Ice Follies: Part One

Part Two: tomorrow. And another frozen pair--next week!

Here in February 2021, we have a week coming up where the mixed winter precip will be coming down. We will fall on our ice if we don’t take care. This precaution for what lies ahead reminded me of one of several bodily close encounters with Old Man Winter over the decades in Floyd County. I will share them here as the Ice Man Cometh.

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Friday, 06 February 2004. It has rained all night, and today until mid-afternoon. The ground is solid as a rock, so everything that falls channels down the gorge, over the top of the ground and nothing perks into the soil. The creek is out of its banks and it is very, very cold.

As I look at the Intellicast radar, Floyd County remains in a tiny tear-drop patch of dark pink freezing rain, a cold enclave that stubbornly refuses to warm up (“warm” here being a relative term) like the rest of southwest Virginia has by now.

Amazingly, we still have power with all this ice. Icicles hang from every branch, and I chuckle to myself thinking that the yellowed grass in the yard reminds me of Calvin’s hair.

It is still possible now to walk in the yard and in places where snow has persisted where my MuckBoots can crunch in and get a purchase. But I was out in this mess because we were having an ongoing emergency and I needed to get across the road and to the edge of the raging creek right away. The urgency: to rescue the plank we use for a bridge before it washed away in the swelling stream. How hard could that be, I asked.

Very, very hard, it turns out.

The gravel of the roadbed was visible under solid ice covered by liquid water flowing down off the yard, smooth and frictionless as a well-groomed hockey rink. Almost bald, my winter boots would keep my feet dry, but the lack of tread portended snow angels on the ice. By this point, there was no going back.

In a stroke of genius, as I ease past the firewood stacks, I grab two hiking sticks to use as outriggers, so surely, with my extra support, I can make it across the road and save the foot-board bridge!

I go to plant my ski-poles on the gravel of the road, but they slip over the surface like a speed skater’s blades. I try a half dozen crossings, all the same.

Even where torrents of water now stream down the rutted gravel road, nothing below has melted, and clear invisible ice glistens under the rushing rain water. No human in boots like mine can walk across this road, I realize as the waters in the creek rise and splash against our little footbridge.

Think, brain. Use your physical therapist knowledge of locomotion and physics, knucklehead.

“Aha!” brain said. “Lower your center of gravity and broaden your base of support with the hiking sticks.”

And so, I had a plan. In a full squat in the rough snow at the edge of the road, I prepared to reciprocally duck-walk across the frozen road, using the poles, cross-country fashion as I inched along. That way, when I fell at least I wouldn’t fall very far (although I would get very, very wet).

But on the other hand, if I fell–which seemed highly possible–I wasn’t sure I could get back on my feet out of the freezing rainwater on ice.

What would I push against to stand in this world where traction didn’t exist?

Duh! Maybe I should have told Ann I was valiantly heading out to cross the treacherous road to save the plank. But no, I did the manly thing and quietly just did the deed.

But now, if the hero went down, he’d have to stay in place right where he fell until she missed him. Surely she’d notice his absence by bedtime. Out the upstairs window at dusk: there–a frozen snow angel splayed out in a gangly X, a martyr-sacrifice to Old Man Winter.

Now this is the kind of field-decision I’m sure you are familiar with.

You’ve analyzed the situation and taken stock of your resources. You’ve considered all the alternatives, balanced risks against benefit and created a five-step plan of action. You’ve wisely used the accumulated wisdom of your years of analytical experience and problem-solving know-how. How could you possibly fail?

Then, setting off to complete your assignment, and at a point generally just past prudence, you utter the all too familiar and futile words to no one: Oh, *_____! And you realize the truth of one of my favorite pithy personal aphorisms: It is easier to get into something than to get out of it. (*expletive of choice) Part Two, tomorrow!

NOTE: Can you say YakTraxs? This was the year we learned how to maintain winter weight-bearing through the soles of the feet and not the base of our spines. It works out much better that way. You need you some of these–as far south as Georgia, if these Polar Vortices get popular.