So I got to "rescue" a man from the mountain wilderness Sunday night.

[Madrone]

I find this very amusing.

Late Sunday night I was on the phone talking w/ someone and another call came in. I didn't know the number - but as it was 11:30 at night I knew it wasn't a telemarketer and figured it was someone that knew me, so I answered.

"Omg, Jen! I SO fucked up. I fucked up bad."

Uh, okay. I still don't know who it is - and I'm wondering if I'm about to be asked to hide a body.

"This is Erin! I fucked up, man. I'm up in the mountains and I'm stuck and I'm trapped up here!!"

Okay... So Erin is the nephew of my very elderly neighbor man, and he lives in the Tacoma/Seattle area. I ask him where he is.

"I'm by you! By (insert name of Realtor office in the sticks here) - there was a fork in the road and I tried to turn around and I went a foot too far and now I'm stuck and I can't dig out!"

He's going a million miles an hour, to the point I'm wondering if he's tweaking on something, and I can barely get a word in edgewise. Finally I ask "WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP??! Do you want me to come get you?"

"Well, I'm trying to get xxxx's number and I have my dog and SHIT, I can't believe this..."

I tell him I'll call him right back. He said okay.

I click back over to my original phone call and explain the situation. While doing this I go out and start the car because it's FREEZING out there. I HAVE to go find Erin, there's no way I'm leaving him stranded at least 4 miles (by his estimation) up a mountain in the desolate wilderness in the freezing cold. I don't WANT to get up and go - but there really WAS no other choice for me to make.

I hang up from phone call #1 and try to call Erin back. There's no answer. I hang up and wait a minute, then try again. Still no answer, so I leave a voicemail. Not sure what to do at this point, but I decide to get in the car and head out to try and find him anyway. I knew he'd mentioned (Realtor's office) and a fork in the road, but that's all I've got to go on. I just hope I'll find him.

I get to the Realtor and continue past, looking for the first logging road I see from that point. I find one and take a right, driving slowly up and up and up a switchback road heading up to the top of the mountain. I freak myself out a bit - looking to the left and thinking if I slide off the road I'm going OVER and looking to the right thinking that if an avalanche comes down the mountain at that moment I'm crushed AND going over. Slowly, slowly, back and forth I go - up up and up. At some point I finally come to a place where the road forks and I park there trying to figure out what to do next. I didn't know if I was even on the right road to begin with, and if I was and chose the wrong fork I risked also getting stuck (or worse) and/or missing Erin entirely. As I sit there for a few minutes trying to determine my next course of action my dog starts freaking. I look and coming up one of the forks is Erin walking with his dog. Whew! That whole deal turned out better than I could have expected.

I slowly made my way back down the mountain and drove home, where Erin entered his uncle's house and I came back to mine and got back in bed.

And I wondered. Who the hell else does this crazy stuff happen to? And I laughed. It's not every day a girl gets to play White Knight to a gentleman in distress.

[Guava Jelly]

1. Wow what a friggen Saga

My Heroine.
You did a wonderful deed!
:woohoo:
:hi:
And thanks for sharing your quest :yourock:

[Madrone]

5. Hopefully that deed -

gets deposited in my karmic bank! :)

[Guava Jelly]

13. I am sure it will

maybe with interest :7

[lizziegrace]

2. He's lucky

:hug:


You're braver than me...

[Madrone]

8. Dumber, maybe.

Not braver. ;)

:hug:

[lizziegrace]

15. Nah

You did the right thing. And honestly, I'd have done it too.

He's lucky you answered that call.

:)

[chknltl]

3. Roslyn Wa.....Didn't they film "Twin Peaks" or some such there?

...or perhaps some other weekly whose name escapes me...(I keep picturing a moose walking down main street and a tavern.)

Well cool! I hope the recent "heat wave" around here has melted enough snow to get your friends truck unstuck. I was on the receiving end of a similar story. Back in 1980 my girlfriend and I took three out of state college friends for their first trip up to Mt. Rainier. We parked at Paradise and hiked up to Paradise Glacier, (long gone now due to global warming). We got back to the van well after dark only to find it that the engine was dead and the parking lot empty. We used the phone outside the visitor center, (also closed and vacant), to call my roommate back in Tacoma. Even though he had National Guard duty to report to at 6am, he still came and got us. It was well after midnight when he arrived due to a serious fog on the way up. We piled all 5 adults into his tiny Audi Fox and headed back through the fog. With only one pit-stop along the way, (We had to find a ranger to open the gate at Longmire to let us out), we wound up back at my place by about 5am. Normally that trip is a little over an hour either way but the fog up there was just that thick!).

Like you, my friend had risked at least a nights sleep to go out in the wilderness to rescue friends... we may not have been in as dire a predicament as your friend was but we appreciated the sacrifice of our rescuer nonetheless.

btw: It was the ash-fall from the Mt. St. Hellens eruption of a couple weeks earlier which ended up being the culprit that killed our van's engine. We were parked up at Mt. Rainier with that van for a camping trip that famous May 18th weekend and ended up driving out of the park in another thick fog but this one consisted of erupted ash-powder...another story.

[Madrone]

6. Northern Exposure!

You got the moose and the tavern right. The tavern is The Brick Tavern - the oldest operating saloon in the state. THe moose walked in front of the Roslyn Cafe - with the camel and the palm tree. That's a half block from where I work.

