Wrong Turn Sends Couple on a Brush with Death

Last Summer, my husband, Brian, and I had just finished tent camping with relatives in the northern section of Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California. After my cousins departed back to their home two hours away, we decided to explore the southern part of the national park, which was approximately 70 miles away via the park road that ran north and south through the national park. This north-south road was the only access between the north and south halves of the national park. Driving around the national park (outside park boundary) from the north to the south was a minimum of 130 miles, nearly twice the distance.

After driving for only a couple of miles south on the national park road, we were stopped by a wall of snow nearly 20 feet high (in July), an impossible feat for a 4-wheel drive vehicle, not to mention our front-wheel-drive rental car. Large bulldozers were working to clear the snow-blocked road, but it appeared to be a Herculean task which could take days or weeks.

Thus, we were forced to turn around and drive the 130 miles around the national park's circumference outside the national park boundary. After driving for an hour or so, we came upon a tiny "town" at a crossroad. The entire town seemed to consist of one little dilapidated house, an old-fashioned general store and a gas station whose attendant pumped gas, checked oil, and washed windows for the customer in front of us. When we pulled up and asked for directions, the attendant, wearing a shredded straw hat and chewing on what appeared to be a long piece of hay, exposed his toothless smile as he kindly waved us over to the grocery store next door for better driving assistance.

The area was reminiscent of the Old West as we pulled into the dirt parking lot of the general store, and proceeded over some creaky wooden steps and into the store. Cans and jars lined the floor-to-ceiling shelves. We were the only customers in the store, and asked the man at the checkout for directions to the south side of the national park, he seemed very sure of himself when he pointed toward the road and instructed us to take the next road to the right instead of staying on the main road as previously planned. He told us it would save us hours of driving to the south side of the national park. We thanked him and went on our way.

Just as the store manager had described, we came upon a road within less than a mile that went off to the right. We took the road, and after a quarter of a mile, it became a gravel road. After we continued for several miles, the road changed from gravel to dirt. The further we drove, the more ruts and holes it was necessary to steer around in our front-wheel-drive rental car.

As we continued, the road was eventually squeezed down to one lane by small trees, thick shrubs, tall grass and weeds. Low-hanging tree branches swept the front of the rental car and windshield, and screeched as they scraped the sides of the rental car on our way through the bramble. Even though our rental car was narrow, it suffered a few scratches. At times, the road became nearly invisible under thick forest vegetation. As we pushed ahead, grass and thicket became the predominant road surface in many places. It appeared as though no one had driven on this road for weeks, possibly longer.

Common sense should have told us to turn our rental car around and go back the way we came, but we kept thinking that we would see the national park entrance any minute, and pressed on slowly around countless hairpin turns, climbing higher and higher into the mountain wilderness, far away from any signs of civilization or other humans.

After hours of careful, cautious driving, we came to a road structure we had never seen before. The left side of the road was a wall of water-a waterfall creating a river that flowed across the road from left to right, abruptly dropping off to form yet another waterfall on the right side of the road which plunged down into a bottomless ravine. As we stopped the car to study the situation, I envisioned the swift current washing our car over the waterfall. We had no way of knowing how deep the water was in front of us nor if our rental car could make it. But we decided that if something really and truly were dangerous, a sign would have been posted to warn us. So we backed up and gunned it across the river, allowing sheer momentum to hasten us through the parting waters before the engine could drown and die. Very fortunately, this worked as planned, and the rental car kept humming.

As we advanced up the winding trail, the road became even more grown over, with bushes scraping the underside of the rental car as we dodged yawning crevices. Eventually, we found ourselves negotiating every foot of progress. The only reason we persisted was that we believed we would see the national park entrance just over each crest or around each corner. But we saw nothing but wilderness. We had now climbed high enough that we could see many other mountaintops for what seemed hundreds of miles.

The climate appeared slightly different at our current elevation and position on the mountain. The road had become less grassy and mostly dust with a few small randomly-scattered shrubs. The air was drier and vegetation less dense than it was back at the waterfall. It is possible that this change in climate occurred because of the particular side of the mountain we were now on, since many mountains do have a rainy side and a dry side.

My head swirled with fears as I looked at my cell phone which found no signal. If something happened way out here, how could we possibly signal for help? We had not seen another human or vehicle for several hours. What would happen if we became stranded out here?

Just then, my worst fears were realized as the rental car suddenly jolted and the front dropped. The motor puttered into silence. The stillness of the car was agonizing. It was now apparent that the front of our rental car had fallen into a gaping crevice in the road. I looked out the window to my right, and saw forested peaks for eternity, and a hill in front of us, which probably provided the same view at the top. We got out of the rental car to evaluate the situation, and it looked grim. Examination of the underside of the rental car revealed that the car was resting on the dirt road with the front tires sunk down into a crevice. The left front tire was dangling in mid air, and the right front tire was at least touching the road in a dip. We had no shovel, no tools for digging the car out of this dreadful gap.

The only sounds we could hear were a few birds in the trees and an occasional gentle gust of wind. Otherwise, the environment contained only dead silence. My cell phone screen blinked "Searching for Service," so I turned it off to conserve the battery in case we were stuck here for days.

Brian rifled through our camping supplies looking for ideas or tools that could relate to our situation while I crossed the dusty road looking for a "latrine." To my horror, I found hundreds of mountain lion paw prints in the dust. I walked for several feet, and the paw prints were just as plentiful. Everywhere I walked, I found mountain lion paw prints. The mountain was apparently crawling with lions. Goosebumps formed as I recalled a documentary I had seen on TV where African lions worked in organized groups to kill prey of any size available, including super-large varieties of oxen. I cautiously scanned my surroundings and tinkled as quickly as possible then hurried back to the rental car, this time noticing paw prints all over the road as I walked.

Brian found a small plastic trowel, and advised me that he intended to use it to remove the dirt road from the bottom of the rental car. As ridiculous as this seemed, I did not rob him of our only hope by laughing. I informed him of the mountain lion paw prints I had observed, thus we felt it best to both stick together. So I sat in the grass and watched him dig for about an hour and a half until his knuckles were bloody and sore. As expected, the rental car appeared to be just as stuck as it was before he began.

By this time, the sun was getting low, and I was concerned that even if we were somehow able to dislodge the rental car, that it would be nearly impossible to navigate this Swiss-cheese road in the dark. The alternative was spending the night with mountain lions.

An idea came to me at that time, and Brian stopped to listen. I explained to him that we could jack up the corner of the rental car where the tire was dangling and pile rocks under the tire. Then, when the jack was removed, the tire would be setting on rocks instead of hanging, perhaps enabling our escape from this mountain lion mecca.

With renewed hope, we searched the trunk for a jack, and found one in a covered compartment underneath the main section of the trunk. We checked the auto manual for a good spot to place the jack, and positioned it for lifting the front left tire. We took turns cranking the jack, as the rental car bottom was slowly hoisted above the road level. We spent the next hour running up and down the road gathering rocks and piling them under the front left suspended wheel.

Finally came the moment of truce when we dared to lower the rental car and remove the jack. The pile of rocks held under the weight of the car, but would it hold as the tire would turn to climb out of the hole? We got into the rental car, and Brian turned on the ignition. The motor started normally, to our relief. He shifted the car into first gear to make certain that the tire would not spin fast, thus preventing it from throwing the rocks we had tediously piled beneath it. As the rental car began to roll forward, the rock pile shifted slightly, but not enough to disrupt the car's forward advance, and within seconds we were free of the gap in the road.

We carefully turned the car around, and managed to exit the way we had come. We reached the main road at sundown, and breathed a sigh of glorious relief.