Wonder Winterland

2001-12-04 07:56 ☼ post

It snowed quite a bit overnight (and it’s still going) so getting to work today was a bit of an adventure. I had to brush about three inches of snow off my car just to get started, but otherwise I didn’t have trouble pulling out into the snow covered streets of Spokane. I’m just glad that I didn’t have far to go because from what I could tell the plows haven’t been out much. Hopefully they’ll have the Thor-Ray hill under control by the time I need to go up it this afternoon.

Speaking of hills and bad roads, Stevens (which is right next to my apartment building) was terrible this morning. I looked up it at one point as I was brushing off my car and saw approximately ten cars (including a bus) at a standstill with at least one car completely turned around and trying to come back down despite the fact that this particular street is a one way all the way to the top. Hopefully they were able to straighten out that mass without too much trouble.

I haven’t ever had to turn completely around on the Stevens hill, but I’ve definitely been in the position of being completely unable to make it up to the Grand/Bernard split a mere two or three blocks away after a big snowfall. Four or five inches of fresh unplowed snow on Stevens just seems to render studded snow tires and front wheel drive completely ineffective. Chains were the answer both times I had to get up the hill to get to practice, but they’re a pain to put on when on the side of the road part way up. At least when I encountered those conditions the second time around I was smart enough to put them on before attempting the hill.