It's Saturday morning here in Italy, and the original plan was to be on the slopes in Austria right now. We left at 8:00 last night to make the two-hour drive to Nassfeld, but the farther we got into the mountains, the worse the weather got. Here, we stopped in a tunnel to put chains on Shaun's car.
Once we got the chains on Shaun's car, it performed much better. Unfortunately, Jason didn't have any chains for his car. Much of the drive through the pass was spent either pushing Jason's car or sitting on his hood to aid in traction.
Jason's engine was burning up, as was Shaun's clutch. Around 1 AM, we figured it's probably not going to happen, and decided to turn around and head home. But I wasn't going to give up so easily. In what could have been a future Air Force safety briefing, I stapped on my board and rode down the mountain in the middle of the road. (It was rental gear, so why not?) There were a few times I had to hold on to Jason's car to get some momentum, but most of the time, I stayed ahead of them. It was all switchbacks, but the snow was deep enough that I didn't get hung up. There were a couple times I got so far ahead, I couldn't even see their headlights; and being out in the snow-covered mountains in the middle of the night with barely any light was kinda scary, but also very beautiful. Yeah, it was probably one of the stupidest things I've ever done.
This was 3 AM in a rest area where we stopped for some desperately needed cappuccino. True, we didn't get to our destination, and it's not looking like there will be another opportunity for me to head up this season; but at least I can say I boarded the Alps. Sort of.
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