Photo:
Grant Gunderson

See also Contest 01: Chairlift Encounter

See also Contest 02: Panic

See also Contest 03: Squalor

See also Contest 04:
Fall

Rock You Like a Hurricane
By EVELYN SPENCE

There's something about low-altitude rain that holds a giddy, high-elevation promise, and the harder the rain the bigger the buzz—especially when you live in San Francisco and you've been waiting since last May for the Doppler to show splotches of white over Truckee and Tahoe City and you just know how fast those egg-white Sierra drifts pile up.

When we left the city that December Friday night, Doug—my brother, always the driver—had to set his Camry's windshield wipers on hyperspeed. And always the make-do DJ, I sorted through third-hand mix tapes of ABBA, the Scorpions, Jesus Jones, King Missile. Taillights squiggled through the glass; water roostertailed from the tires in front of us and landed in our view with satisfying slaps. We were cruising, cozy, in a flying see-through box.

As we hydroplaned through Sacramento on I-80 and starting rising, rolling, rising toward Donner Pass, we tuned into pre-set AM 1610—winter road conditions, looped into female monotone—and heard that chain control started at Applegate. Sometimes Caltrans is incomprehensibly anal about chains, but this time we knew: it was serious. History—at least considering our short Bay Area existence—was being made. Applegate was almost 60 miles from the pass and the rain was already thickening into sticky glops. It was the first big storm of the season, and we were heading into its eye.

Doug was ready. Psyched. He pulled out gauntlet-style leather gloves from the trunk, an old trench coat, a flashlight the length of my thigh bone; I drove forward, stopped, drove forward; the chains were on. Semis, hazard lights blinking like it was Christmas, lined the side of the highway. Jeeps turned back. In the airborne slush, an official-looking man in a rubber yellow raincoat gave us the thumbs-up.

We were through.

And suddenly the road was empty. The headlights turned the driving flakes into sizzling TV-screen static. Doug went what he thought was straight until he saw the recently plowed wall on the right, then corrected left until the other side of I-80 emerged from the rabid flurries. Progress was slow, especially to the tune of "Lay All Your Love on Me," just a steady 30 miles per hour. Doug leaned forward, squinted; I leaned forward too, as if my attention could compensate for his potential lapse. The snowfall swarmed.

"It'll be awesome tomorrow," he said.

"I know."

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