Well, that was a most interesting day.

Since it was raining sideway, I figured it would be good and stormy up in the mountains, so I went in to work for a little while and then couldn’t stand it anymore. I burned my last little scrap of leave, and I took off and headed for the hills.

It rained on me the whole way up there, which I thought was encouraging. The deer come out and move around in the bad weather, after all. The rain started to have substance around Greeley Hill, and it was actual snow by the time I got to Highway 120. It started and stopped a few times, but eventually it got snowy enough on the highway to have the snowplows out. I was worried about not being able to recognize my turnoff in the snow, since I hardly ever go that way, but I did all right.

I started up the road, and there I met the exodus. I don’t know why people were so bent on leaving when it wasn’t even noon yet; the roads couldn’t have been that bad, could they? I must have passed four hundred trucks going out, and every one of them gave me the old double-take. Why yes, I AM a woman. How ’bout that? The older guys were actually better about it, but I got some dirty looks from some younger guys, who must like their women at home in the kitchen. The old ones learned long ago that we’ll do what we want to do.

It took me two hours to get up Hardin Flat Road to Five Points. Much of that time was spent pulled over waiting for caravans of trucks to pass me. I saw one guy pulling out a two-wheel drive—he said he’d pulled him all the way up from the valley. I saw more and more people chained up, and the snow got deeper and deeper. I didn’t see any deer; not alive or in the backs of trucks. Of course, what sane deer would stick around a major highway like that?

By the time I got to Five Points, up at the top, the snow was going sideway like the rain that morning. It was a good flat spot, so I got out and chained up for the second time in my life. This time I did it right, after some commiserating with some other guys putting theirs on. They checked mine, which was nice, and said I’d be fine. I also learned the lesson that one cannot have too many bungee cords. I had a circular tightener and two bungees on each wheel. I learned the lesson of not letting things flap loose the first time I chained up, fifteen years ago in my first car going over Donner Pass in a blizzard. Chewed up wheel wells were not an experience that I cared to repeat.

So I set off down the Tram Road, which is named after the old mining tram that used to run from there up into Yosemite. It’s flat but windy, and pretty narrow. Dennis and his friends were camped over the other side of the ridge, at the far end of the road, and that’s where I was headed. I was optimistic again when I didn’t see nearly the amount of traffic that I’d seen lower down. The snow was a good six inches deep, but I crept along in four-wheel drive, and I was fine.

Until I was about an hour in, and a guy in a jeep warned me that the road ahead was blocked by no less than three trucks that had slid off the road. He’d got by, so I kept on going, until (surprise!) I wound up at a roadblock. I was the last truck in, so I couldn’t see what was going on, but apparently one truck had gotten stuck and another one had tried to pull him out and had slid off the road himself. And that’s a long way down on those steep roads.

I got out and shot the breeze with some of the other guys, but I never did walk all the way up to the blocked part. I could see that there were a ton of people up there, and I’ve never been a fan of adding to a crowd. So a few of us turned around and went back.

I finally got Dennis on the CB when I was almost back to Five Points. He was on the Tram Road trying to come out, so I warned him of the blockages. Sure enough, he got stopped where a tree had gone down in the road, and the forty-five people lined up behind it didn’t have chain saws. I didn’t figure on waiting for him that long, so I went down Anderson Flat Road, talking to him most of the way.

Remember when I said that I’m not so good at driving in the snow? Well, going down Anderson Flat was really scary. That road is even narrower than the Tram road, and it’s much steeper. I’d chosen it over Hardin Flat Road because guys coming up it had told me they saw an oak tree come down right in front of them, and had seen one crush a Ford, which I know hadn’t been there when I came up. So I thought this way was the lesser of two evils. Might have been too, but even crawling along like a little old lady in 4 low and first gear, I was white knuckled. Passing people was just a treat too. I kept picturing myself sliding off the road like the trucks up the hills.

I was just about past my scary part when Dennis finally got through on his road, so he was about two hours behind me. CB reception was really good though, because I was doubling back on a road right below him. They passed two of the stuck trucks, and then I hear an “Oh shit!” for how bad the last one was.

Dennis said some guy had jumped out to take pictures, and I joked at him that it was Big Jeff, who’s always taking pictures. Dennis took a second look at the truck, which he said was well and truly fucked, and then asked me again what Big Jeff’s new truck looked like. The one he got last week.

I described it, and as I was, Dennis was ticking off details. “Yup, got that, yup, that’s his toolbox, Yup, that’s Jeff’s truck.”

Oh, hell. That truck that was stuck the worst, about ready to roll down the mountain, was our friend Jeff’s. No sign of him. Dennis said he didn’t know how they would get it out, but that it would take at least two four-wheel drive wreckers, and good luck getting them to come up there in the storm.

I got out to the Valley safely, and decided not to wait for Dennis, but to just head on home. It became un-fun when the day was more about driving and trying not to fall off the mountain than about hunting—not getting to where I was going didn’t help much either, nor did the five-day headache I’ve been nursing. But all in all, I had an interesting day. I know Jeff didn’t; I’ll add a picture of his truck when he sends it to me, but that’s his story to tell.

But even without seeing anything, I’m glad I went. Life’s too short to not go when the hunting’s good. Or even when it’s bad, really.