Last night, I experienced a unique congruence of high intellect here in Old Timberline. We have family staying on Upper Ridge Road this weekend. It has been snowing heavily, so the roads here are very slippery. Those familiar with Old Timberline know how steep the Mountainside Road gets heading up from the base. Well, we were heading down from Upper Ridge last night after dinner, and got stuck in a huge traffic jam heading down the mountain. The problem started when someone in a minivan attempted to climb the first steep pitch up the Mtnside Road and got sideways. Eventually, they managed to get the van to the side of the road and abandonned it - in a narrow part of the road.

I met about 7 rocket scientists, PHDs, Cardiologists, and Bio Chemists in blaze orange who were on their way down and stopped before the abandonned van. It seems, one of them had a Blazer break down on the Mountain. His dad came to get him with his pickup and a trailer. The trailer has no breaks so they (fortunately) gave up the plan to trailer the truck down the mountain. After conferring with a panel of experts they decided to chain the blazer up between two other pickups - with one leading it down the mountain road, and the trailing truck holding it back from careening out of control. The head of the class was assigned to steer the blazer. Well they wisely determined there was no way to get this caravan down the mountain safely past the abandonned minivan. So they stopped blocking the road heading down.

I can't tell you how long this standoff had been going on when we came upon them. Cars were backed up going down and up the mountain. Finally, the pickup hauling the trailer decided to make a run and headed down past the minivan - trailer fishtailing all the way - yelling "get out of my way!!" all the way down. Luckilly he made it by without incident. We followed - not wanting wait and see the push-me/pull-me head down. What a mess.

Anyone else stuck behind this road block last night? Man, it gives me faith in a higher being when I experience incidents like this. There is no way a purely random universe could bring so much intellect together in one place to solve a problem.

Lol... Irony plus.

I've suffered behind many rocket scientists attempting things they aren't qualified for in the mountains. My stories could fill a book. Like the fool who used the guardrail for breaking while going down Cass (rt66) on a snowy night while going to the shoe. Turns out he was going to be staying in our house as a guest of one of our house mates! Sure genius!

Hey Tom, they had a pretty good plan with the trailer and chains and allthat, until they passed loop road, HA, better get some chains for their tires. Do you think they were related to the drunk bikers? U no with the top ten rating that Davis earned, probably more of this form of entertainment will be available in the valley.

PS, i got a strong possibilty of gettin Jessco White the dancin outlaw for inagural festivities at MSM.

tgd - dayum! a whole bunch of people dumber than I am! That totally beats the time I got drunk and tried to drive my Blazer up the beginner's trail at Park City Mountain Resort in April. Lucky for me a groomer was runnin' and he gave me a push out ..