Mountains.......Adios Puto Montañas

Monday, August 12th, 2008 was as spectacular a day in the mountains as one could ever hope to witness – 75 windless degrees, zero humidity and a blue sky for which there exists no proper adjective to describe its beauty; it was also my 52nd birthday. As it was a Monday, the hotel was closed and the day was mine to enjoy; barely two months into our new life and I was already desperate to get away from the hotel and that garbage dump of a town whenever the opportunity presented itself.

The plan involved Julie and I driving to Steamboat Springs for the day, some 70 miles west of Hot Sulphur on Highway 40, for the purpose of eating a relaxing lunch in someone else’s restaurant and me buying my birthday gift, which was to be a pair of waders and felt-soled wading boots – the tools necessary for me to take up the sport of fly fishing, of which I could literally participate out of my back door. ( I lived on the banks of the Colorado River on a stretch of gold medal trout water, water that people came from all over the United States to angle, and I loved to fish, yet I donned those waders and boots and stood in that water and fished…..once.)

The drive west of Hot Sulphur on Highway 40 to Steamboat Springs is relatively flat, as you drive along a fairly neutral route that is the Colorado River basin and Middle Park – a high plateau surrounded by a ring of higher mountains. When you find yourself about 15 miles east of Steamboat, you start to climb what is the northwest flank of the Middle Park ring, the apex of that summit before you head down into Steamboat Springs being Rabbit Ears Pass; so named for a prominent rock formation that resembles a pair of jack rabbit ears. Rabbit Ears Pass differs from Berthoud Pass in that the switchback curves on the way up seem to be much less hairpinnish than Berthoud, and the downside traverse is one long, steep hill, two lanes climbing and a single lane descending, and except for the first 2 miles after the summit, it is void of curves for the most part. Were you able to sled down that hill, it would be the longest, gnarliest sled ride you could’ve ever as a kid imagined. I had taken this route one other time during my first adult visit to the Rockies in the summer of 1993; being a novice to mountain driving and down shifting at the time, the descent had my brakes smoking by the time we were a third of the way to the bottom of that run.

On the upward ascent of Rabbit Ears, we were stuck behind a service truck of some type – a big white thing with tanks, pumps, a compressor, pipes, valves, gauges and four wheels on dual rear axles; it was about the size of a UPS delivery van, a pretty stout piece of metal in motion, and no question the kind of truck you wouldn’t pick a fight with. As I was in absolutely no hurry, the thought never occurred to me to attempt to pass the truck. We finally reached the summit, and like all mountain passes on Colorado highways, it is announced by signage, and started our downward decent into Steamboat Springs. We hadn’t gone but maybe two miles down the two big S-curves on the descent, when I started smelling major brake overheating from what I assumed to be the aforementioned truck which we were following. I knew it wasn’t me, as I’d been downshifting instead of using my brake to slow the car, but I was surprised that any native, especially a native that drove a truck for a living, wouldn’t be downshifting as well.

On we went with the smell getting worse by the yard, and when we hit the long, steep, three-lane straightaway, smoke is now visible from the truck’s rear wheels. I’m starting to get a little nervous, but not too nervous, as the truck is still in front of me – I’m nervous for the people in front of the truck. Then it hits me, that I am about to watch something that I’ve always wanted to see but have never had the opportunity, that being witness to an out-of-control, brakeless truck driving into the “runaway truck” ramp. You’ve seen these if you’ve ever driven on mountainous highways with steep grades; they’re long stretches, maybe 500 yards, of pea gravel or sand that will bring the truck to a slow and safe halt, should the brakes be overheated and non-functional, as were the brakes on the truck before me. The ramps are announced well in advance, two or three times, so that if you’re having a brake issue, you’ve got plenty of time to plan your exit.

Whoosh!
I watched in disbelief as the truck sped right past the runaway ramp, brakes smoking now like a house afire. I figured that possibly this was no native, and it was in fact the first time he’d ever driven on a mountain in his life. Finally he seems to slow enough to where he begins to pull over on an area of shoulder, of which there was little on this road –I quickly take the opportunity to pass him. Continuing down, and preceding me in my lane in this order, was a gasoline tanker truck, a large cattle trailer being pulled by a large, tri-axled pick-up truck, a dairy tanker truck, and one more gasoline tanker – four big, slow, flasher blinking trucks in low gear, heading downward at maybe 20 miles per hour. Like a dumb ass, I decided to pass the gasoline tanker that preceded me, as there was no oncoming traffic…..at that particular time.

No sooner do I pull in the oncoming lane to pass the rolling 6000-gallon container of fire and brimstone than I catch a glimpse in my rear view mirror of a big, white truck with tanks, pumps, a compressor, pipes, valves, gauges and four wheels on dual rear axles screaming down on me at a rate of speed that was possibly double that of mine. There is no room now to pull in front of the gasoline tanker, as he was pretty solidly on the tail of the cattle truck; my only option is to hit my accelerator and drive as fast as I can to get to the next break between traffic, hopefully between the cattle truck and the dairy truck, but probably all the way in front of the gasoline tanker that was leading the parade. This would have all gone smoothly except that there were cars coming up the hill, in the passing lane, straight at me, and they couldn’t get into their free lane, as both of the uphill lanes were occupied.

I’ll reset the situation for you; perhaps you’ve seen something like I am about to describe in a movie starring Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis. I’m in the wrong lane, driving down a 7% grade at 80 MPH, cars coming straight at me, a 10,000 pound out of control machine shop traveling 90 MPH about to smash into my rear, on the left a guardrail that would give way and offer a 1000-foot drop into the valley, and on my right side - to buffer my inevitable crash into the side of the mountain were I not to opt for flying off of the left side - were two gasoline tankers, a milk truck and a trailer full of cattle. Oh, and both my wife and I are screaming at the top of our lungs for the Hand of The Lord to deliver us from what we were certain was to be our very unwanted and very untimely 15 minutes of fame.

There is obviously no longer suspense to the story, as the fact that you are reading my version of this occurrence tells you that we survived – and it indeed required the Hand of The Lord. But for real, there was more than a moment in that 10 second span that seemed to last an eternity, that I felt with absolute certainty that not only was I a goner, but I was more than likely going to be taking additional innocent humans and a few head of cattle with me.

I pulled in front of the first gasoline tanker, just missing the oncoming traffic by 25 yards as he was able to get in his right lane, and the smoking white behemoth flew by me, barely missing my rear left flank, and quickly disappeared from view as it screamed on down the mountain. I was flabbergasted that we didn’t find a gnarled mass of truck and machinery at the bottom of the hill; there was no evidence that the white truck did anything beyond cruising down that hill and eventually coming to a safe stop somewhere, off the road and out of sight. My guess is that the truck driver’s eventual stop involved a bathroom and a change of uniform.

Having a near death experience can sure take the starch out of a pleasurable day. I was in a surreal fog for the duration of our trip, going through the motions of eating lunch and buying waders, unable to think of anything else other than my morning pas de deux with the Grim Reaper.

Never again did I, or will I, ever drive over Rabbit Ears Pass or visit Steamboat Springs, the memory of that nearest of misses on my 52nd birthday still so real, so raw and so jarring. I can also say with certainty that never of my own accord, ( I would have to be handcuffed and in the back of a squad car) will I drive over Berthoud Pass, through the Fraser River Valley, and westward to that fetid, rancid little burg that is Hot Sulphur Springs.

For a fact, I hate those mountains.