My First Trip Across I-90 — Part 1
“By then I was feeling invincible… After all, I had survived the Great Blizzard in Ohio the year before spending 9 days stuck in my rig near Buckeye Lake. I could take on anything. Or so I thought.”
Another story from the daze of my youth.
When I was 22 I drove a ’78 International Transtar cab-over tractor-trailer east bound over Lookout Pass on Interstate 90 without tire chains in a blizzard on closed roads.
Earlier that day I had left Seattle to cross Snoqualmie Pass in Washington State where back in the day the snow was so deep they had awnings over the highway. Several feet of snow covered the awnings.
The eastern half of Washington State was completely frozen over but the roads had been cleared and sanded. Outside of Arizona and New Mexico it was one of the most desert like and empty places I have ever seen.
The Idaho Highway Patrol had closed the road but when the state trooper blocking the highway suddenly had to leave, blue lights and siren, myself and a few others went to the top. I locked in the power divider and the lugged tires hardly spun at all. And when they did spin I just backed off the throttle.
Upon arriving at the top of the mountain I noticed all the trucks were pulling over so I stopped too. There I discovered they were all moving their tire chains from the drive axles on their trucks to the trailer axles to give them more braking control going down. An older driver with Yellow Freight walked over and asked, “Do you need help moving your chains?”
“No,” I replied. “I don’t have any chains.”
Stunned he looked at me and asked, “How in hell did you get up here?”
“I donno,” I answered, “my truck just pulls itself.”
“Well you’ll never make it down alive without chains,” the driver warned me. Several other drivers agreed.
“How long before the snow melts?” I asked.
“Probably come Spring,” another driver answered.
“Well it is still November,” I replied, “I can’t stay up here for that long. How far to the next truck stop?”
“At the bottom of the mountain,” someone answered.
“Will any of you be stopping there?”
“All of us will be stopping there,” the older driver said, “It’s the last place to stop for a hundred miles or more.”
“Well I tell you what,” I said, “I’ll give all of you a head start. Y’all go on down and if I’m not there in an hour or so call and report me lost.”
They walked back to their rigs mumbling and shaking their heads knowing I’d never make it down alive. I gave them all about 10 minutes then aimed my spotlights at my trailer tires before slowly starting down the hill.
I carefully watched my trailer tires and mostly used only the trailer brakes while descending the mountain about as fast as I could have walked. Well perhaps a little faster. Each time I saw a trailer wheel stop rolling I gently used the foot brake while easing off the trolly brake. Yes, I was scared but my mistake was being on I-90 in the first place. I should have gone south when I left Seattle and taken I-84 across Oregon and Utah, but I–90 was a straight line to Minneapolis where my first stop was located. Now I had no choice.
When I arrived at the bottom, and walked into the little truck stop the other drivers there were in shock. “I was just about to write you off and call it in,” one of the drivers said. “Montana has closed the roads completely, you can’t go back out tonight.”
By then I was feeling invincible… After all, I had survived the Great Blizzard in Ohio the year before spending 9 days stuck in my rig near Buckeye Lake. I could take on anything. Or so I thought.