Stranded in What Should Have Been a Snowy Heaven
Photo by Mike Siegel from the Seattle Times
Seattlest Seth's cousin wasn't the only one stranded by the recent snow onslaught in our beloved Cascades. Anticipating the re-opening of I-90, we took Wednesday off from work and then bored a hole into our computer waiting for the DOT site to tell us the pass was finally open. 11am rolls around, our friends swing by to pick us up and we were off. The trip up was surprisingly uneventful, given what we'd steeled ourselves for (tons of trucks lined up going Eastbound, dumbasses stuck in snowbanks off the side of the road, etc). We roll up to the Summit West exit, gleeful about the 2+ feet of powder we were about to plunder, when we find a lineup of cars heading towards Alpental. Dammit.
The in-charge looking person tells us there was a slide across the road to Alpental (later in the bar, we met the guy whose car took the full brunt of it, he was fine), and we had to wait for it to clear. 5 minutes, he said. We got into the car line-up, and everyone proceeded to put their gear on: boots, jackets, helmets, gloves. We must have looked like fools sitting in the car like that, but we were prepared for a SWAT-team style exit from the car with no parking-lot dilly dallying. The 5 minute wait took 20, but that aggravation melted away quickly when we got to the top of the Armstrong chair at Alpy only to discover, as we'd hoped, that there was zero line-up on Chair 2.
The rest of the day was a non-stop powdery blur, our group at times numbering almost 10, charging down line after line of the deepest, driest powder ever seen at Alpental. It didn't degrade as the day wore on: for our last run down International to Adrenaline, we dropped into the trees and found untouched, knee-deep powder as far as we could see. We were drunk and dizzy with joy. And then the news spread: I-90 was closed again, in both directions. We're not religious, but at that point, Seattlest let out a small thank you to baby jeezus. We were going to get an unquestionable snow day off work: a whole extra day in the powder, with no-one else able to get up there. At least, that's what we thought as we all hit the bar to celebrate.
We were set for the night; a mutual friend who'd joined our group later in the day teaches for a local ski school, and graciously let us crash at their lodge. We had some sleeping bags with us (always travel prepared, people!), all was well. There was plenty of drinking, and running about in the snow during the wee hours of the night. As an adult, these moments become increasingly rare, when you feel totally untethered from all the obligations and expectations as we did that night, like high-schoolers set free on a field trip with no chaperones.
The plan for Thursday morning was a big breakfast at the pancake house before hitting Alpental, and we were in desperate need of it, our adult body no longer as tolerant of high-school levels of drinking and not sleeping. But the pancake house was not open. The coffee shop down the street? Dead silent and dark. And this is how we ended up drinking Chevron coffee cut with machine-regurgitated hot chocolate as chaser to our heat-lamped corn dogs and "breakfast" burritos. The high school trifecta was complete.
The world's crappiest breakfast in hand, we set off across the road for Alpental. But our friends who left a few minutes prior in their truck were heading back towards us as we crossed under the freeway. The Alpental road was closed by another slide. OK, we'll wait again. No? The ski areas were all closed too? Nothing was going to open, all day long. It had snowed 10 inches that night, accumulating well over three feet in the past two days, and all we could do was sit and look at it. Surrounded by over 150" inches of snow, and our bonus day off was melting away underneath us.
There was a convoy scheduled for 11am to lead people back down from the pass--we thought about "missing" it, and potentially being stuck up there until Saturday, but then we re-evaluated the amount and quality of beer left at the Chevron station and decided against it. So our only option was to wait for clearance that the I-90 was plowed enough for the convoy, and watch Seattle P-I photographer Drew McKenzie capture shots of a crowd of people, including our friend Matt, hucking themselves off the freeway overpass into the ginormous snowbanks below. Too bad the photog missed Matt's truly fantastic backflip (which we'd been watching him perfect on the board earlier in the day). That's him above on the right, and we're down below on the road watching with our dogs.
We eventually crept down the east-side lanes of I-90, marveling at how high the snow banks are along the freeway and how yet another slide could be triggered and barrel down on us at pretty much any moment. Descending into North Bend, the transition from record-breaking winter wonderland to brown, rainy suburbia proved an ample and poetic backdrop to our dejected, hungover mood. If it weren't for the foot of snow on top of our car, flying off in chunks as we drove through Bellevue, we'd be tempted to think we dreamed the whole thing.
