Expectations Versus Reality

A+ for Effort, F for Execution

It started with a five minute conversation with a roommate as we were both rushing to get to school and work, but we realized we had nothing planned, and decided to take advantage of one of the last fall-like weekends to head to Yellowstone for the day. I haven’t been to Yellowstone since I was a kid, and an indoor kid at that, so I spent all week looking up photos of Grand Prismatic Spring, Old Faithful, and Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We roped in another roommate, and all vowed to set our alarms to walk out the door by 6 am on Saturday.

My alarm blared at 5:30, and in hopes of enjoying memory foam and down for just a few more minutes, I, for better or for worse, decided to look up road conditions in Yellowstone. I could’ve kicked myself, because late fall road closures were in effect, and only sixteen miles of park roadways were open in the north of the park. After conferring with my roommates, we determined since we hadn’t thought to get snowshoes or skis, the 8 hour roundtrip drive might not be worth it. Since we were already wide awake and eating breakfast, we set about developing Plan B.

We settled on a hike to Fish Lake in the Bitterroots, an hour and a half drive south, piled in the car, and hit the road. On the drive, the sky changed from starry velvet, to dusky gray, to cotton candy dawn, while the mountains developed from foothills to craggy peaks. We pulled off the highway onto the Forest Service road, and the seasons changed quickly from late fall to early winter. As we drove into the canyon, it became more and more apparent that winter was here.

With no cell service, and having forgotten to download offline maps, and having not set the odometer to accurately consult our paper maps, we had no idea how far it was to the trailhead, so we just kept driving. As we drove, we soon realized that no one had been down the road in at least a few days, and the snow went from 2 inches, to 6 inches, to 12 inches, to 18 inches, up to what felt like at least 24 inches on the road. We kept having to stop because the Nissan Sentra we were driving had such low clearance, the front end was essentially plowing the road, and throwing all the snow onto the windshield. After about 40 minutes driving, we decided it was getting a little ridiculous to keep pushing on. We decided to turn around.

And, we got stuck. Tires spinning stuck. Not going anywhere stuck.

I ask my roommate, “Do you have a bag of sand?” “Nope.”

“Oh. What about a shovel?”

“Nope.”

We spent 45 minutes trying to use a windshield scraper and tree branches to dig ourselves out and give the tires some more traction, but alas.

Looks like we were going to get our hike in.

So, we started walking. At this point, there was nothing to do but laugh. I was beyond glad that it was only 9:30 in the morning, it was sunny, it was relatively warm, and I had a full thermos of coffee for the 10-12 miles we were looking at. I tried not to freak myself out too much, but I couldn’t help but think the paw prints we saw in the snow had to be from a mountain lion. Thankfully, there were no mountain lion encounters, but there was a nice waterfall.

After less than an hour of walking, I SAW A DOG. AND ANOTHER DOG. And a guy with a huge ass truck. Excellent. This Good Samaritan kindly offered to help tow us out, and instead of laughing too much at our stupidity, just kept exclaiming how impressed he was at how far we made it. After getting the car out of the snow and going on our way, we debated trying another hike, but after evaluating that we might’ve been a bit over our heads, we decided we’d tempted fate enough for one day.

Needless to say, I learned a few lessons:

1. When driving out of town in the winter, have a bag of sand and a shovel in my car

2. Also, don’t drive on a low tank of gas

3. Maybe bring a blanket

4. Always check road conditions and openings in advance

5. Have offline maps downloaded ahead of time

6. Laugh

7. Everything is an adventure

8. I can’t wait for May, June, July, August, and September

9. Dogs are the best