Nightmare on 99

It was supposed to be a 2 hour trip from Vancouver to Whistler. My brother and I left in our rented 4 wheel drive SUV expecting to reach our hotel by 7pm.
At 7pm we were about 23km from our destination when we came to a complete stop about where the red dot is on the picture. From listening to the radio, we gathered that there were several accidents on the "Sea to Sky" highway that we were on. Ok, we thought, it should clear up and maybe we'll be an hour late.

After about 6 hours (at 1am Friday) things went from very bad to complete nightmare. Thinking I would pass the people in front of me, I pulled out to the left and began to accelerate. However, the road was an ice rink and we began to slide to the left. Driving a sliding vehicle is the sickest feeling I have ever felt. Unable to get any traction, the SUV slid with a crunch into the 3 foot high snow bank on the side of the road. I tried locking the 4wd, driving forward and backward, but there was no traction to be had.

So there we were, in a blizzard, in the middle of the night, in a foreign country, stuck in our car. Its the kind of thing I only heard about on the news. Feelings of fear, anger, regret, frustration, and helplessness flashed across my mind. I thought about my wife and daughter and called them several times to let them know I was ok. I couldn't believe this was happening to me.

Passers by were of no help. We asked for help from several official looking people, but they told us to call a tow truck - they had to tend to the cars blocking traffic first. As we were sitting there, several others including a bus slid off the road in the same place and almost hit us. At that point, I thought we could be there for days and our ski vacation would be a complete waste. Death was not likely, but not out of the imagination.

After several hours of trying to push the car out of the snow bank, my brother took the driver's seat and I decided to push on the front left of the SUV to get it out from the snow bank. As he accelerated, I pushed on the fender and the whole truck floated around on the ice like a boat on water.

But then, the front tires started to bite and the SUV moved in a way we didn't think was possible. Slowly it pulled forward onto the road and away from the snow. From the depths of despair and panic, I experienced elation like never before. The SUV continued to move ahead, I yelled "Don't stop! Don't stop!" for fear it would slide back down to the snow bank. As my brother merged into the slow moving traffic, I ran behind as fast as I could, jumped into the moving vehicle and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

After reaching the hotel at 6am on Friday morning, we took a 5 hour nap and decided to hit the slopes. The rest of our time was uneventful - the side-effect of the blizzard was really good snow on the mountain.



Lessons Learned:

1. Carry chains even if you have 4wd.

2. Don't take smooth travels for granted.