So we're sliding down this hill sideways yesterday on the side of a 5,000 foot cliff on the Cherohala Skyway... ...and I'm thinkin', "this is
not going to buff out...". My wife is saying some sort of prayer to her guardian angel, the dog's tail is waving like crazy and she's bouncing all over the place...
It was all sort of in slow motion. Solid ice, about 1/2" thick with a thin veil of snow over it. Not a freakin' hope in a million of getting traction or landing anywhere else than where gravity demands.
Then
thwack. The guardrail caught us. I dropped it into 4-low and crept a little off the rail, spun the rest of the way around and
thwack again.
My wife finished her prayer and looks at me and, honest to God, says, "do you want me to get out and push?"
I'm trying not to laugh at her 'cause I know she's serious. The situation was far from dire --- just this helpless feeling. Wondering when the next vehicle will come around the bend and lose it also. There was lots of snow in the mountains but this was the first ice; snow melt off the sunny side of the rocks had formed a sheet of ice on the shady side of the mountain.
So I thanked her for her willingness to help and cut the wheel sharply downhill; I aimed at an arc and tried to launch myself in a way that would eventually spin me facing forward toward the grass. It worked.
All in all, I just crushed the plastic bumper a little. And learned a lesson about traction. And put a winch on my wish-list.
The other side of the disaster zone:
the carnage: