oy vey

Yesterday began like many other winter weekends this year with an early start. We were heading up to Lake Van Norden to scope out another snowkiting venue. We got to the south side of the lake around 9:45 or so, but quickly realized that lake van Norden road was a little too snowy to drive far enough to the east to reach the meadows. There was no wind either, but I was content to at least scope out where we could park and how to walk to the meadows, so we drove around to the other side along Lake Mary road. It was here that I ignored the warning signs of not seeing very many (ok, zero) tire tracks, and rallied our subie up and over a largish snowy berm. I drove over the concrete track crossing and almost immediately sank into the snow on the far side of the tracks. This was the first time I had gotten the subie stuck, and I was determined to dig her out rather than face the ignominy of another Tow truck rescue. Does this look familiar?!



After about an hour and a half of digging, cursing and burning of clutch, a trainspotter dude showed up and immediately called Union Pacific and was more or less in constant contact with them for the rest of the ordeal. We were far enough away from the tracks that we *probably* wouldn't get hit by a train, but the prospect of our car getting turned into a carnitas of shredded metal and upholstry added to the urgency and stress of the situation.

He told us to pile rocks from the tracks under the wheels, and helped push.. neither of which really helped. After breaking our borrowed shovel, he also admonished me for wearing cotton pants and a sweater because "cotton kills". I guess he didn't notice the PILES of polypro/windstopper/mountain hardwear shells and wool underwear in the back seat (and the blue skies!). Soon after, a guy from sugarbowl showed up in his diesel Kubota 4x4. To make a long story short, no one was willing to pull us out from the tracks because they were very sensibly worried about a train showing up, exploding their truck and then dragging our chained subaru into sacramento. The same problem applied to all of the towing services that subaru roadside assistance could find. In the end, for a small fee ($150), Sugarbowl agreed to drive a Snowcat up the Royal Gorge trail and pull us out. It was decided upon that pulling from the side of the track was the safest option, and it worked like a charm.

The trainspotting dude didn't want us to cross the westbound track until he heard back from Union Pacific, so I chatted with the Snowcat driver for a while. It really is amazing what kind of terrain they can drive those things on. He happened to be one of those rock crawler guys and had done an infamous "road" between Fordyce lake and the Eagle lakes in his rig. He apparently carries a trailer with a welding setup in it for repairs on the go! I took the opportunity to ask him about those new Toyotas I've been seeing around : the FJ cruiser. Despite being pretty firmly in the anti-SUV camp, the FJ intrigues me because they ran them (or something like them) in this years Baja 1000, they are pretty inexpensive, and they seem to be actually for off-road use, rather than rolling over smaller cars. I think it's a testament to their utility that this guy seemed pretty impressed with them, and dismissed most other SUVs as "cars".

Chloe and I also had a chance to check out the impressively large hole I had gotten us into




After waiting for a while, we got the go ahead from the trainspotter and I turned onto the sent-from-heaven snowless rail crossing and rallied down the other side.



After thanking everyone profusely, we hightailed it out of there, cruising up the icy hill which I had worried about on the drive in.

Lessons learned:
1)The subie cannot go everywhere
2)The subie cannot go everywhere
3)The snowbanks on the sides of train tracks are made of very soft snow.
4)Cars are heavy and sink into soft snow
5)The subie cannot go everywhere

So I am suitably chastened and will certainly back off a lot earlier next time (especially near train tracks!).

We got back to the cabin around three-ish, set up the soaking tub, and burned some of the brush that we had cut down last spring and summer in the burn barrel


Unfortunately, most of the water in the cabin was frozen solid

as was the olive oil

even the water we set out overnight froze!


After another soak in 100 degree water this morning, we headed back to berkeley.