We had spent the first half of the day North Fork side of Glacier National Park. Bowman Lake, the North Fork Road, and the areas around them were beautiful. I had a cold, so we decided not to hike that day and just visit the area by car. Our stomachs were full of tasty baked goods from the Polebridge Mercantile store. It was only 2pm and we wanted to explore so more, so we decided to check out Red Meadow Road...shown on some of our maps, but not in the park itself.
This is one of the most remote areas in the lower 48. Polebridge Mercantile is the only store for around 40 miles, and most of those miles are dirt roads. It was the last day of November and we were in northern Montana.
The road started with a just a dusting of snow. The scenery was enjoyable and the road had enough tire tracks through the snow that it appeared to be getting some use. During most of the drive we were slowly climbing and the snow was slowly getting deeper, but it never seemed like more than a few inches. The views seemed like they'd always be better around the next corner.
At the 8 mile mark the road started going downhill and I thought maybe we had hit the high point. Instead we descended to a little creek and the road suddenly started to shoot up and the snow got deeper and softer very quickly. We tried to turn around, but it was too late and the car was stuck. It was around 2:30pm.
We spent about two hours trying to get the car unstuck. We did the normal things of "don't let the tires spin", but the wheels seemed like either they wouldn't move at all, or they'd spin. We tried putting all sorts of objects from inside the car under the tires (digging out under the edges) to gain traction, with no luck. Homegrown potatoes (sorry David), the rack from my cycle truck (sorry me), paper grocery bags, floor matts from the car, broken sign remnants from the road. They all had their turn under the wheels, but we were still stuck. We were 10 miles in on a remote road in a remote part of Montana.
It was going to get dark at 5pm, so we made the decision to stay the night in the car. I wouldn't say that we were well prepared (if we were well prepared we'd have had chains for our tires, water purification tablets, a flashlight, sleeping bags, and other items), but we were in reasonable shape. We had a lot of food in the car (gifts from friends on our travels), lots of ski clothing, our cross country skis, and almost a full tank of gas.
Getting ready for the night meant putting on every piece of clothing that we had and moving things around the car to make it comfortable. The front seats in our Subaru go back almost to level and make passable beds. I had on three pairs of pants: long johns, then Ibex XC ski pants, then my snowboard pants on top. On my torso I think I had 5 layers of wool and a winter jacket. 3 hats were on my head. 2 pairs of Smartwool socks and ski boots on my feet. Christine's outfit was similar.
Sleeping through the night was hard. We ran the car about once an hour to keep it and ourselves warm. We listened to Botany of Desire on my iPhone to pass the time (thanks Apple for building in useful speakers) and got sick of how much the book repeats itself. We both were thinking things that we didn't want to talk about. What would happen if no one could help us get the car unstuck? When would our B&B in Whitefish notice that we were missing? What other techniques should I try to free the car? The night ticked by very slowly at first...8pm seemed like it took a day, and 10pm was another day later. Midnight was a huge success in my head because I figured that was about halfway to daylight. Between 1am and 5am I slept pretty well (minus the waking up every hour to turn on the car). At 7am I wondered if the sun would ever come up. By 7:30 we started to see a bit of light. We had to battle cold along with the time. At midnight it was just below freezing and snowing, but by 4am it was 17F and clear.
By 8am we were out of the car and ready to go. The ground had about 2" to 3" of fresh snow. The snow under the car had been compacted into hard and dense ice. Going to town was the only sensible option. We filled my backpack with the essentials: food, water bottles, spare gloves and hats, my wallet and the car keys. We thought we'd have to go about 8 1/2 miles back to the "main road" to find a car into town.
We started by skiing, but it was slow going. The few inches of fresh powder made breaking trail hard and we were skiing over uneven tire tracks. At the 8 mile mark we ditched the skis and switched to walking. Walking in the snow was easy, the fresh snow added some traction and the tire tracks underneath meant that we weren't sinking deep into the snow.
The day was much clearer than our previous one and I found the walk to be enjoyable when I didn't think about our situation. The sky was clear and the views were spectacular. We didn't have a good idea of progress because the road was missing most of it's mile markers. After hours we found the 3 mile marker and I felt elated. 3 miles to go didn't seem like a lot.
