White out and drifts in the Chilkat Pass

In 1980 the Libertarian Party in Alaska succeeded in having a candidate elected to office.  That would be Richard L. (Dick) Randolph, who was running for State Representative. 

The party decided that it would be most effective if we had a full slate of candidates on the ballot.  There was a pretty good Presidential candidate, Ed Clark.  My husband at the time agreed to be one of the six Fairbanks North Star Borough candidates for State Representative, along with Dick and four other guys, most of whose names escape me.  Sorry, it was a long time ago. 

The real goal of that election was for Ed Clark to receive enough votes in the national election that the Libertarian Party would no longer have to go through the petition process to get candidates on the ballot.  In pursuit of this goal the Alaska Libertarian Party felt that it was imperative that we have a campaign headquarters.  It doesn’t do any good to have a headquarters that isn’t manned, and since I was in between jobs and my husband was running for office, I volunteered.  In addition to manning the phones, I helped organize mail campaigns, I learned all the talking points, and interacted with the casual visitors to our rather spartan headquarters. 

When the votes were counted and we discovered we had actually won a seat in the State House, our elation knew no bounds.  Dick was entitled to have a secretary and a legislative aide.  He wanted someone working as secretary who not only was an excellent and experienced secretary, but who could also function as a legislative researcher and assistant aide.  The catch was, you had to relocate to Juneau for six or so months for the legislative session.  He asked me if I would like to have the job, and after I consulted with my significant other, I jumped at the job.

And thereby hangs a tale.  Of course.

The Alaska State Legislative session begins in January and lasts until May, unless there is so much legislation to cover that they can’t finish the session by then.  At that time, with all the Pipeline and Native Land Claims Settlement Act stuff going on, they rarely closed their sessions before June.  I needed to be down in Juneau and established in an apartment before the session began.

The only way to get a vehicle to Juneau is to drive it to Haines and catch a ferry from there to Juneau.  From Fairbanks to Haines is approximately 650 miles.  First you drive south to Delta Junction, then you head east to Tok.  You continue east, enter Canada, drive south to Haines Junction, and then go over the Chilkat Pass and then down into Haines.  Not a trip for the faint at heart in the dead of winter.

Lydia, Dick’s beautiful and highly intelligent wife, had already located a good place for them to live during the session.  She and Dick left for Juneau shortly after Christmas, and their 18 year old son Fred was detailed to drive their car down towing a trailer with the furniture that they needed.  His 14 year old brother Dean was to ride along with him, and I would caravan with them in my lime green Saab.

One extremely frigid January morning, we pulled out of Fairbanks and headed off down the highway towards Haines.  We had reservations for the ferry from Haines to Juneau the morning of the next day, and were planning to drive straight through.  It would be a long day, but it was doable.  The weather report was cause for some concern.  There was a pretty good storm coming in, but it looked like the pass might stay open. 

There were a lot of people who were headed for Juneau, and we didn’t want to miss our ferry reservation.  It could be a long wait for an opening if we did.

Things were going along really well.  It was snowing, but not blowing too bad when we stopped for gas in Haines Junction.  We took a break, had some lunch, filled our thermoses.  Conditions in the Chilkat Pass were deteriorating.  A Mountie had just driven through and it was snowing pretty hard.  But so far, the snow plows were keeping up and the wind had not risen too much, and they had decided not to close the highway just yet.

Fred and I decided that we had better hit the road before the weather got worse.  We were making pretty good time, and were congratulating ourselves on the fact that we would be in Haines so early we would have to stay overnight in a hotel.  Off down the highway we went, and entered the exciting territory of the Chilkat Pass.

The farther we got from Haines Junction, the heavier the snow got.  We were both experienced drivers; we had studded snow tires and front wheel drive, so we were feeling pretty confident.  The wind picked up, and our speed dropped to a crawl as the white out conditions started to settle in.  It was important to stay on the road way.  It was built up on a high gravel pad to keep the permafrost from thawing.  During the winter, the snow plows blew snow over the edge and the wind filled in the dropoff with drifts.  If you put your wheel over the edge accidentally, you would be pulled off into the deep snow.  The only remedy for that predicament was a friendly pickup truck with a winch or a tow truck.  We weren’t interested in that inconvenience.

We stopped to consult.  We decided to put Dean in my car.  I would lead, slowly, with Dean keeping a sharp eye out the passenger window to keep me from driving off the edge of the road.  Fred would follow my tail lights.  We drove slowly on.  Suddenly, I realized that Fred’s headlights were not in my rear view mirror.  Immediately I back tracked, and found him stopped, a half mile behind me.  Dean hopped out to see what was up.

What had happened was the wheel bearing on the trailer had gone bad.  He just happened to notice that the tire of the trailer seemed to be farther out than he expected to see it and had stopped to see what was going on.  The wheel was on the axle, but hanging on by about 1/8 of an inch.  If he had gone much further, it would have fallen off. 

We remembered seeing a road house about five miles back, and decided to go back there and see if they had a tow truck or a mechanic that could help us out.  Fred managed to squeeze into my back seat along with my household possessions, and the three of us left the trailer and Dick’s very nice Mercedes sitting on the edge of the road.

The road house did have a mechanic and a tow truck (which the mechanic drove), but he had gone into Haines Junction for some part or other and had not gotten back yet.  His wife plied us with coffee and pie, and we waited.  The snow fell.  We waited.  The wind started to pick up.  We waited.  Finally, several hours later, he finally got back from town.

