Wrong Turn Sends Couple on a Brush with Death

Couple Finds Mountain Lion Habitat During Breakdown on Remote Wilderness Road

After hours of careful, cautious driving, we came to a road structure we had never seen before. The left side of the road was a wall of water—a waterfall creating a river that flowed across the road from left to right, abruptly dropping off to form yet another waterfall on the right side of the road which plunged down into a bottomless ravine. As we stopped the car to study the situation, I envisioned the swift current washing our car over the waterfall. We had no way of knowing how deep the water was in front of us nor if our rental car could make it. But we decided that if something really and truly were dangerous, a sign would have been posted to warn us. So we backed up and gunned it across the river, allowing sheer momentum to hasten us through the parting waters before the engine could drown and die. Very fortunately, this worked as planned, and the rental car kept humming.

As we advanced up the winding trail, the road became even more grown over, with bushes scraping the underside of the rental car as we dodged yawning crevices. Eventually, we found ourselves negotiating every foot of progress. The only reason we persisted was that we believed we would see the national park entrance just over each crest or around each corner. But we saw nothing but wilderness. We had now climbed high enough that we could see many other mountaintops for what seemed hundreds of miles.

The climate appeared slightly different at our current elevation and position on the mountain. The road had become less grassy and mostly dust with a few small randomly-scattered shrubs. The air was drier and vegetation less dense than it was back at the waterfall. It is possible that this change in climate occurred because of the particular side of the mountain we were now on, since many mountains do have a rainy side and a dry side.

My head swirled with fears as I looked at my cell phone which found no signal. If something happened way out here, how could we possibly signal for help? We had not seen another human or vehicle for several hours. What would happen if we became stranded out here?

Just then, my worst fears were realized as the rental car suddenly jolted and the front dropped. The motor puttered into silence. The stillness of the car was agonizing. It was now apparent that the front of our rental car had fallen into a gaping crevice in the road. I looked out the window to my right, and saw forested peaks for eternity, and a hill in front of us, which probably provided the same view at the top. We got out of the rental car to evaluate the situation, and it looked grim. Examination of the underside of the rental car revealed that the car was resting on the dirt road with the front tires sunk down into a crevice. The left front tire was dangling in mid air, and the right front tire was at least touching the road in a dip. We had no shovel, no tools for digging the car out of this dreadful gap.