Picture it, Memorial Day weekend in Idaho. The day has been beautiful with a bit of overcast due to the impending rain. It’s the annual work weekend at my husband’s family cabin and we’ve all been working hard. The cabin is close to a national forest and my mother-in-law is firm in her work hard play hard ideology so at around 4 pm we head out on a family off road outing. The group consists of myself, my husband, his brother and his two daughters along with their step-brother (all under the age of 10), his sister, her husband and their three boys along with the eldest son’s girlfriend (ages 12 – 19) and of course his mother and her husband. Out we head on four dirt bikes, two razors, one four wheeler and our jeep wrangler.
The trails are well known but we always have fun and this time of year the mountains are green and lovely. Fifteen minutes or so into our drive, we come across a fallen tree blocking the road. Fortunately a chainsaw was brought along and in no time the tree has been cleared and we are once again roaring through the trails.
Along the way, we see patches of snow stubbornly refusing to recognize spring. At the seven mile mark (my husband had reset the trip odometer before we left the cabin) and on an actual road, we come upon this.
Dave gets a gleam in his eyes, he’s dying to see if he can make it to the other side. He looks at me to see if I’m going to object. A little background on me, Dave is my third husband. My second husband was an adrenaline enthusiast who survived more by luck than skill which can either be fun or stress inducing depending upon whether one is tagging along or being dragged along. Therefore, in the past I have experienced some pretty bad anxiety in situations like this. Dave has an adventurous side but he uses skill and common sense to survive. More importantly, unlike my second husband, he’s concerned about my nerves and will check with me before proceeding in these kinds of situations. I smile and tell him to go ahead. It doesn’t look too bad and we have back up if something goes wrong.
Dave puts the jeep in low, tells the kids in back seat to hang on and into the snow we go in what feels like full throttle. Dave is having a blast as we plow through, kicking up snow. We make it about three quarters of the way through when the jeep suddenly stops. Dave tries to back up but no luck. We can’t go forward, to either side or backwards, we are stuck.
The men in the group surround us, trying to figure out what can be done. Advice is bantered about, more weight is added to the jeep then removed, pushing is tried..notta, we’re high centered and not going anywhere. Eventually we tell the kids with us to get out and I follow them to the side of the road, sinking up to my knee in one spot. A point of interest (or maybe not), as neither Dave nor I were expecting to get stuck in snow, we had sandals on and Dave was in shorts.
It’s okay though, because both razors and our jeep have winches. Sadly, the trees are to the side instead of in front of us. My brother in law pulls his razor as close as he can, attaches the winch to our back bumper and tries to pull us out. This is when a UTV approaches from the far side, creeping slowly around the corner to see this (the UTV can be seen as a small dot on the road).
The UTV sat there and watched us for five to ten minutes before turning around and leaving without a word. I leaned over to my mother in law and said they must have looked at us as a cautionary tale about trying to cross the snow.
Back to the attempts at pulling us out. There had been a bit of movement but not enough and my brother in law realized he needed to back further away for better traction. It’s also decided more weight is needed to pull out the jeep so my father in law’s razor is attached to my brother in law’s via winch. At this point, the middle nephew (about 17ish I think) is now driving the brother in law’s razor. Unfortunately, my nephew let out too much of the winch during this round of attempts and out it popped. I won’t go into detail regarding the remaining attempts made but this is my favorite one.
Six pm came, the sun was still out but it was time to send everyone back to the cabin to for a full size truck to unstick us and dinner for the rest of the family. It should be noted that the small children were entertained through this whole process by throwing snowballs at Dave’s brother and overall were pretty well behaved considering how long they were stuck with not much to do.
The children who had ridden with us were farmed out to the razors leaving Dave and I alone in the wrangler. We talked, laughed at our predicament and read books on our phones but Dave wouldn’t take me up on my suggestion of making out, something about being in public and not having a top on the jeep. We expected Dave’s brother in law to return in about in hour therefore, initially, the dark clouds gathering overhead were only of a mild concern. When I asked Dave what he had learned from this experience, his response was he should have brought chains(I love my husband, he makes me laugh). An hour came and went with Dave wishing he had also brought the emergency kit like he had thought about as it had food and candles, to which I reprimanded him for making us lose out on a romantic dinner. Around eight, the sky began to spit on us. This was enough for Dave to decide it was time to start walking so off we went. The rain never came in full force, just the off and spitting but it was enough to provide a full rainbow for our enjoyment.
Our walk didn’t last long as the eldest nephew and his girlfriend soon pulled up in a razor to let us know his dad and brother were on their way, they had taken a wrong turn becoming lost. Sure enough, within moments we had been picked up and were back at the wrangler. It turned out getting lost, and momentarily stuck, was for the best as they came across (and rescued) a stuck Prius whose owners had given up to the point of lighting a fire on the side of the road to stay warm.
After hooking the two vehicles together, it took a couple of attempts but suddenly the jeep was moving (there was cheering), then it was sliding over the edge of the road and the two of us who were bystanders, were yelling for my brother in law to stop. My heart stopped as I watched and all I could think was my husband was going to die. Mind you, there was no cliff but there was a not so gentle slope; the photo doesn’t do the situation justice.
Dave rightly concluded he should not be in jeep for the next attempt. With the winch attached to a tree to prevent the front end from sliding further down the hill and the rear tow rope now wrapped around a different tree to pull the vehicle back onto the road, with a couple of strong jerks, the wrangler was finally freed from it’s snow trap and safely on the road.
With the afternoon’s excitement finally over, the sun was setting as we made our back to the cabin, finally arriving at nine, it was only a five hour excursion. After all is said and done, I have to admit it was the most exciting work day I’ve spent at the cabin.
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