I C Hill

We were done with the campout. We wanted to go home. There was only one thing standing (or lying) in our way.

The driveway.

Specifically, the thick layer of ice on the driveway.

The day before, we had no trouble coming down the driveway, even though it was a bit of a steep drop from the road above to the little valley below. There was a little bit of ice in the middle of the incline, but the length of relatively ice-free road near the bottom was enough to keep the vehicles from losing control and going off the edge of the road where it curved before heading back up again towards the house.

But overnight the water which had been flowing down the driveway froze solid, and thickened, and became an impassible barrier between the campers and the "outside world".

We didn't realize this until we took the fully-loaded church van and attempted to manuever it up the hill. We got nearly three-quarters of the way up the hill before the drive wheels started spinning and the van started sliding. And it slid, and slid, and slid; and no amount of braking would stop it. Indeed, it seems that the braking actually accelerated the slide. And shifted the direction of the slide. To the point that the van turned sideways, and then rotated another quarter-turn until the front end was pointed back the way it came.

It was certainly a thrilling ride for the teens who were inside, but the driver was not so much thrilled as alarmed. Thankfully, the youth minister is an old hand at snow/ice driving and handled himself with skill and grace. He completely missed the tree. And the light pole.

After the van had finally slid to a stop, we pulled out the shovels and started clearing the path so that the van could at least return to the place from where it had started, back toward the house. Clearing the snow out of the way, unfortunately, was not sufficient to get the van lined up properly. I had to pull out my 100-foot rope and wrap it around a couple trees, stationing some of the teens at strategic points to provide leverage so that we could hold the van in position while using the spinning wheels to line it up properly so that it was aimed correctly. Gingerly, we drove it back to the front of the house and parked it.

Not content to let sleeping vans lie, I foolishly attempted to do with my own van what the other van could not; I drove right up the icy hill, got nearly three-quarters of the way up, then stopped because the wheels had no purchase. Then slid backwards, just like before. Turning. Into the snow bank. Not nearly as bad as the heavier church van, but enough that the rope was required to straighten me out again. And then it was my turn to back my van slowly up the other side again and park in front of the house, defeated.

We called the parents of the kids and asked them to come out to the top of the hill to pick up their children. Which they did. One of the parents, in fact, took the youth minister and I along and dropped us off at home. But the vans remained behind.

It wasn't until the next day - Monday - that we were able to get the vans out. The road was sanded, the sun came out, and this time, there was no trouble getting the vans up the hill. It was as if there had never been any ice at all.

It was a perfect ending for a perfectly wonderful camping trip. Not.