Slippery Slope of Winter: Part One

...of three

In this ongoing tale of the Perfect (I C E) Storm(s) ~ winter of 2021, I can’t help think back to similar (if less repetitive and sustained) Frozen Fiascos of years past—events so horribly remarkable that I felt compelled to put down the words to help me never forget that, once you start down the slippery slope…

Winter 2002. Not a snow for frolicking, this one.

There is a sharp, brittle crust on a half foot of dry powder so that each step is like walking on an endless eggshell. At the last instant before stepping out with the right, the left foot sinks suddenly through the white veneer into an icy pit, and conversely with the other foot, step by ponderous step across the yard and pasture.

The road is not much better. Scraped, packed, melted, refrozen and rutted, it threatens harm to auto and foot traveler alike. But this slickeryness is nothing compared to the worst-case ice storm in 1997 that almost got me for good. I nearly died — laughing.

It was just me and the cat in those days. Ann had stayed in Carolina to finish her degree, and I moved into a small cabin tacked on the side of a dead-end road just off the Blue Ridge Parkway about a dozen miles from the bustling town of Floyd.

Walnut Knob is a peninsula of blue ridges surrounded on all sides by steep valley leading off way below into the piedmont. The views and wildlife were spectacular. A dozen well-hidden dwellings populated this road; only three were occupied over winter. Mine was one of those.

The isolation was eerily forlorn, with week-long smothering fogs that singled out these particular high hills, especially in winter. I would often drive 12 of the 13 miles home in ‘good’ conditions, only to turn down the knob road on the edge of what my neighbor called ‘the droppin’-off place’ into an other-worldly microclimate of ice and fog.

Sometimes the eerie fog was exciting and mysterious, and I was comfortably cloaked and embraced by it. Other times, it seemed like a curse and a punishment. I remember this one storm of ‘97 notable for both ice and fog– a deadly combination.

Almost dark as I drove the Dodge Dakota home from work, I groped along in four-wheel-drive, sighting on one fence post then the next– this being the visible reach of my headlights. Stay in the center of the road; don’t brake suddenly or change direction any more than necessary. Get as close to the cabin as you can before abandoning ship. I listened the quivering, mock-confident voice of my inner co-pilot for any wisdom she might offer.

This was my mission and I was repeating it out loud to give me courage. The hill and curve beyond my nearest neighbor’s house was my final challenge. If I could make it up that one rise, maybe I would get the truck and me home in one piece. At least the freezing rain had stopped for now.

A good inch of ice encased the wire of the pasture fence along the road–my only guide forward in the frozen fog. This would have been beautiful if the adrenalin had not obliterated every shred of aesthetic interest I’d ever had. At that moment, Beauty was the farthest muse from my mind. This was genuine crisis. Survival had dope-slapped me hard.

Come back for part two, where the story really develops some, er, momentum.