Rental Car Fun

With a few hours to kill in between a drive from Salem to Portland, I decided to head up through some roads in Mount Hood National Forest. I was keeping track of my time because I was catching the last flight of the night out and wanted to make it home for the morning. The drive took me up into the mountains (where I saw a moose) and along a dirt road with steep cliffs. As I headed to the highway there was snow off in the shadows, but very little on the roads which had turned back to pavement.

As I came closer to the highway the snow covered a bit more of the road, but there were tire tracks from the last few days and none of it seemed to be a big deal. The sign had indicated that I only had two more miles before I would rejoin the highway. I had already covered 24 miles through the forest, dirt, and snow when I went through a little patch covering the entire road. Wisely, I decided not to take the left path since it was clear that the snow was deeper even though there were more tire tracks on the left.

Bad move.

The rental car became stuck in the snow. I put my tennis shoes on and cleared the wheels, but the car was sitting on the snow and the left wheel couldn't touch the ground. I tried rocks and sticks, but had no luck. I found some big sticks and began clearing the snow out from the under the car. It didn't move. By now it had been over an hour and I was beginning to get worried about making my flight. I hadn't seen anyone yet.

Since I didn't want to miss my flight, I decided it was time to call for help and just get towed. No signal. Uh-oh.

Do I walk to the highway and get help? I didn't have a coat and my toes were already soaked and cold. I knew I wasn't in any real danger, but I was reluctant to leave the car. I decided to keep digging. Eventually I would get the car out.

Finally a car showed up! He decided to drive into the left lane - and promptly got stuck. Now I was stuck along with an elderly local man with a heart condition. Who wanted to talk. Maybe it was time to be concerned after all!

I discovered that the road had recently opened, but that it was supposed to be plowed. He had never had any problems on this road. Terrific.

About a half hour later two young guys show up in a pick-up truck. One (the driver) had probably been drinking a little and nearly put his truck over the embankment before finally setting on being stuck in snow. Later we added another truck from the opposite direction.

Finally a guy in a big 4 wheel drive with snow tires showed up towing a boat along with another truck. Turns out the big truck was towing the boat of the other guys who had gotten stuck in the snow just up ahead. The second truck was the boat owner. They said the snow was just as bad just up ahead - meaning that I was going to have to drive all the way back around the mountain to get to Portland.

The big truck dropped off the boat and came and pulled all of us out. I was the last one out. No one had any ropes, so we had to rig some snow chains around the axle, but it worked. It took about 3.5 hours, but I was out of the snow!

I missed my flight.