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THE MIRACLE OF CORKSCREW MOUNTAIN
The words “Forestry Trunk Road” always cause a little shiver to run down my spine. Because it was a forestry trunk road that was the setting for one of the most intense experiences of my entire life, and one which would have had a not-so-happy ending, were it not for the direct intervention of God.
It was March of 1987 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I lived there with my wife, Sharon, who is a Canadian citizen. We’d been married in April, 1985 in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she lived at the time, and we’d moved in May of that year to Calgary. I made my living painting houses, and she had a house cleaning business.
It was a beautiful, early spring day, the snow almost all melted. The sun was out, and we decided to go for a drive into the mountains. I’d seen a lovely picture of Ram Falls, and thought it would be a great way to spend the day. Just me and my wife, a long, scenic, leisurely drive in my small, 2-wheel drive Isuzu pickup truck. a gorgeous geological location in the Canadian Rockies. We’d take along a picnic lunch, and enjoy the day.
Ram Falls, our destination in the Canadian Rockies
We stopped for gas, and got final directions to the road which led to Ram Falls. On the map, this last, 70 mile section of road was marked in a different color, but I didn’t think anything of it. I SHOULD have, but I didn’t. Looking back, I could see that this section of road was marked as “forestry trunk road.” Even if I HAD noticed that fact before we drove, I wouldn’t have known what it meant. I sure do now.
A forestry trunk road is a part of a network of finely gravelled, slightly raised, roads which the Province of Alberta built in the remote sections of the foothills leading up to and in to the Rockies. I mean REMOTE! These were built chiefly to allow for firefighters to get to areas where they might need to create firebreaks when forest fires broke out. A consequence of this network of roads was that regular “civilians” could also get into these remote areas….to fish, to hike, to camp, to picnic.
The “down” side could be quite steep. Imagine 6-10′ of snow everywhere!
The roads themselves were graveled…..not with large rocks, which would have caused a jolting ride, but with fine gravel. The roads were narrow, with enough room for 2 vehicles passing one another, sometimes with JUST enough room for 2 vehicles. Since these roads were in the foothills and mountains, the landscape to one side of the road usually went UP, and the other side went DOWN. How steeply the UP and the DOWN, varied with the terrain.
With a full tank of gas, we headed toward Ram Falls and into the woods of the foothills. No houses, no traffic, especially after we left pavement unto gravel. Even before we drove on to gravel, the roads were unplowed, covered with what I call “rotting” snow, maybe 4 – 10 inches. Rotting simply meant the snow was soft and melting. As we entered the forestry trunk road aspect, the snow was found to have a single 2-wheel set of tracks in it, and for the next 70 miles we did not pass another car.
I remember, about 5 miles in, a car off to the side in a levelled area, where a person was out of his car, climbing. And that was the last sign of civilization for the next 2 hours. The realization that we had maybe gotten in over our heads did not come all at once, but rather dawned on us after about 20 miles. There was no place to turn around, there was no place to stop….because to stop meant to maybe not be able to get started again. For the next hour and a half I drove with the utmost of concentration, putting into play all of my abilities to drive in snow which I’d learned from winters in Wisconsin. I was tested to the max!
Not a lot of extra room on the Forestry Trunk Road to Ram Falls
From going around curves, where you almost FEEL the desire for your tires to start sliding straight, to going up long inclines, where you know not to apply TOO MUCH torque to the wheels, lest they begin to slip and you begin to fishtail, to going down long declines, where you know that too much speed, or too much brake and you’re off the road and into the ditch, or down into the woods.
Every so often we would see that someone had done exactly one of those things. Off into the woods down below a set of tire tracks would head. And I mean DOWN INTO THE WOODS, with no chance of climbing out. We were a 2-wheel drive vehicle, but that meant we had power to a single, rear wheel.
Often, I would be so sure we were going to get hung up on the snow, because it was so deep and the tire ruts went down so far into the snow. I was sure these tracks had been made by 4-wheel drive vehicles, with their under carriages much higher then mine. For 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 miles I drove, not looking around, not stopping, not allowing my concentration to slip even the slightest, lest my truck, with the carriage of a car, get unalterably stuck in the snow.
Cell phones hadn’t happened yet. We were dressed in street clothes….no boots, light spring jackets. And this road was REMOTE! No cars, no houses, no streetlights, no shacks…..no curbs, no guardrails, no level wide spots in the road to stop and rest. Nothing other than the road to indicate that man dwelt on the planet.
After about 50 miles, we came to what we found out later was Corkscrew Mountain. We were getting higher up, that I could tell. The drop off on our left was not sheer, but it was rather steep anyway, going down about 200 feet. On our right, a small culvert, with the ground rising sharply beyond it. Up ahead, I could see a sharp curve to the right, and there was only sky beyond the curve…..meaning a SHARP dropoff. Slowly, but not so slowly that I might get stuck, I rounded the sharp turn, came to a stop, and froze.
In front of me, for about 80 yards, a straight stretch of road, coated in sheer ice! It was a gradual decline, with the culvert to my right, a sheer cliff of rock beside it, and a sheer drop of 200 feet or so to my left. At the end of that 80 yards, the road turned 90 degrees sharply to the left. If I went off the road to the right, I’d be hung up in the culvert. If I went off the road to the left, we’d end up way down in the trees, maybe dead, certainly in an overturned, destroyed truck, with a monster climb ahead of us to get back to the road. If I went too fast, I’d go straight when the road curved and end up in the woods and be stuck. But HOW could I go slow enough to make the curve, and yet maintain control by not overbraking? Anti-lock brakes didn’t exist, at least not in my truck.
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Here are a couple of comments I found about driving the Forestry Trunk Road, especially in the area of Corkscrew Mountain, in the winter. “Not so sure I’d want to drive that road in the winter, especially since it’s not maintained.” and “I wouldn’t dream of doing it without a 4×4. Maintenance standards are minimum and you could be sitting there a Looong time, if you have a problem. You haven’t lived dangerously till you’ve gone over Corkscrew mountain.”
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From a dead stop, the truck in neutral, I began to roll down, tapping the brake, slowly at first, and then faster and faster and faster, as the truck gained speed. Each time it would begin to fishtail I would have to let off the brake, but then the truck would begin to quickly pick up speed, and with the speed the realization that I wouldn’t be able to make the turn at the end of the decline.
Somehow, I did it! I made it! I was SO HAPPY! We continued, the danger behind us. Certainly this had to end! Certainly SOMETHING had to happen to rescue us from this dreaded road. About 3 miles further something DID happen. Another curve in the road, another, longer decline of sheer ice, a long drop on one side, solid cliff on the other, sharp turn at the bottom. This one was longer, steeper, icier. I just didn’t know how or if I could manage it. But what choice did I have. If I could have turned around BEFORE that last icy hill, I certainly couldn’t now. The only way to go was forward.
This time I almost lost it. The truck just got going too fast, and I had to brake harder than before, and the truck began to head for the culvert, but I released the brake just before going into it, and the truck straightened out. But, too much speed! And the sharp left hand turn at the end of the hill was swiftly approaching! How I stayed on the road at that turn I’ll never know. I SHOULD have ended up in the woods and stuck in the snow, but I didn’t.
During this whole time, Sharon & I talked little. I’m sure she was praying, and I just sat there hunched intently over the steering wheel, WILLING the truck to stay on the road and MOVING! About 2 miles past those dreaded S curves, which we later found to be named Corkscrew Mountain, we came to a long incline of road, maybe 1/3 of a mile long. THIS was the longest, maybe steepest, we had encountered in all these miles we’d driven so far.
As we climbed, climbed, I focused on not giving the truck too much gas, which would cause the wheel to spin and the truck to fishtail. But as we climbed, the speed kept decreasing, the deep, wet snow acting like a brake on the truck. Whenever the wheels would begin to spin or the truck to fishtail, I’d quickly let off on the gas, but as little as possible to keep the wheels pushing us UP THE HILL.
Halfway up, the inevitable happened, and we came to a complete stop. No way to go up. I thought perhaps I could back down to the bottom and start again, but as soon as I began to back up, the rear end started swerving off the road and toward the woods below. But when I tried to go forward, the wheels would just spin. After trying 2 or 3 times, I finally realized we were STUCK. 50 miles away from anyone, no way to contact anyone, no boots, no coats, no matches. And it was mid afternoon.
If we were to begin walking, which way to go? Back the way we’d come, or forward? Either way, the snow was 6″ deep, on average, and full of water. Soft, almost slushy. And all we had were street shoes. We wouldn’t be able to go 3 miles before it began to get dark, and then what? Our feet would be sopping wet and freezing; since we had only light duty jackets on, our bodies would be freezing cold. And when night fell, then what? More cold! Besides that, this was wilderness! Grizzly bears, mountain lions. I just didn’t want to even THINK about walking out of there!
Now that the truck was stopped I could stop focusing all my concentration. I just turned the truck off, left it in gear, pulled the emergency brake, and leaned back against the seat. The adrenaline which had been pumping through my heart for the last hour and a half caused a once-in-a-lifetime thing to happen. The whole world began to pulse….out and in, out and in. Larger, smaller, larger, smaller. Like a movie where the character is on drugs, and the camera tries to capture his view of the world, …. WHONG, WHONG WHONG. Throb, throb, throb!
