Driving Across the Continent in December (~100-6329')

After all that fuss over the mold in my car, I knew I couldn't make it through another five months of Redmond rain. It was time to head home to the East Coast, where I could cuss my way through horrible traffic underneath blue skies again.

So I packed my stuff and plotted my eastward route. This being December, I figured I'd stick to the interstates--no sense detouring to parks when everything's closed for the season--and take I-90 to I-25 to I-80 to I-29 to I-70 to I-64 to I-81 to I-66 to home. Quite the simple trip, compared to how I'd gotten there.

And then I called my parents to tell them my plans. "Are you going to need tire chains for that?" my dad asked. "And what about the weather?" my mom added. "Is it safe to drive? What if you get caught in a snowstorm?"

Snow? Tire chains? I hadn't even thought of those. Nothing had frozen down in Redmond... but the Cascades were a completely different story. I looked into it and learned that Snoqualmie Pass (I-90's route through the range) had already received dozens of feet of snow that fall. East of there, I'd need to cross three major passes through the Rockies: Lookout Pass on the Montana-Idaho border, Homestake Pass over the Continental Divide, and Bozeman Pass east of Bozeman, MT. And, as I'd learned on my westward trip, the Great Plains were prone to blizzards and ice storms as far south as Kansas. Snow and sub-freezing temperatures were a certainty; the only question was how much I'd get... and whether my little front-wheel-drive sedan could make it through.

Highpoint #5: Black Mountain, KY (4145')

Hoo boy, was it a mistake to skip dinner.

Not only is it amazing how fast you lose heat when you stop moving on a mountain, it’s even more amazing how fast the temperature plummets when the sun goes down. Though I’d stocked my tent for the night below Mt. Rogers with my sleeping bag (rated for comfort at 45 degrees F), my brand-new liner (touted to add an additional 25 degrees to the bag’s capability), a self-inflating ground pad (which had barely had time to inflate in my hasty setup), all the clothes I’d worn on the hike, and my own exhausted, meal-skipping, horrifically naïve body, it was no match for the chill and the winds and the wintry mix  that blasted the gap all night long. I might have drifted off to sleep once or twice… maybe… only to wake again mere minutes later, shivering like a seizure patient. I threw on every stitch of clothing in that tent, pulled the sleeping bag over my head, even covered my face with my down jacket to seal in the heat of my breath, but nothing worked. Either my body couldn’t produce enough heat to stay warm, my gear couldn’t hold in the heat, or both.

I roused myself at last when the light grew strong enough to make out the red of my sleeping-bag liner, and found the forest engulfed in fog: