• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Adventure Photographer Eric R. Schickler

Let's Take It Outside!

  • Home
  • About
  • Photos
  • Commercial
  • Clients
  • Services
  • Panoramics
  • Montages
  • Wildlife
  • Photo Art
  • Artwork
  • Testimonials

Roads, Tracks, Paths

A White-Knuckled Visit to a Snowy Ditch

January 30, 2014 By Eric Schickler

I had a near nightmare driving to work in December 2012. It was an icy and snow-packed road in the mountain valley of Lake Creek, Colorado.

I was a tad late leaving for the ski resort to teach kids in ski school, and definitely moving too fast in my Toyota Camry sedan, which has no four-wheel drive, and had some nicely-worn tires at the time. I was cruising down a slight hill and entered a gradual, deceptive curve.

My trusty Toyota Camry awaits my morning commute to Vail Mountain.

I suddenly realized I was in peril as I finished the curve. My speed and the forces of physics had done me in. There was no way to reverse this reality. An object that is in motion tends to stay in motion, especially when friction is nowhere to be found. The rear of the car started wavering — a bit left, then a bit right. I peered ahead to survey my prospects for recovery and survival, or a dastardly doom. Gasp! Oh no. Here come two cars toward me on the narrow, winding road.

I do all I can to use my Upstate NY driving skills to control the horizontal skidding motions, and somehow hold the car onto the road, just getting past the two oncoming cars without slamming head-on into either one of them.

But the evasive maneuvers only fueled the wavering, and on the fourth swivel, around she went–into a full spin. “Holy Moley, this is not good. It’s been a very long time since my last auto accident, but I remember this feeling.”

Resigned to feeling the worst on impact, I checked to make sure I had put on my seat belt (Yes!), braced for landing, and realized I was heading backwards into a slight ditch. Pow! Kerphlumph. Then quiet.

“Am I alive, Mildred? Am I? Yes…. I can feel my fingers. That’s a good sign, despite the very white knuckles.”

Luckily, there was enough snow and the ditch was shallow where I happened to land. I was very lucky. There were several obstacles along the ditch:  a tree, a few large rocks, an electrical utility box, and deeper ditch drops, before and after where I landed. Had I gone off the road earlier or later, I could have hit one of them, then flipped the vehicle. But even worse, while still on the road, I could have spun broad-side or head-on into one of those other vehicles, hurt someone and/or myself, and/or significantly dented my wallet.

I said a few prayers of thanks to my maker and protector. I had dodged a big bullet, and I knew it. As a friend told me later: “You’ll never do THAT again, will you?” Nope. At least not on that road.

I was able to laugh at the silliness of my actions, and at how I felt like a teenager in his first winter of driving. My ski school supervisor laughed even harder when I told him why I was late for work. In addition, I often imagined the snarky, wise-ass comments other passers-by might have made upon seeing the accident scene.

Looking on the bright side, I did for a brief moment reflect on my skilled evasive driving maneuvers when disaster and possible injury to myself and another was imminent. All those winters in Upstate N.Y. did teach me a few things. Then I got humble again really fast.

I learned a stark lesson, and have given much more respect to this road ever since. My lesson was driven home daily, for three weeks after my mishap, every time I passed by the indentations in the snow in that ditch. It never snowed enough during all that time to cover up the evidence of my embarrassing blunder. I think that happened by design.

After the continued embarrassment, I started praying for snow to erase the “scene of the crime” from everyone’s view, especially mine. I had learned my lesson.

Here’s the Camry imprint in the ditch, after a very nice neighbor pulled me out on that cold, slippery December morning in Colorado.

     Site of the mishap.

 

