Day 3 continued
We kept pushing on rarely breaking the silence between me and the wife. We approached an uphill portion of the trail and broke traction. Luckily it was at a point where there was a flat area just big enough for our vehicle to pull off and be clear of the road. My wife got out and proceeded to stomp the ground making sure the area was not littered with any hidden hazards. We slowly moved the Jeep back and forth breaking a little more of the snow behind us with each reverse until we were clear of the main road. We decided to get out and walk the trail a little and determine if this was the worst of it. My poor wife took a mean spill while walking in the tracks of the Tundra. All I saw were her feet go in the air followed by that intense short scream usually accompanying this situation. She was ok, but quickly losing patience.
I think it was because she had a huge calculus exam on Tuesday that she was supposed to be studying for. The plan was to hit the Castle and the Crater then head home so she could study the whole day Monday before the exam. This snow was not part of her equation, even though we were warned! I proceeded to walk the trail for about a mile and discovered three spots that made me nervous. There were steep hills with corners at the bottom of them that would be catastrophic should we go sliding off. We decided to give it a go anyways and discovered some interesting things about this white fluffy stuff. There was a base of snow below the fresh powder that was very icy. Even when digging below the Toyota’s tread marks there was still a good 6” of icy snow before you hit dirt. That meant he was virtually floating on top. I decided we needed to carry some speed to try and float as well. We spent several minutes and valuable fuel resources trying to climb the first hill. It was strange, we would make it almost all the way to the top, have to stop, step on the gas and immediately go backwards down the hill with the wheels going forward. So forward equals reverse, interesting concept. Sliding tires don’t steer, so we had to put it in reverse and accelerate in effort to get control again. This was scary, as gravity plus reverse acceleration equals going downhill backwards much faster than comfortable. We give the first hill a final push and crested it at just the perfect speed to carry on. The snow was really deep by now; you could see exactly where our low clearance spots were on the Jeep by the drag evidence in the snow. What the hell were we thinking? We made it another quarter mile or so before the next big climb. I decided to carry as much speed as possible to insure the best result. We made it almost all the way to the top when the Jeep decided to slide off the road to the right and up against the bank. Another crappy situation that required accelerating in reverse downhill on icy snow. The shady spots are the worst as they were most slippery. We managed to get it back to the tracks and give it one final shot. I kept that perfect balance between acceleration and traction as long as I could. It just wasn’t meant to be. We slid off in the same spot again. This time it went “all bad” trying to back out of it. We ended up on the other side of the road up against the bank sideways in the road. We didn’t seem to have any traction in any gear or direction. I finally bounced along the edge in reverse going downhill until the front tire went up on a rock and gave us the traction to turn back on the trail. We reversed down to another flat spot to reassess our situation. My wife said the coolest words to me….. “I will be with you no matter what you decide to do, I will be there to reap the rewards if we make it, or suffer the consequences if we don’t.” I was so worried that she was on the verge of blowing a gasket, and very pleased to hear she was not planning my funeral. Now we were just a few miles shy of the pavement, unable to push further, and low on fuel….. What to do? It was 90+ miles to pavement going the other direction (and part of that is the “road from hell”) we had just over a quarter tank, and could smell the asphalt at the top of the hill…..Damn! Choices are: wait for someone to come cut more road (probably wont work anyways), head the other direction, stop back at the place we camped and TRY to buy surplus gas from someone, or make a banzai run out with the fuel we had. After a few minutes we decided to head the other direction, as it could be a few days before someone came down this trail again. As luck would have it there were several well equipped guys heading up the trail after we descended to the bottom. Now again we had a decision to make. My wife’s calculations of fuel expressed we could just make it out the other direction, and we didn’t have the extra fuel to take another stab at breaking a snow trail. So we carried on back the direction we came. We stopped and warned lots of folks about the snow on the pass, but like us, it seemed as though everyone needed to see it for themselves. Five hours later we are back at the turn off for the Saline Springs camp. A quick 10-100 break and we made a decision to head out without begging for fuel. We had 65 miles to pavement, 20 of which was uphill, then 15-20 more down to Panamint springs to happily give $4.36 a gallon. That’s 80+ miles to the nearest gas station with 1/4 tank exactly. I was freaking out, my wife was very calm and collected, and just said don’t worry, we will be just fine. Normally I don’t just take her word, as she can be an optimist at times, but everything she said has been bang on thus far on the trip (we will be fine in the rain, tails on the coin, decision to hot tub with hot naked women ). So we pressed on. We risked some fuel resources as we approached the “Road from Hell” again and averaged about 60 across that section. After having been on this road at speed we were confident we could make up some time there. All the while I am watching the fuel economy meter in the overhead consol of the Jeep. I am constantly trying to figure the best speed and acceleration combination to deliver the best economy possible. This was all fine and dandy on the slight downhill and even level surfaces. All that went out the window when we began the ascent up the mountain with 1/8 tank left. We were plugging away, eyes still bugging out trying to avoid sharp rocks (still not in the mood to change tires). We made the water crossings and began to negotiate through some mud. We rounded a bend and there it was, the snow altitude. Just like hours earlier we began to drive single track surrounded by snow. As we climbed further and further the snow began getting deeper and deeper. I thought to myself, we are really screwed now. We have so little fuel it is barely registering, we have a lot of miles to go, and oh yeah, there is this steep ascent ahead that we had slid down on the way in…..
