Alpine Excursion

So after church today, Chris and I decided to go driving in the mountains to see the leaves changing. We went up the Alpine Loop and decided that if we found a dirt trail we would take it and try and see more leaves. The leaves were absolutely beautiful! the brightest colors I've ever seen! But this trail we decided to take turned out to be a little more adventurous than we had planned on for the day...




The trip started out great, we were happy and I wasn't crying...yet



The leaves were beautiful and bright!



It's a little out of order, but we had to go through a few rivers on our trail,
Keep in mind though that this truck is like a car with clearance, it's a '99 chevy
S10, no 4 wheel drive, and it's a 4 cylinder... sketchy!




This is one of the parts of the river we went through, the scary part was the
big hill we had to go up after the river.



I thought this leaf was cool, it was half yellow, half red :)



Aren't those the most beautiful leaves ever?!





Sorry, it's too late, just turn your head










Amazing!


Ok, so this actually happened at the end of the trail, but I got tired of dragging
the pictures all the way to the bottom to put them in order. So Chris and I decided to try to go up this hill, I was against it from the beginning, but Chris said, "The worst that could happen is that we can't make it up, and we just roll back down and turn around!" So I thought, fine! I didn't want to seem too motherly, he had already ridiculed me on a few things earlier in the drive for that reason, so we started up the hill. We almost got to the top, but saw that there was a fence and decided to back down, (we wouldn't have made it anyway!). So we're backing down, and Chris thinks he needs to go around a rock in the road, and swings the truck around it causing the truck to start falling off the edge of the cliff. Ok, this is one of my biggest fears ever, rolling down a cliff. So I'm screaming, because it's on my side that we're dangling off this cliff, and I beg Chris to get out of the car. He let me out and i quickly ran down the hill to a safe distance so that I could watch Chris miraculously get out of this mess, but no it just got worse! He kept backing off the cliff further and further! And in my head I'm picturing my husband rolling down the cliff, the truck would be done for and my husband could get seriously hurt! So again, I'm screaming at him to stop, and bawling my eyes out! So he realizes that he's only making things worse, and gets out of the truck. I told him that I was ready to clean out the truck and start a new life without her, because really, there was NO WAY we could get the truck out of this mess, one flick to the side of it would have had it rolling. Chris decides to try one more time, and I just couldn't watch, I started to walk away because I couldn't watch our truck and my husband die. I start walking away and then I hear Chris start screaming my name to come back, so I run back and he said, "open the door, hurry!" So I'm wondering "why can't he do this himself" and I look at the door and he had gotten his hand shut in the truck door, it was latched and everything! I could see his arm inside the truck, but then there were 4 fingers sticking out of the top outside of the truck! It was disgusting!! So i hurry and opened the door, and his hand had like 4 notches in it that were completely bruised up. After that we started walking the way we had come from so that we could call a friend to see if they could help. It took probably 1.5 hours to get there from our house, and so I felt bad that we had to call anyone, and told Chris, "Let's just leave her, there is no way we could get her out, it would seriously tae a crane to do it!" So we're about 1/4 a mile up the hill and start hearing this rolling noise and thought oh great, there goes the truck! But no, to our amazement it was another truck!! This one had 4 wheel drive too! Oh thank goodness, it was a miracle! So we asked them if they could please help us try to get our truck. They had come down the hill that we tried to come up, and thankfully we had some little bitty nylon rope in ur truck, and a little bit fatter yellow rope. So the guys agreed to help us, they were seriously saints from above! So they tied the trucks together and then our truck to a tree perpendicular to it, so that if it did roll either this tree would stop it or just fall down on top of it. I went up the road a ways, I couldn't watch the truck and Chris roll down this hill, so I just went and prayed my heart out, and tried to call everyone I could to pra for us too. I really don't know how these guys did it, (really cause I wasn't watching) but it was an absolute miracle that they did!! We got Betsy, the truck, free from her high-centered position on this cliff!! We were so grateful to these guys for helping! I think I'm making them dinner sometime soon. Both of them were return missionaries no more than 6 months ago, and they were so nice! We followed them out and they had to help us probably 3 more times on the way out, but this experience was the scariest, most miraculous thing I've ever encountered! Thank you for all of your prayers!!



This is the cliff, I mean it was more of a hill I guess with a really steep slope, it went down about 15 feet into a river at the bottom, the truck would have been toast!

This is looking down the hill, it's hard to see how steep it is cause all the rocks blend together.



So this is one of the 3ish times on the way back that they had to help us, Chris high-centered the truck on this boulder and the right back tire wasn't even touching the ground!! It's mostly my fault, I thought we could make it over it, because I didn't want to go around it and fall off this cliff!



I was so sad when I thought we were going to ahve to walk 50 miles home and never see the truck again!

Can you believe that color!


I pond/river we drove through


When I was happy, before the cliff!


It is so cool up here!








The easy part of the dirt road, the beginning...








The trees look like gold!
















I've never loved the paved road so much as I did after this trip!


So this was the first big river we drove through, the one with a kind of big hill after it.




This is another river we drove across, Chris had a couple of the tires off of the ground on this one, it was a little sketchy!


This is THE HILL, the one that we tried to go up, and then came down and almost died from falling off the cliff. (Ok maybe not died, but pretty close!)




This is just a video of the truck before the guys started trying to get it off the cliff. It kind of gives you an idea of what it looked like, but it was scarier than it looks, I promise!!

So overall, it was a fun adventure (now that we survived it!) and I think Chris and I should stick to the paved roads for a little bit, at least until I get my stomach back, or until we get a 4 wheel drive vehicle!!