It was the tail-end of elk season and the heavy snows had forced my son and I down from our high camp at 5,000 feet near Craggy Peak, not far from the Cascade crest, half way between Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens.
We had been up there for days, hoping the snows would taper off. We had a couple other neighbors up there with their horses for at least one night, when the four of us gathered inside my shelter and told our hunting stories to each other. That lasted 'till the wee hours, over a few drinks, knowing that it was too nasty out to hunt the next day and that we all had to get the heck down to a lower altitude before the drifts on the narrow trails became impassable.
Trudging our way out the next afternoon, leading our horses with their pack loads of our camp equipment, we dropped down 2,000 ft in elevation to our lower camp where the vehicle was, about a 5 mile hike. It was about dark when we got down and there was much less snow there, but still coming down heavy.
We spent hours getting our gear off of the horses and stowed in the back of my 4x4 truck. Covered everything with a tarp, hooked up the horse trailer, put them inside with some grain for a reward and some fresh hay to get them through the night, then we settled into our sleeping bags, planning to head on out at first light the next day.
As usual, my son slept sound without a care in the world, but I was nervous about getting out because the snow never let up and we were parked off the end of a rough logging skid road in a clearcut. My truck was all chained up front and back already, so I was not overly worried about getting out to the main road. Yet I did not know how deep the snow might get by dawn.
Around 2 AM I woke the boy up and we headed on out early, having to travel down a narrow steep road about 17 miles before we hit a better road near the upper Lewis River. After that there would still be considerably more miles needed to be traveled before we neared any civilization at Cougar, Washington, the closest houses, where we could find a telephone to check in at home if needed.
We got out and down the road a spell, to where the snow was less, when I made my first foolish mistake. I stopped and decided to take my tire chains off, knowing that I would most likely be lower soon and need to do so then anyway. There would be no more hills to climb, no other traffic on the roads and I trusted my good tires and four wheel drive traction to get us on home.
As I was taking the chains off, we were approached by a another couple hunters that were out joy riding in their 4x4, having already drank too much home made wine. They were overly friendly and kept offering me some of the drink. I wanted them to leave and quit distracting me, as all I wanted to do was to finish what I was doing and get on down the road.
I finally pretended to take a swig to get them off my back and then we headed on down the hill after making a last check on the two horses. I traveled fairly slow as there was still snow on the roads, though the lower we got down the mountain, the less of it there was to contend with.
At the 7 mile marker, there was a sharp corner on the last leg of an ‘S’ curve. I thought that I was going slow enough, but I had not taken into consideration what the horses would do to us all as we went around those corners.
On the first leg of that curve, both horses shifted to one side of the trailer to keep their balance, then as the corner was further transited, about half way through, they simultaneously shifted back to the other side. The road was just slippery enough with the snow, that their shift caused the trailer to break traction with the road and start to jack-knife on me just as I was going into sharpest part of the curve. Of course that was also where there was a very steep drop-off down into Rock Creek canyon. But there were also some large fir trees that could catch you part way down.
As we went into the corner I attempted to apply enough fuel to pull the trailer straight again, but it was too late for that.
The back of the trailer was trying to pass the truck as the entire unit slid off the road, truck included of course. I remember that everything seemed to go into slow motion as the crash came with everything upside down, having rolled completely over.
It was a very strange process, making that seemingly ‘slow-motion’ transition, with the headlights shining through the falling snow and the ground approaching my windshield … then the noise of the crash and the breaking windshield glass as it was crushed in. I hurriedly turned off the lights and ignition, fearing a fire as at least one of my two fuel tanks was full of gasoline.
There we sat for a moment in the dark, upside down, hanging from our seat belts. When we released the belts, we fell onto the cab ceiling into all of the broken glass. Then to get out before a fire began became the issue at hand. I tried to kick a side window out with my heavy hunting boots, but it was too tough for that.
We finally found a small folding military steel shovel in the debris and used it as a hammer to shatter a window to get on out of the truck.
We checked ourselves over quickly and found each other relatively uninjured … then to the horses. The little night light inside the front of the trailer was still on and showed considerable damage to the front of the trailer which was hanging on down the steep bank at a 90 degree angle with the truck, upside down. The horses were both thrashing wildly on their backs hanging from the short chains attached at the front of the trailer to their halters.
I knew I had to free them from those chains in order for them to relax a little. As they thrashed they moved in jerks, enough to give just enough momentary slack for me to first unsnap one chain and then the other. I was anxious to see what kind of shape they were in, thinking and fearing the worst.
As soon as they were no longer restrained by the halter chains, they fought to right themselves in that narrow, somewhat smashed, space they shared in turmoil. I had not the slightest idea what to do next, especially when I saw the signs of blood …
Having been raised on John Wayne style westerns, where the cowboys in the movies had always seemed to have to shoot their horses when they were injured, to put them down and out of their misery … I just assumed that under the circumstances we faced here, that that was maybe a next step, as I knew that they had been through a hell and things did not look all that good from my perspective.
That is when I told my boy to go fetch a rifle from the cab … like I say … in the movies …
But before he could get it, one of the horses, the white one that showed the red blood the best, came crashing out of the wreckage, in a panic that allowed it to get out through a jagged hole that I would have swore was impossible for her to fit through. It was a good thing for the brown horse though, as he finally had enough room to right himself.
Then the two guys of earlier, just happened by … and now, they were really snockered (drunk) and were full of all kinds of ideas about what I should do next, none of which were worth a darn. As my boy rounded up the white horse and found it’s injuries not as severe as we feared … I sent our ‘friends’ off back to their camp to get a hacksaw so I could cut enough trailer frame clear, to get the other horse out also. As I said, he was not going to get out that hole the other had come through … I still don’t see how that had been possible in the first placed.
Much later, one of our ‘friends’ came back with another guy that was sober, from their camp, with the needed hacksaw, so we could free the other horse, which we shortly did. They came somewhat late, having rolled their own truck up the road nearer to their camp, part in haste to get help to us, part due to poor road conditions, but mainly I suspect, due to the ‘grapes’ consumed.
Many, many, hours later, after much more travel to get to a phone, some calls to arrange for a rental horse trailer, my other 4x4 that was still at home to tow the trailer with, and two tow trucks from 70 miles away … we and all of the broken equipment made it safely, (almost), home from another hunting season. These hunting trips are all usually exciting to some degree, but thankfully not quite to ’that’ degree …
The Truck and the Trailer were totally wrecked … but the horses had a much happier ending … and I learned something very important … ‘real’ life is not all like John Wayne’s movies, and horses are much tougher than you would think.
(reprint from: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474976876278 )
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