Sunday, the long drive in from BC for the final three weeks of work. Maybe more, we'll see how the new owners are.
The drive, snow covered roads, long, slippery, advisories posted everywhere and by the time I reach Fernie - some 6 hours later, there are signs warning that the Crowsnest Pass is closed. Check the phone, so is the one at Invermere, many road closures, no choice, no hotel rooms in Fernie, bluster on forwards to Crowsnest...
...by 7:30 I arrive, Pass is closed, not due to open until sometime the next day, I try a few back roads to the highway but they've got them blocked off as well. Choices, go back to the Firehall in Sparwood, grab a cot and a blanket, or backtrack to Cranbrook and Invermere, that pass - for the moment - is open again.
No liquor at the Firehall and so I'm off. The roads, bad already, are getting worse, visibility a few meters, can't see the road, only the abyss off to the left, slowly, slowly...cars vanish over the edge here in winter, leave no trace, the embankment loses the tracks in just a few moments, the snow covers the wreck, if they're lucky they'll be found in the spring, but read the missing people, many aren't found for years...When I was a kid my mother told us of the story of the family that went missing on the way to Vancouver, found, 22 years later, by some hikers in the Hells gate, over a cilff and into some treetops...go off the road here, now, and that could be you...
Eventually I make Calgary. A miracle of sorts, the next day, checking the road reports, every road from Nelson - the pass, south of Creston, the Crowsnest at Elkford, the #1, is closed. I made it, just barely, 30 below and 1:30 in the morning and I'm looking for a couch.