I've only been to Rainier once - also at Paradise. WOW - that is a crazy story you've got there yourself.

I moved here in the fall of '98, so I wasn't around for Mt. St. Helen's eruption OR the filming of NX, which ended in '96.

[chknltl]

9. Thats the one!

.....and you did the exact thing any member of that fictional town would have done. When I saw that you were from Roslyn my first thoughts were that you were quoting a story from that show. I have been to Roslyn once, quite long ago. I think we were lost and wound up there while looking for Snoqualmie Falls.

If you think gettin stranded up at Paradise was crazy, the story behind why our van died is even better:
My then girlfriend, (now "ex") and I were camping up on Mt Rainier's Rampart Ridge close to Longmire when Mt. St Hellens blew up. If we had been a few $$ wealthier back then I would not be relating any of this as my first plan was to go camping in the "red-zone" of MT. St Hellens. I had spent May 11, the weekend before it blew, up there and wanted to go back. Because we lacked the gas money we choose Mt. Rainier instead as it is a full tank of gas closer. That very campsite back on Mt. St Hellens was but a couple of miles NW of the volcano and WELL WITHIN the blast zone. We were very lucky not to have been there, even-so at Rainier we got clobbered by the ash cloud and had to hike in an ash fog a few miles back to Longmire. By the time we got to Longmire the ash was coming down so thick that our visibility was perhaps 10 yards or so. Once at Longmire we were herded into the cafeteria along with a few dozen other folks where we were given the option of staying there free of charge OR forming up a caravan with our vehicles and get led out of the park by a ranger. We chose to leave with the caravan. For much of that trip I walked beside our Volkswagen van, (the ash-fog was that dense), and I collected baggies of ash off the windshield along the way. By the time we reached the park entrance the ash-fog was thinning enough to drive through, by Tacoma it was all gone with clear blue skies ahead. It was a few weeks later that we chose to take our friends back up to Mt. Rainier only to get stranded with a dead engine. Turns out the ash had ruined our engine and that next trip back up the mountain was to be it's last one.

[Madrone]

17. Wow.

I heard that ash was deadly stuff. There was ash falling as far as Idaho, from the stories I've heard. I hope I never have to experience that, if only because I have my first ever brand new car and I'd hate to have it get ruined!

[Suich]

4. Can't remember if it was snowing Sunday night but

good for you! I think you're crazy but you did GOOD!

:hi:

[Madrone]

7. Not snowing ...

But DAMNED cold. LOL - I didn't stop to think if I was crazy or not. Like I told someone else - I tend to view the world from MY perspective - meaning I think about if I were on the other end of things how would *I* feel and what would *I* want - and I know damned good and well I'd want someone to come pluck my ass off a mountaintop and not leave me hanging out there all night.

[Flaxbee]

10. He spells his name "E-R-I-N"?

Usually the feminine spelling. Just wondering.

Glad he got home safely, with your help.

[Madrone]

14. He does.

That's why I wrote it that way. ;)

Unusual, I know. But true.

[Kali]

11. delete badly spelled strange dupe

:rofl:

[Kali]

12. Can you please come be my neighbor?

I'm always doing dumb shit like that. Only i usually forget to bring the damn cell. Are you psychic? Cause that would go a long way to your ability to rescue me. :rofl:

[YankeyMCC]

16. Well done nt

[GOPisEvil]

18. You are truly a beautiful person.

You should have excellent karma! :)

[Madrone]

19. It takes one to know one.

Of course. ;)

[GOPisEvil]

21. ...

:blush:

So, what became of the first phone call? ;)

[Madrone]

23. ...

:shrug:

[GOPisEvil]

24. I like being difficult sometimes.

Can you tell? ;)

[Madrone]

25. Actually, no.

In fact, I'd say you're too easy. ;)

:rofl:

[GOPisEvil]

26. But I'm not cheap!

:P

:rofl:

[Madrone]

27. I will give you that

:thumbsup:

[GOPisEvil]

28. Yeah, I'm at least 500 bucks.

:woohoo:

[Madrone]

29. ...

:spray:

You're going to make me crack up at work!! Stop it! LOL

I was going to say exactly what you just did - !!!! I decided against TMI. lol

[GOPisEvil]

30. It's almost time for you to go anyway!

Crack up away! :D

[Madrone]

31. Dude ...

I could spit on my boss without even moving an inch if I wanted to. He's THAT close.

[GOPisEvil]

32. Oh yeah...

...I so don't want you getting canned. ;)

Say hi for me. :rofl:

[Madrone]

33. Okay.

Not really.

Okay - going to shut down the Tosh and lock it up (no more stolen laptops for me!). Later!

[GOPisEvil]

34. Talk to ya later!

:hi:

[Madrone]

20. Oh! And as for karma -

I think I've been receiving a bit of a karmic reward since ... ohhh.... about two weeks ago? Only had to wait 34 years - not so bad, I guess. Worth the wait, definitely.

[GOPisEvil]

22. Hmmm...

...:think:

;)

[cwydro]

35. Scary story

especially in light of that recent tragedy in Oregon.

[Madrone]

36. Yeah, that is a little on the ironic side.

He wasn't as lost, thankfully.