Fred and he went off to investigate the trailer situation.  Time was still passing.  The ferry would not wait for us.  There was discussion as to whether the pass was going to have to be closed.   Fred and the mechanic came back with the car, but without the trailer. 

After a lot of telephone conferencing with Dick and Lydia in Juneau, and discussion with the mechanic and the road house hostess, this was what we decided to do.  Dean would come along with me and I would head down to Haines to catch the ferry.  Fred would stay with the car and trailer and get the trailer repaired, and then continue on to Juneau when that was accomplished.   The road house owners were happy for the business.

Dean and I got into the car and started off on our climb up into the Chilkat Pass.  The weather had not improved any.  It was snowing hard, and the wind was blowing quite hard.   This had its good points, as the howling gale was preventing the snow from accumulating on the roadway in any quantity.  Well, except for where the drifts were forming across it.  But at least you could see the edges of the road.  I figured there wasn’t likely to be a lot of traffic, and kept to the middle. 

Every once in a while, the whiteout got so bad, Dean had to open his window and hang his head out the window to see whether I was getting close to the berm at the edge.  Thankfully,  the wind dropped a bit, and I could see well enough that he didn’t have to do that any more.  At the same time, the snow started falling a lot more heavily, and it quickly became about 6 inches deep on the road.   Every once in a while we would encounter a drift that was a couple of feet deep, but these drifts were narrow and the car bashed through them pretty well.   I learned that the drifts were shallower on the far side of the road, so I aimed for that side when I saw one.  We sort of slalomed along in the broad valley that leads to the summit of the pass. 

I was grateful for the lack of other traffic, but I started to wonder where the plows were, and why the drifts were so pristine and untouched.  The piles of snow on either side of the road that had accumulated during the earlier part of the winter were about eight to ten feet high.  Solid ice, they reassured me that at least I didn’t have to worry about running off into the ditches.  On the other hand, they made a lee that was causing some very impressive drifts to form.

I looked over at Dean.  He was almost as white as the snow that surrounded us, and had a death grip on the panic bar on the dashboard in front of him.  I didn’t feel a whole lot more relaxed, but I also didn’t really want to stop and become one with the drifts.  So we persevered. 

I saw the sign that marked the summit, and figured that at least gravity would help us get through the drifts, which had gotten to the point that I was definitely afraid we were going to get high centered.   The road dropped over the edge of the mountain, and began to twist down into the valley where the US Border Station and Haines were located. 

It would have been a fun roller coaster ride if I had had rails to ride on and no responsibility for keeping the vehicle on the road.  Darkness had fallen as we proceeded through the pass.  Down the road ahead of me, I could see some sort of unearthly glow.  As I went down, it got brighter and brighter.  I wondered what was causing it.

I rounded a sharp curve and the explanation laid itself out in terrifying clarity before me.  Coming up the hill was battle line of three gigantic snow plows.  The glow I had noticed a few moments before was caused by the row of high powered lights across the top of their cabs. These impressive monsters were the sort of plows that have rotating blades to break the snowdrifts up.  The resulting powder is blown up and over the big piles that are already lining the roads.  Sort of like your little driveway snowblower on steroids.

They were working to clear the road of snow and drifts in tandem.  In spite of the fact that they were travelling up hill, they were making very good speed.  The one in front was in my lane, the second one occupied the middle of the road and the third one occupied the other lane.  They were all blowing huge clouds of snow down hill, and they were spaced about thirty feet apart.

My heart stopped beating, my breath halted as well.  Fortunately, my brain and driver reflexes went into overdrive.  I did the only thing possible.  I moved to the center of the road and headed straight for the middle plow.  As soon as I went past the first plow, I pulled sharply to the right in behind him.  Since he was spreading gravel as he went, the traction suddenly got very good, which was a really good thing because the cloud of snow the three plows were producing blinded me completely.

We continued on down the hill, the road miraculously clear in front of us.  The glow of the plows disappeared into the storm behind us.   I figured I might as well go on, since now I no longer had to contend with the drifts that had been making driving such hell only minutes before.  I looked over at Dean.  He had thrown himself back into the corner of his seat, his eyes were clenched shut, and he was as close to being in the fetal position as you can get when strapped into seat belt and shoulder harness.

“I think we’re going to be okay, now, Dean,”  I commented to him, once I could speak again.  He opened his eyes, and resumed a more normal posture. 

We dropped off the mountain, and the snow lightened.  After another hour or so, we reached the Customs Entry Station.  It was closed.  Since the Canadian Highway Patrol had closed the Chilkat Pass several hours earlier, the customs agent had gone on home to sleep and had left a note that he would be back at five in the morning.  So we waited.

He was quite astonished when he returned to his post.  We spent a few pleasant moments trying to figure out how I managed to be in the pass after the roads were closed.   We figured that the Highway Patrol’s final sweep of the road had occurred while Fred and I were trying to figure out what to do about the trailer, and when I took off from the road house they were in the act of closing the road at the far end in Haines Junction.

I know how I felt when I met the plows, I can only imagine their consternation to meet a vehicle coming through a closed road.  I imagine my heart was not the only one that stopped momentarily that night. 

The remainder of our journey was made exciting by the black ice on the road.  Granted, we weren’t going up and down hills.  Instead, we were twisting along the fjord that Haines sits on.  On one side of us was a cliff, on the other the cold black water of the Gulf of Alaska.  Dean was pretty much in shock by then, we had expended so much adrenalin by then there wasn’t any left.

We made the ferry, with minutes to spare, and slept all the way to Juneau.  Dean never got into my car again.