Somehow, those Jeep commercials looked a lot easier on TV.... or, we'll be falling off the mountain when we come ...
I've been looking for a copy of this column for some time. I finally ran across a copy while researching something completely unrelated. I wrote, and originally published, it in the Taylor Daily Press September 1999. It won first place awards for commentary from the Texas Press Association and a slew of regional press groups. It's one of my all-time favorite efforts. I post it here as a way to preserve (and share) it.
Gently, very gingerly, I lifted my foot off the brake just enough to let Jeep bounce over another rock, then quickly re-applied the brake.
We rocked gently.
“Don’t look,” Tia said nervously as she stared over the tops of towering pine trees just outside the passenger window. She couldn’t see the middles or bottoms of the trees — in fact, she couldn’t see the bottom of the ravine at all.
“I won’t,” I replied, my sweaty hands gripping the steering wheel, eyes locked on anything but the plummeting, impossible descent falling away from my peripheral vision. The right tires of the Jeep were finely balanced on the keenly-sharpened edge of the trail sending little bits of gravel skittering off the edge and into the ravine. The left tires bounced on boulders, a full two feet higher than the right.
We went forward — and downward — another foot. Two. “Not far now,” Tia muttered.
Grimly, tersely I sucked on my teeth and answered, “Yeah.”
Our brief bursts of conversation were laced with stark, gibbering terror as we maneuvered around another washed-out switchback on the trail which winds down the tree-studded western slope of Red Top Mountain in the heart of the San Juan range of the Rockies.
Off in the distance, I could probably have made out California landmarks, had my attention span extended to unnecessary fripperies like the magnificent view or awesome mountain ranges just ahead.
I glanced up at the perpendicular, red-streaked cliff towering above then off the side and down, down, down to the shiny river shimmering through the trees, far, far below.
That’s when we saw another Jeep headed our way and my heart actually stopped for a couple of beats as I realized that there simply wasn’t enough room on that narrow rocky shelf for two mountain goats to pass, much less two full-sized Jeeps, unless I repeated our recently completed balancing act, this time in reverse.
I stopped, pulled the emergency brake, then just sat there, waiting for the slowly oncoming Jeep, wishing for a cigarette — or, a cup of coffee.
So, how did a couple of mild mannered newspaper people find themselves literally clinging to the side of a mountain only three days into their vacation? Well, it was supposed to have been the easy way out of the mountains, the compromise route that let us see the most of the mountains without getting stuck in the rough and rugged back country for two or three days.
Indeed, the map, which we had purchased from the Silverton Chamber of Commerce the day before, indicated that the road to Ouray was only about six miles away. What it didn’t say was that most of those six miles were straight down the side of a mountain.
The night before had been wonderful, if very c-c-cold. We had followed the Animus River up into the mountains from Silverton and stopped just below a ghost town called Animus Forks. In a previous existence the miserable collection of huts had been a mining town. Today, the town is deserted, possessed of a moaning-wind-through-the-timbers quality, little more than a few piles of shattered, marmot-infested lumber lumped around three or four rickety shacks.
The views were incredible, the air was electric, crisp and cool and filled with the scent of pine and the snap of snow-fed, white water roiling through the valleys. Delicate purple, white and yellow mountain flowers littered the fluorescent green tundra and brilliant snow clung to the shadowed sides of the mountain peaks.
We pitched our tent near the gurgling river just below the timberline and built a roaring fire in a ring of fire-blackened stones, placed there by some previous visitor to this alpine valley. As night fell, the mountains surrounding that little valley were limned with the light of a thumbnail moon reflected off the snow pack. The stars never came out with the forceful brilliance I anticipated yet there was an stunning serenity to the evening which stirred my soul.
In the morning, while striking camp, I tried to make coffee. Water does not boil at 12,000 feet the way it does at sea level. I should have noted the omen. No coffee.
Still, the trek up to the pass was a sight and we had a wonderful time playing in the snow. It wasn’t until we were committed to the descent that we realized our awful, terrifying mistake. Once on that path — a path that any sensible mountain goat would have avoided — we could not turn around, nor could we back track.
For the record:
• Tia never once commented on the poor mountain climbing decision while we were involved in negotiation boulders, switch-backs and vertical drops. Indeed, in our five years of marriage, I doubt she has ever been more supportive. I am very thankful that she waited until we got off that mountain before she found a handy pine pole and used it to beat merry hell outta me. Later she said that she held her tongue during that harrowing descent because she was afraid that I would have simply opened the door and let her slide right out and down the cliff face.
• Cathrin, our daughter, sat in the back seat and read books through the whole ordeal. Later, she was heard wondering what the fuss was all about.
• It took every bit of three hours to get down. At the bottom was the “Million Dollar Highway” which runs between Silverton and Ouray. It is a nasty, twisty strip of asphalt girding the mountain and has been known to strike terror into the hearts of grown men. Though my lungs sucked at the thin air in ragged gasps and my legs felt like Silly Putty, I glanced at that road and sneered. Piece of cake.
Once we got into Ouray, we stopped at the first coffee shop we found. And, no, I didn’t hunt up a cigarette (though I really, really wanted to).
I have been to the mountain — what’s more, I have come off the mountain and lived to tell about it. I’m here to tell you that 4-wheel drive vehicles are real cool and real fun and they can get you places where you otherwise could not go. But, that does not always mean that you should go there.
Cross-posted at http://open.salon.com/blog/richard2456
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