Aborted Adventure

Well, we thought we would drive the Hatcher Pass road over the summit to Willow this weekend for an adventure. We didn't get very far. It was mid-afternoon and the snow was really slick on the road, having partially melted. We have 4-wheel drive in the truck and the tires started spinning, and we started sliding backwards even with the brakes crammed much to our horror. I pulled the emergency brake just as we slid into the snow bank on the cliff side of the road. A group of young people in a pickup truck were coming up behind us and stopped when they realized what had happened to us. The picture of Greg standing in the road watching the kid slide backward down the road is telling. We ended up emptying the sand bags in the back of the pickup we use for ballast and locking the rear differential for the first time ever (and hopefully the last unless we mean to). It was beautiful up there, there were crowds of young people hiking up the ridges in the pictures to go snowboarding down the mountains. It's the first of the season. So, long story short, we inched our way back down the road to where we could turn around and go home. Oh well, we should have driven the road before the snow hit.