Looking out my north facing window from my living room, I have a perfect view of Mt. Hosmer. I often find myself looking out, remembering the good times I had on that mountain with my friend Connor. He grew up on Bryant Rd. so we spent many days exploring the back roads and the forests below the peak.
In high school, Connor had a photography project he was working on; he wanted to shoot a time-lapse of clouds moving through the valley so we jumped into his beat up Nissan Pathfinder and headed for higher ground. We had gone over 20 kilometres on a well-used back road then decided to get off the beaten track and venture out on a less-used road.
We were driving uphill when we left his house so we didn’t noticed that the brakes on his truck were not working until we were forced to turn around when the road ended in a wall of trees. Turning around, we almost went off the road right then and there. We decided we could make it back to his house if we put the truck in 4-low and went slow.
After a few agonizingly slow kilometres, Connor put the truck back into 4-high. Shortly after, we reached the main back road. Still in 4-high we came around a corner and began coasting towards the start of a long hill. The hill was about 250 metres long and ended in a 160 degree banked corner. There was a 30 foot high bank on our left and a wall of trees to our right. As we rolled into the hill Connor reached for the shifter and tried to pull it into 4-low. We heard the grinding of gears then a bang as the transmission accidentally popped into neutral.
Connor told me to hold on and swerved the truck left into the ditch, trying to flip us before we gained any more speed but we rallied through the ditch and were now riding the bank. We hit a huge rock with the passenger side wheel that forced us up the bank and back onto the road. Right before we hit the corner Connor swerved back into the ditch and we rode the corner like a berm. Halfway around we came to a stop then tipped onto the roof. Connor asked if I was alright as we dangled from our seat belts. We were both fine.
It was getting dark and neither of us had a phone so we left the wreckage and started walking. We walked for hours and knew our parents would be wondering about us. They were all waiting at Connor’s house, trying to decide if they should call Search & Rescue when we showed up filthy and exhausted. We slumped onto the lawn, and began explaining our adventure gone wrong.
