When we left for Brian Head yesterday afternoon, the roads were dry. We drove to the top of the neighborhood on the Navajo side of the resort and started skiing through the woods. As we started skiing, the skies started snowing. We messed around for about an hour and by the time we were ready to head back to the truck, the snowing had become a pelting. I mean, it was coming down at two-inches an hour. It was like being on the losing side of a cosmic snowball fight. Back at the truck, the roads were no longer dry. In fact, on the way out of the neighborhood the low visibility coupled with the fresh snow on the ground made for some true winter driving conditions.
Unfortunately, true winter driving conditions and the typical Brian Head patron are not a good mix. Between the resort and The Homestead (~12 or 15 miles) we encountered five accidents, two cops, two plows, an ambulance, and a paramedic. It was mayhem. We stopped twice to offer help. The first stop was for a non-English speaking couple from San Diego. They were trying to find their lodge, but were spending most of the day in a snow bank. I helped free the vehicle a couple of times, but gave up after they buried it for the third time. (It was one of those silly new sport ute looking things. I have no idea what those things are, but it was totally not made for driving outside of a warm parking garage.) We got the folks into the Chev and delivered them to their lodge. I went in and talked to the front desk guys about the location of their vehicle and asked if they could send someone up for the luggage. They assured me that they would take care of their guests.
The next group (of three vehicles) had one large jeep high-centered on a huge snowbank and the other two vehicles stopped on the road for fear of moving. They asked if I could tow them off the snowbank. I might have tried, but it would have been an uphill drag and one of the guys wisely noted that I would probably end up slipping without tire chains. So, they waved us off, which was probably a good thing. A few minutes later, on the steepest part of the descent, we fetched up behind a slow moving sherriff with his lights flashing. He stopped, along with another cop, at what appeared to be a pretty bad accident. They were fully blocking the downhill lane, and I waited for them to clear the oncoming lane and signal that it was safe to go around.
There were a couple of vehicles on the hill behind me and I soon discovered that if you are driving a Cadillac Escalade from California none of the rules about emergency vehicles apply to you. As I slowed to a stop and started to get out of the Chev to communicate with the sherriff, the Cadillac pulled into the oncoming lane, passed all of us, barreled down into the cops and skidded past on the opposing shoulder. (Unfortunately, Ellen immediately heard some less than edifying commentary from me about a certain kind of person, and I heard Valerie explaining that I was stressed.) It is one of those situations where you shouldn't actually hope that someone will meet their demise, but you sort of hope that someone will meet their demise.
In any case, we made it home in about an hour, and were amazed to find the road snow-packed all the way to Parowan. There are probably two lessons to be learned from our apres ski adventure. One, it may be poor judgment on my part to stop and try to help people. I may be adding risk to what my family is experiencing, and sometimes you just really can't mitigate the effect of people's behavior no matter what you do. Two, exceedingly foolish, not to mention dangerous, behavior is directly correlated to the fanciness of the California sport ute. The more expensive the vehicle the more likely it is that its operator will be unfamiliar with the normal consequences of their own foolishness.
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