 

Oh and there was also something about a snowmobile with a torn belt that he had left even further up the road from the truck. He’d run the truck off the road in a failed attempt to rescue it. It had been a busy day.

My first suspicion of a shirtless dude who neglects to move out of the path of a speeding vehicle is that alcohol may be a factor. He didn’t seem drunk though, maybe a little strange. When I asked him why he was going with no shirt, he said that he had removed it because the run had overheated him. First he had thrown his parka to the side of the road, which struck me as less than brilliant.

I figured that Andrew and I would have to drive the guy back to Highway 16 and then somebody with a tougher, more redneck vehicle would roll through to bail out his truck and his friend.

But Andrew thought he could punch through with the Subaru.

We couldn't put our new passenger in the back because it was jammed with the stuff Andrew was moving to Utah — our gear on top. We ended up jamming the guy into the front with us (at least he still had a shirt to put on) and hit the gas.

The engine revved and the tires spun helplessly in the snow.

Of course the guy had to stop us right in the middle of an uphill pitch where we really could have used the forward momentum.

Now we were stuck too.

“Man, I hate Wyoming,” the guy said.           

The two of us got out and pushed for all we were worth, enough for Andrew to rev his way to the top of the hill where we got back in.

I made sure to take the passenger seat where I could buckle up. Yeah, we were doing the guy a favor; but all things considered, I’d rather not be the one who went face-first through the windshield if things stopped suddenly.

The wheels started spinning again and the engine revved to about where it would be if we had been drag racing at 120, with the tachometer well to the right side of the dial.  It was barely enough to get us moving forward.

But forward was forward, and we were good for the time being.

The guy between Andrew and I talked non-stop, describing the chain of misfortunes that led up us finding him.

 “Oh yeah,” he kept saying. The way he said it made it sound like he was lecturing us.

 “Oh yeah.”

All the while, the engine roared. A smell like hot plastic or burning oil filled the car. We were going at about 30 now, which is hella fast for taking on18 inches of snow over a twisting roadway. Andrew had to go fast enough to get through ruts and go up slopes, but not so fast that we would skid out on one of the many tight turns on the road ahead.

To make matters worse, the ruts went all over the road, often in multiple sets, and Andrew had to jerk the wheel this way and that to stay on course.

Every other minute Andrew would let out a curse as he struggled to steer the car through the snow.

Then we careened around a corner and skidded sideways.

Andrew let off a stream of profanity then managed to rein the Subaru in and get us back to the ruts. 

It was a good save, and soon we were off and running like a demented sleigh ride.

Then there was a steep uphill, with even more confused ruts.

The engine roared. The wheels kicked up plumes of snow behind us. It was no good.

Andrew turned off the engine and we all got out. I had brought a snow shovel, which he used to start digging. I spent my energy kicking down the ruts, sending sprays of snow into the trees by the roadside. After about five minutes, we had enough of a starting ramp to try going forward again, with plenty of pushing.

We made about 20 feet of progress before Andrew got stuck again, then backed it up once more.

Finally, he got enough traction to get going and we let him roll up the road so we could catch him up somewhere more convenient.

As we walked, the guy continued to talk about all his bad luck, elaborating to include trouble with family, the law and severe depression. Some people just love to share. I was a little wary of the guy, but decided we were still obliged to try to help him. I didn't see a concealed carry strap, and figured Andrew and I could take him if he started going all Deliverance out in the woods. He seemed OK overall but just a bit eccentric and I'm sure many a wanderer who encountered my wild-bearded visage in the woods would think the same.

After we got back in the car, it was excruciatingly slow going next couple of miles, with plenty of other opportunities to push. Again and again.

Finally we rounded the corner to a nice straightaway. A little further up, and we came to the guy’s pickup.

He had tried to gun it up a hill and got stuck it the deep snow on the side of the road. A short, rotund woman got out of the cab.

“Thank God!” she explained upon seeing us.

We tried the out best to be the rescue team she thought we were and started kicking snow away from the truck with our boots (the snow shovel had broken at this point. ) Finally, the guy got into the cab and with Andrew and I pushing, he managed to get out.

He wasn’t finished though. The crippled snowmobile was still up the road. The woman got back into the truck with him and he rolled it back down the hill. When he reached the flat he gunned the engine again, and took tore back up the hill.

Andrew and I heard the sound of the truck skidding and revving through the pines. It sounded like he got stuck more than once, but managed to escape each time.

Getting the car started (second day)

Now that we had bailed the guy’s ass out of trouble, it was time to figure out what we wanted to do.