We approached the intersection with the North Fork Road ("the main road" in our minds...although it only gets a couple cars an hour up here) at around 1pm. As we approached I saw a car pull out from a house and stop to leave mail in their mailbox. We were a few hundred feet away and jumped up and down and shouted, but they didn't hear us. That was really disheartening.
We got to the main road and waited about 20 minutes. Just as we decided to walk down to the store (6-8 miles from here) a truck pulled up. It was the border patrol (we were about 10 miles from the Canadian border) and he gave us a ride into town.
Getting to the Polebridge Mercantile was huge. Flannery (one of the owners) quickly fed us and loaned me the phone to call a tow truck. Stewart (the other owner) stoked the huge wood fire stove. The store is the social hub for the surrounding 20 or 30 miles and I enjoyed being there in good company. I came in saying "We're some of those tourists who go where they shouldn't go and get their car stuck" and expected everyone to have a laugh at our expense, but everyone was friendly and supportive. Someone even commented on how well prepared we appeared to be (funny because Christine and I had a long conversation about what we wish we'd had). I learned that our B&B had noticed that we were missing at 5am and had called the Park Service and other agencies.
A couple of hours later the tow truck came. Getting the car unstuck was an adventure and took a little over 3 hours round trip (+2 hours round trip for the tow truck operators...I'll let you guess at the final bill). The road had about 3" deeper snow on it at this point and what was reasonable to drive in on a Subaru was now tough on tow truck with twice the ground clearance. On the drive out I checked the odometer and noticed that our hike had been very close to 10 miles, not the little over 8 that I had guessed.
I think Christine had the worst of it by staying behind at Polebridge and waiting. She was nervous the whole time that the tow truck would get stuck and that I'd have to hike out again. When it got dark and we still weren't back she was really getting worried, but just about that time we showed up.
The drive from Polebridge back to Whitefish was uneventful and by 8pm we were back in Whitefish with a little food and drink and ready for bed.
The End (sorta)
That isn't really the end of my writing, but it's the end of the story.
Christine and I debated writing about our adventures. It is pretty embarrassing to be one of those people who gets stuck. I don't want my family (some of whom will read this) to worry about me next time I go out in the mountains. I feel really bad for the people at our B&B who spent a lot of time being worried and for the search and rescue people who were looking for us. I feel stupid for having gone on such a minor road without good topo maps or local knowledge or adequate supplies in winter and not turning around before we did. It was a human to make the mistakes that got us stuck, but I still feel stupid for having made them.
I feel very lucky that we were in a reasonably stocked car. I know what I want to add to it just in case, but I still feel lucky. We didn't plan on this, or prepare for it, and the car was only well stocked because we were on a longer road trip. That is why it was luck.
I feel very lucky that the people of Polebridge Montana are so friendly. I can't imagine a better bunch of strangers to get stuck with.
I am very lucky to have had Christine with me, and I think she is lucky to have me with her. I've been in one other similar situation, but I was by myself and it was much much scarier.
The experience has made me think about my other adventures. Even if I'm going for a mid-summer day hike we should have the basics to hike out from any logging road to a major road. Having people know where I'm going is important. There was a lot of comfort in knowing that the B&B knew roughly where we were and that we hadn't come home. These are all basic rules that everyone hears many times during their lives, but this trip really drove it home.
Getting the car unstuck
The tow truck driver didn't end up using the tow truck to unstick my car. He was able to drive it out, even though the wheels had been dug in really well. His trick is something that I need to remember.
Our Subaru has a turbo engine, and so the power can come on with a little delay (aka turbo lag). When I was trying to get the car out I felt like I could either get the wheels to spin (digging us in further) or not move at all. It was hard to get just a little traction to rock it out. To work around this the tow truck driver spun the engine up in neutral (getting the turbo going), then dropped it into gear and immediately jumped on the brake. Switching between forward and reverse with those little boosts of power, and with two helpers us pushing and lifting on the bumper, was enough to get it out of the holes and back up onto fresh snow. Then his really good driving skills (especially knowing exactly where every wheel was on the ground) allowed him to drive around the 4 holes made by our wheels and got the heading back down the road.