Snow Blizzard
Around 7:30 last night, it began to snow again. A couple of the other staff that are here at Turpin Meadow Ranch were playing Apples to Apples… I spent some time emailing and just chilling out. The snow kept coming down. The entire valley and mountains disappeared out of sight because of the thick snowfall - it looked like a heavy white fog had just descended onto the valley, except it was snow not fog.
We decided to go over to Diamond D Ranch down the road about three miles to watch a movie around 9:30 p.m. The rest of the staff live over there, while Corban and I are living on the main ranch. I had to drive a van out there… you wouldn’t think it would be a big deal. It’s just a three mile drive, right?
Wrong. The many herds of buffalo, elk, and moose that roam this area do daily migrations across the main road to get to the Buffalo Fork river further down in the valley. During the early morning and day, they graze in the valley on the west side of the road. Around dusk and evening, they migrate across to the east side where the river runs. Last year, one of the staff members was driving a suburban down the road at night. He was driving around 35 or 40 miles an hour… suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a moose in the middle of the road. There wasn’t any time to swerve and miss it. He hit it dead on. Later on, he said it was as if God had taken the front of the suburban in His hand and just crushed it. The moose simply got up and walked away… the suburban was totaled.
Needless to say, I’ve never driven in snow, much less with the danger of elk, moose, and buffalo in the road (nevermind the fact that it’s grizzly bear season right now). It was probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever done… driving back after the movie at midnight with heavy, heavy snowfall. The snow was driving towards us horizontally, and snow was beginning to stick on the road. I was inching along down the middle of the road at a meager 20 miles an hour, doing all I could to just see through the windshield… nevermind keeping my eyes out for any moose or elk in the road.
We made it back in one piece. Earlier this morning, after telling Mark (one of the permanent staff) about the drive last night, he simply remarked, “The scary thing is that you’ll get used to that by the end of the summer.”
Published on 10 May 2008 at 11:46 am.
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