We were probably about a mile from the Tensleep trailhead, and already spent a couple of hours extra driving in this far.

I suggested that we just park here and hike the extra distance. Either way, it wouldn’t be too many hours until dark. With any luck, we’d be able to moonlight it to Misty Moon Lake and make an attempt on Cloud Peak by the morn.

But Andrew wanted to try the rest of the road. I shrugged and got back in the car.

Things went well for the first 10 seconds or so. Immediately after however, we found ourselves skidding to the side of the road. The car veered helplessly into a snowdrift.

We had made it, perhaps 20 feet further than the pickup truck had.

I got out and tried pushing, but the road was sloped here, and the car seemed only to want to go further off the road.  We might as well have just stepped into a puddle of quicksand.

There was more kicking and then we were crouching down to dig the soft powder out from underneath the car with our hands.

With each attempt, we avoided getting into further trouble, but we also didn’t seem to be getting out of the trouble that we were already in. Slowly, we worked the car into the exact same spot where we had bailed out the last guy.

As fate would have it, that was just when we heard the roar of the pickup coming down the road. There was his snowmobile tied to the back weaving along the road behind him.

Yes, he had a towrope with him. Time to return the favor.

First thing we did was help him push the crippled snowmobile up the ramp to his pickup bed, then we got the Suburu hitched to the truck, and after another 15 minutes of struggling in the snow, both vehicles were free at last.

We shook hands with the guy and wished him luck on the rest of the way out.

This is the part where I should be telling you that Andrew and I decided to call it a day. We would have seen that it was going to be dark soon and decided that going back into Buffalo to swap stories over pints of beer in The Occidental Hotel pub was a more pleasant option than tramping through the snow at night and shivering in my tent.

However, an important part of the brain, which prioritizes enjoyment over suffering, seems to be missing in both of us.

Instead of going all the way back, we drove down the hill a couple hundred yards to the flat area and parked the car off to the side. Then we loaded up our gear in packs. The plan was to make it as far in as we could with headlamps, hopefully as far as Mistymoon Lake. We had snowshoes too, which would hopefully be what we needed for a successful ascent on Cloud Peak.  That prospect looked more and more doubtful with each passing hour.

The sun had already sunk below the mountains by the time we trudged up to the trailhead.

Here, the snow got to be about calf-deep, though neither Andrew or I felt like putting on snowshoes. Ours were the first tracks in the powder and it made the trail very difficult to follow.

Going through the trees was challenging enough. It was easy to mistake a deer path for the trail and bumble up it for ten minutes in the dark before realizing it was a sham.

Fields were worse because we wouldn’t be able to see a trail rut beneath the powder and it would be impossible to tell where the trail began on the other side.

After countless false starts and perpetual disorientation, Andrew and I realized that there was no way in hell we were going to make it to Mistymoon that night.

Discouraged, I found a clearing and pitched the tent. Neither of us felt like fiddling with the stove, so we gulped down handfuls of trail mix and crawled into our sleeping bags.

Andrew was feeling nauseous, because he had driven in from sea level and now suddenly I had brought him up to 9,000 feet. I wondered nervously if he shouldn’t be the one sleeping closer to the tent door, and if I was in any danger of being puked on.

The next morning, Andrew seemed to have acclimatized better. I worked out where we were on the map, which showed it plain to see that we were nowhere near Cloud Peak.

We packed up our stuff and humped it back out the way we came. I had planned to save my snowshoes for waist deep snow, but found that they worked quite well on the shallower stuff.

We drove back the way we came, but made a stop at Powder River Pass — 9,666 feet in elevation.

Here, a shark’s fin of broken rock goes up to a cluster of exposed crags.

Andrew and I weaved out way up the rocks until we got to the top of one of the crags.

 Far below us on either side, we could see the warm, dried out rangeland where no snow had fallen. There lay the Powder River Basin to the east of us, where you will find Gillette, cattle and coal mining. The Big Horn Basin was to the west where there are cattle and enormous sugar beet plantations. Far beyond that, well out of sight, the roads led to Cody, the eastern gateway to Yellowstone.

Well to the north, Cloud Peak lurked invisible behind the nearer mountains. True to its name, there were clouds gathered about the area. All things considered, maybe it was for the best that we weren’t playing around up there in the thinner air, getting snow thrown up in our faces.

It hadn’t been the most epic trip of our lives, but the view was all right from here.

Andrew atop a crag, not far from where we parked at the Powder River Pass