Brink of Death

Yesterday was one of the most terrifying days of my life.

Period.

Woke up early and got the tent in the car and checked our route to the next stop. Discovered it had been re-routed due to a minor earthquake. The earthquake caused a avalanche which blocked the road.

Google and apple both put in course corrections which had us d oubling back and adding about 4 hours to the drive.

We saw there was a option to take a shortcut through one of the National Forests. This shortcut had me take a old forestry road through the Three Rivers National Forest.

The fact it was a forestry road should have been warning (sign number 1). It also stated part of it would be unpaved (sign 2). And that the road was not maintained during the winter (sign 3). Finally our turn off was at mile 10 but the road closed at mile 14 (sign 4)

We decided it couldn’t be that bad and started out. We were on a state highway which was fine. At the turn off the forestry road looked fine. We turned and It almost immediately was bad. (We we’re already at about 2500ft)

The road was basically one lane and a pretty steady, windy steep incline. After a few miles the road started to become uneven and weeds and vegetation was growing in the cracks. Than small rocks started falling on the road and car. We had no were to turn around so we had to keep going. I mean inching along. Huge drops with no railing.

Than we come to a sign that said road narrows to one lane.

WTF!?

It’s already one lane but somehow it gets smaller. Still no way to turn around. So we keep going.

We finally round a ridiculous cliff that literally was above the clouds and encountered the unpaved dirt road. Actually it was gravel. We had been driving for about 2 hours and only went a total of maybe 7 -8 miles total. We still hadn’t made it to the road we were supposed to turn on.

So we sat there. No cell service. We hadn’t seen anyone in hours and no one knew where we were. We knew we had to do something before it started getting dark

Kim started crying. I tried to keep it together but I was scared. Kim wanted to make a video in case we didn’t make it but I thought that was to fatalistic. Besides no one would find it.

I know this sounds over dramatic but I’ve never been more terrified in my life. Not scared or afraid but terrified.

Fortunately there was a place to turn around in the gravel. I contemplated continuing on the gravel path because I didn’t want to go back the way we came but Kim absolutely refused.

So we turned around and held our breath. We inched our way back down. After a total of a little over 4 hours we were back were we started.

Ended up driving about 12 hours in total yesterday.

Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. Again.

I literally ran out of cuss words.

To top it off. Our next tent destination was closed due to millions of gallons of sewage being spilled on the beach.

Literal shit. LolRead more