Footer

Search

Image & Blog Post Categories

Recent Posts

  • Contact Us
  • Today’s Pet Peeve Grammar Lesson
  • Terror at 10,500 feet.
  • London, England. Hungary. Austria. Germany.
  • Colorado’s Loveland Pass and Arapahoe Basin Ski Area
  • Vail’s Closing Day 2014 Mountaintop Celebration
  • “Rock Concert”
  • Sasha…. the Best Dog Ever.
  • “Capes”
  • Autumn Gold 2013 – Colorado Fall Foliage
  • Quandary Peak (elevation: 14,265′) – Ascent of a Colorado Fourteener
  • Ice
  • People: Adults with Kids Candids
  • Trees
  • Buildings, Architecture, Dwellings 2
  • Buildings, Architecture, Dwellings 1
  • Rooms & Interiors
  • Water 2
  • Action, Sports, Adventure, Recreation, Lifestyle
  • Mountains in Spring, Summer, Autumn 3
  • Mountains in Spring, Summer and Autumn 2
  • Black & White Images
  • Birds
  • Water 1
  • People: Adult Candids
  • Mountains in Spring, Summer, Autumn 1
  • Fire
  • Flowers – Pionese
  • Rocks, Deserts 3
  • Rocks, Deserts 2
  • Rocks, Deserts 1
  • Roads, Tracks, Paths
  • Skies: Rainbows
  • Skies, Weather, Clouds
  • Sunrises & Sunsets
  • Musicians
  • Colorado Mountains
  • Fireworks 1 – Vail & Aspen
  • An Artist in the Making or an Artist for the Taking?
  • Fireworks 2 – Denver & Evergreen
  • Humor, Intrigue
  • Vehicles
  • Bridges
  • Autumn Colors 1
  • Abstracts, Patterns, Lines, Moods, Textures, Artsy *
  • Flowers and Plants 1
  • Elk: Big Bulls of Colorado *
  • People Portraits
  • Moriah’s Senior Portraits
  • Mountains in Winter 2 *
  • Mountains in Winter 1 *
  • Africa: Botswana & South Africa (Part II)
  • Super Blood Moon – September 2015 – Vail, Colorado
  • Elk Cows and Calves
  • Views of Manhattan & One World Trade Center
  • What’s Your Path?
  • Vail Mountain Closing Day Celebration (“4 at 4”) – April 23, 2017
  • Vail’s 2015-’16 Closing-Day Summit Gala
  • Vail’s Closing Day 2015 Mountaintop Celebration & Pond Skimming Event
  • “Reading is FUNdamental” and Trees Really Do Fall in the Forest.
  • Don’t Be Half; Be Whole.
  • Winter Fun and Nature’s Beauty in the Central Colorado Rockies
  • A White-Knuckled Visit to a Snowy Ditch
  • Autumn Colors 2
  • Bull Elephant Wreaks Havoc on Our African Tent Camp
  • Snow
  • Home Exteriors & Landscape Design
  • Eye to Eye with an Alien
  • People: Kids Candids
  • Florida – Singer Island and Riviera Beach 2
  • Earth’s Moon
  • Food
  • Holy Cow!
  • Soccer (Fútbol), Football and Baseball
  • The Polar Plunge in Evergreen Lake on New Year’s Day
  • Africa: Bostwana & South Africa (Part I)
  • Vail Mountain – Closing Day Celebration – April 14, 2013. The Ceremonial End to Vail’s 50th Season. *
  • Vail Mountain, Colorado – On the Edge of Autumn (Sept.2012)
  • Fireworks 3 – “Fire & Ice” in Avon/Beaver Creek, Colorado
  • Autumn Colors in Upstate New York
  • Old, Worn Out and Neglected
  • Mister Moose and Bullwinkle Invade Colorado
  • Shrine Ridge Trail – Vail Pass, Colorado
  • Super Ball
  • Vail Mountain Closing Day 2012 Summit Celebration
  • Snow & Ice – Evergreen & Kittredge, Colorado
  • Snowy Scenics – Evergreen, Colorado
  • Change of Scenery for Evergreen Elk
  • The Paint Mines – a Colorado Geological Wonder
  • Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula – Part 7 of 7 – Impact of an Eco-resort, “Au Revoir” and “Mucho Gusto.”
  • Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula – Part 6 – Boating the Gulf, Wildlife Sanctuary, Zip Line Thrills, Tropical Weather
  • My Deer Friends
  • Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula – Part 5 – Tarzan and the Giant Strangler Fig Tree
  • Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula – Part 4 – Adventure, Wildlife, People, Beaches and Forested Parks
  • Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula – Part 3 – Iguana Lodge
  • Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula – Part 2 – Our Exotic Adventure
  • Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula – Part 1 – Overview, Demographics & History
  • SolarAquaTerra Germoonincubus
  • Marriage Proposal on a Wooded Hilltop in Evergreen * Engagement
  • Hummingbirds
  • Sugar-coated Late April Morning in Evergreen, Colorado
  • A Life Lived Well … from Starting Gate to Finish Line. Tribute to Jimmie Heuga.
  • Florida – Singer Island and Riviera Beach 1
  • What is the Reason for Seasons?
  • African Safari
  • Oh, Calcaneus!
  • Denver’s Union Station and the Colorado Ski Train
  • A Dog Unparalleled in Canine History

Copyright Eric R. Schickler © 2023

  • Home
  • About
  • Photos
  • Commercial
  • Clients
  • Services
  • Panoramics
  • Montages
  • Wildlife
  • Photo Art
  • Artwork
  • Testimonials