It was sunny. The woods were only 50 feet to my left, maybe 15 feet below the grade I was on. There was absolutely no wind. After 2 minutes had gone by, and my vision had stabilized, I rolled down the window and I yelled out the window as loud as I could…….. ” G…..O…..D…!!!” That was all. It was a loud cry, fueled by adrenaline and need, and my utterance of that single word lasted maybe 5 seconds. When the echoes of my cry had died out, and silence once again reigned in that wilderness, a miraculous thing happened…..
Maybe 5 or 10 seconds after I yelled, a wind came up, slowly as a breeze, but then intensifying, little by little, until it reached maybe 10 or 15 mph. It blew through the forest like an authority of majesty, like a triumphant pulse of life. It came, and 10 seconds later, in the way it had come, it went, dying out with a last little gasp of breath, and all was quiet again. Just like that! BUT…..somehow…..I knew God was there! And that’s all it took.
My next thought was, “Let air out of a tire.” And I did. Out of the right tire, I let half the air out. And I climbed back into the truck, and I started it, and I put it into gear, and I began to CLIMB THAT HILL! 5 feet. 10 feet. 50 feet. 100 feet, and then, we were at the top! All the way to the top, my truck acted like it was a 4-wheel drive vehicle. And as I continued in the deep, rotten snow, the truck began to fishtail, and I stopped on a fairly level piece of road and let half the air out of the left rear tire, and we began again, driving surely and “surefootedly,” until, about 2 or 3 miles later, the most wonderful sight appeared to us.
On a level stretch of road, we could see a road coming down to join ours, and it had been plowed, and so was our road beyond it! Free of snow! Free of snow! Free of snow! Wet, and free of snow! Halleluiah!!! Obviously a plow had come down from whatever was above, and plowed from there to Ram Falls. The road was wet, but clear of snow, and we stopped the truck, got out, and we DANCED and we SANG and we HOLLERED and we SHOUTED and we SCREAMED and we KISSED THE GROUND and we just plain JUBILATED in any and every way. We were DELIVERED !!!!
I had a little compressor in the back of my truck which plugged into the lighter. While we refilled the tires, we continued to dance and sing and bask in the beautiful sunshine. We were still in one of the most remote areas I’ve ever been to in my life! But we were going to be okay!!!
After the tires were refilled, we continued on our way, and a gravel road never felt so good! 5 miles further on we came to the parking area for Ram Falls….there were 2 other vehicles there, both 4-wheel drive. We exited the vehicle and made our way over the trail to the Falls, and after 10 minutes of walking (glorious walking!) we came to the lookout for Ram Falls…..and it was FROZEN! O – MY – GOSH !!! All that effort, and not much to see. We stood there, still basking in our deliverance, and then made our way back to the truck.
There we met a husband and wife who were driving a big 4-wheel drive truck, and as we talked, they discovered that we’d come over Corkscrew Mountain in our little truck, and their mouths dropped open. “You came over Corkscrew Mountain in THAT !” they exclaimed. I am not exaggerating when I say that they were incredulous. “2 different 4-wheel drive vehicles AND a tow truck went off Corkscrew Mountain just yesterday!” they exclaimed. “We can’t believe you got over in THAT!”
So we got to recount to them how God had truly delivered us. I don’t think they were even believers, but they certainly basked in the spirit of deliverance and RELIEF that even then infected our every glance and every word. We were HIGH after living off adrenaline for almost 2 hours, and I’m sure our eyes and our skin just GLOWED!
They were heading back home, to Rocky Mountain Home, a town 20 miles away, and they drove out a different way than what we came in, the road plowed. I remember when we first hit paved road, the JOY that leapt to my heart, the smile that invaded my face. Those people, our new friends, never allowed themselves to get too far ahead of us, until at a traffic light in Rocky Mountain Home they signaled a left, letting us know with their arms that we were to continue straight ahead.
I still remember those arms waving at us from out of that truck, and I’ll always be thankful for their kindness. We kept on, arriving back in Calgary in the early evening. No snow on the pavement, and all was peaceful, as we made our way back to our little home near the Bow River. I remember thinking…..”The city is so peaceful, and these people have no idea of the danger that we have just escaped from!” It was almost surreal to be back among people!
Praise the Lord for His loving Providence!
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Other true stories on this blog:
The Miracle of the Norwegian Bus
MMFN – The Man No One Knew
A Few Miracles
Some More Miracles
And these miracles.
The Resurrection of Jesse James
