Imagine the following hypothetical
scenario: You are coming down a mountain
road that starts at 8000 feet with a 7% grade over 15 miles long, sharp twisting
curves with a ravine that is 500 feet deep on one side and a solid rock wall on
the other. Suddenly, you smell the smoke
from burning brakes, the brakes become slushy, and you begin to lose the ability
to stop. You see a turnout and pump the
brakes to slow down, but the brake rotors are almost red hot from friction and
the meal in brake pads have glossed them over into a smooth surface providing
little or no friction. Moreover, the
heat from the brakes have boiled the brake fluid and generated a gas in the
brake line that needs to be compressed by pumping on the brake pedal in order
to provide enough pressure to the brake pads.
Your rig consist of a van and a
small camper and you put the transmission to a lower gear, first to third, and
there is no noticeable reduction in speed, a couple of seconds later you move
the shifter to second gear and there is still no noticeable reduction of speed,
you move the shifter to first gear and pump the brakes and you feel the pedal
going almost to the floor. The rig begins
to slow and you think about scraping the side rail holding you from going over
the cliff, maybe that will slow and stop the rig. But suddenly the rig begins to slow and the
pumping of the brakes began to take effect. You press on the emergency brake and bring it
down to the floor and the van and camper slow considerably and stop. While everything is stopped you jump out the
van and go find a couple of large stones to block the wheels and two more stones
to block the trailer wheels.
The rims of the front wheels are
so hot they cannot be touched and there is still visible smoke coming out of
the rear wheels. You walk to the edge of
the road and see that a few feet away from where the rig stopped there is a 400
to 500 ft ravine with a raging river in the bottom. If the brakes had not worked and the rig
managed to break through the railing, and you begin to imagine the rig would
have been flying over the side just like they do in a B movie where the trailer
start to break up as it is hitting the rocks and the camper smashes on the
rocks on the bottom igniting the gasoline from the gas tank and providing a
spectacular explosive fire.
You try to phone for help and
find that there is no phone service. You
hike up a peak hoping that you might get service at a slightly higher
elevation, but you are surrounded by solid rock to the north, east and south
and the nearest town is through a ravine to the west and the town of Greybull,
WY is thirty five miles away and not a phone tower in sight. After half hour you flag down a truck that
happens to stop in the same pull out to cool off their brakes. Your wife
refuses to go down to the town with them and does not want you to go down
either. So you ask the truck driver to
call AAA road service when he gets into a phone service range. The truck driver agrees and you sit there and
wait.
Three hours later - no AAA
service truck. A couple of men in a 3/4
ton truck pass you by on their way home from roadwork they were doing farther
east on the road. They have the common courtesy
to turn around after a few miles in the next car pullout and come back to see
if you need any help. You explain the dilemma
and they indicate that the chances of a AAA service truck showing up is slight
to zero. They propose to pull the
trailer down with their truck for the seven miles that are left and you can
follow them in the van. The wheels have
cooled down by now and although very, very slushy, the brakes do seem to
engage. So you hitch the camper to their
truck and follow them, in first gear, for the next 7+ miles to a restaurant at
the bottom of the ravine, the only building for 20 miles around. You thank the men and decide to risk your
luck and pull the camper slowly to the next garage. On the way there you see the AAA service
truck pass you in the other direction and luckily the driver notices the
description of the van and trailer we gave him and turns around to check. You pull over and the AAA driver is happy that
you managed to get down and happy he does not have to go half way up the
mountain to help you down. The town of
Greybull has a population of 810 people and the two local garages have closed
down for the day. So you decide to make
it to Cody, WY about 65 miles West. You
get to Cody late and you have to stay until the next morning to find a service
shop. The thought crosses your mind that
maybe you can make it to your
destination in Yellowstone National Park, get to the campground and come back
in the morning for repairs, but there is a high pass that you have to go over
and decide instead to find a hotel and get the van serviced.
Cody is a small city (less than
18,000 people) and parts for your 18 year old van are not locally available and
you have to wait another day for parts.
Two of your planned days in Yellowstone wasted!
Well, everything in this
hypothetical scenario DID happen to us coming down the Western side of the Big
Horn Mountain Range just south of Cloud Peak, 13167 feet (4013 m), on
Monday July 14, 2014.
The
following are some pictures of these events.
At the summit of the Big Horn Mountain pass
The Ravine at the edge of the road
The good Samaritans that pulled our camper down the mountain
On the way down at 20 miles per hour
No comments:
Post a Comment