The Day We Almost Died

On February 9th, 2013...we almost died.

Before Paul and I moved, my mother gave us a warning.

 "Don't be those people from Alabama who die in the wilderness because they got stranded in a blizzard on a forest road following the instructions of your GPS."

Or something like that. That's why she mailed us these really awesome maps for Christmas of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho so that we could explore the roads of these beautiful but remote states safely. Little did she know that our map of Montana would  lead us straight to the narrow, one lane, rocky "road" on the edge of cliff, where we nearly died.

Roads around here are a little tricky. Few roads outside of town are paved and even some in town aren't either. So it wasn't a concern to us when we took off down a dirt road toward an unknown direction. Paul wanted to drive to this mountain lake, tucked deep in the backwoods outside of Helena. On the map, the road looked accessible. It didn't mention needing 4 wheel drive or that it was one lane and that a full size vehicle is basically too wide to fit on the road. We took the turn off onto the road and began climbing the steep grade. Soon, my anxiety level rose. This narrow, one lane road was a tight squeeze between a rock wall and a cliff. No guard rails and nothing to catch our fall but the rocky valley below us. The washouts in the road made some sections feel impossible to cross but there was no way we could back out. We'd gone too far. The road had snow on it and I feared we would slide right off the edge, straight to our deaths. Paul assured me that we would get to the lake and not come back the way we came. "Don't worry," he said.

We continued up the hill and got to an area that was going to be impassable because of the snow. Luckily, there was a place to turn around but that meant we had to leave the way we came. At that point I was sure we weren't going to make it. Now, I'm a little dramatic sometimes and over-react to situations like these but I knew when Paul offered to call a co-worker and let him know where we were, in case we didn't make it, that we were in some serious trouble. As we began down the mountain, I started crying and praying and praying some more. I started thinking about all the multiple ways we may die. Would the Jeep catch fire falling down the rocks and we'd burn to death? That sounded horrible. Maybe we'd be lucky and just die on impact. Oh, and I didn't want to freeze to death either. The options just sounded painful.

At one point, just before the narrowest of sections where we had to ride the right side of the Jeep up on a snow bank to fit on the road, Paul reached over, grabbed my hand and said, "I love you". That was it. It was official. We were going to die.

I don't know how long it took us to make it down the mountain. It felt like a lifetime. My tears had washed away all of my makeup and as we pulled out onto level ground I thanked God for keeping us safe. "Never again", I said. And I meant it. I don't want to be those people.

Love and Happiness,
Bethany