High Drama with Snow

I am not exactly snowed in today, but the hassle of getting out and then getting back in to the cabin again is pretty high, so the result is much the same as if I was snowed in. I had 12-13 inches of new snow, a goodly amount for this late in March, though not a record. The last big late March snow was in 1993, another El Nino year where 2+ feet fell on the 20-something of March. So this snow can’t compete with that one, but it was still a pretty good amount.

I took this photo yesterday while it was still snowing, so if it doesn't look like 12 inches, that's why. I think it had snowed 7-8 inches by the time I took the photo.

Last night my driveway killed one of Roundtop’s plow trucks. My driveway is very deceptive. It looks flat, but it isn’t. It’s narrow, with a curve and there’s quite a lip where the driveway meets the lane. Last night one of the regular plowers got hung up in front of the cabin and started to slide off the driveway. Then, when he tried to go forward again, he hit a small pile of ice left over from the last snow and couldn’t go over it.

Since the resort is supposed to close tomorrow, it was this man’s last night of work for the year on the hill. So sometime after 10 p.m. he and I are out in the snow, looking under the truck with my big flashlight, to the accompaniment of howling dogs. It was pretty obvious right from the start that a little digging with my snow shovel wasn’t going to do the trick. He put in a call on the radio to one of the plowers running the smaller front end loader. That loader was in use clearing one of the nearby parking areas, so the loader showed up in front of the cabin within a few minutes. After several attemps and much struggling, it became obvious the little loader just wasn’t heavy enough to pull out the pick-up.

So another call was placed to the man running Roundtop’s big front end loader, which was then out on the public road along the power line pulling the mountain manager out of a ditch. But eventually, that equipment showed up, and this time they were able to hoist the truck sideways enough to get it back onto the drive.

Then they discovered the truck would no longer move forward, though it would move backward. So the truck backed out the driveway but promptly got itself stuck again where the driveway meets the lane. Fortunately, the loader hadn’t disappeared down the lane yet, so the two men chained the truck to the loader bucket again and hauled it down the mountain and into the shop, suffering from some kind of serious, possibly fatal, transmission problem.

As a result of all this, my driveway is pretty messed up. They said another vehicle would come eventually to finish my driveway and clean up the lane so my neighbor up the mountain can get in and out of his cabin. For now, both of us are parked down off the hill in one of the resort’s parking areas.

It was midnight before I got to bed—waay past my bed time and with way more drama in the evenings than I’m used to. Who said life in the woods is quiet and peaceful? Well, not last night.