Weekend Warrior: Micro Adventure turned Misadventure

From the beginning, my friendship with Rebecca was destined to be epic.  We met while working for our school's challenge course and became instant friends.  Since then, we've spent our days hiking, rock climbing, and backpacking throughout the Cascades of Washington.  Some of my best memories of being out here are the adventures I spent with that girl.  She has since moved back to her parent's house and is preparing for her next big adventure: thru-hiking the PCT with her husband, Mark.

So when she told me she was going to be in town for a weekend, we knew we needed to have an adventure.  We agreed on the canyon since it was close, but Friday's Malibu buckets at the Palace made us change our minds (not for the better).  So Redtop Mountain it was.  A fire lookout on top of a mountain, 12 miles on forest service roads, in winter.  What could go wrong?  Well, as you've probably guessed, pretty much everything.

A few miles in, after pushing the Subaru through some sketchy places.  It finally got stuck.  We couldn't move it forward, backward, or any which way.  We spent the better part of an hour attempting to dig out the snow underneath the car, which had decided to float itself on the pile of ice.  It's not like Subaru's have low clearance or anything...  Oh, wait... They do.

We finally gave up after it was clear we were not going to be getting the car unstuck by ourselves.  We didn't want to call for help, because we are mountain women and we can save ourselves.  But we thought Mark might want his car back.  So we called our husbands.  They sounded amused over the phone and it ended up being a comical experience all together.

While we waited for the men to rescue us, Becca and I decided that we should go for a walk.  We needed to warm up a bit and we were there to hike, so might as well do something fun rather than just sit and wait around for the men to come.  So we walked a bit up the road and the vista of the Teanaway Valley unfolded beneath us.  It was so beautiful.  We took our time and enjoyed the view.

When we came back down, we needed to only wait for twenty minutes or so before I saw my husband's Dodge Ram rolling up the hill.  Unfortunately for us... the truck also got stuck in the snow.  We weren't even able to get the truck to where the Subaru was so we could attach the tow strap and pull the car.  How we got the Subaru up that far, I will never know.  Thankfully the boys had the foresight to bring shovels.  We got the truck unstuck first and pushed it down the mountain far enough for it to turn around.  Then we started on the Subaru.  It took us three more hours to get both vehicles down the mountain and out of the snow.  The boys weren't overly pleased, but they did get the rights to tease us relentlessly forever.  But nevertheless, Becca and I had an adventure.  And sometimes the adventure turns into something you never thought would happen or something you never wanted to happen at all.  But in the end, we left with a smile on our faces and a story to tell.