An Icy Hell...

Picture this... We've been driving since 7a, seen some amazing sights; we're pumped to make it to our final destination of Buffalo, WY.

Fast forward 4 hours... It's 915, dark and the temperature is dropping. We have just entered Big Horn National Forest at the least opportune time. Starting the accent at 4500 feet we are aware there are some 13k foot mountains ahead of us. Little did we know we were about to go over the 'cloud sky pass' in Central Wyoming. Fast forward 30 minutes we are crawling up the mountain with a ton of shoes and clothes in the back of the mini. It's completely dark and cloud covered. We enter a construction zone and for the next -what feels like- 10 miles we are driving on dirt. Finally that ends and we see the mile marker for our end destination, 42 miles. Oh hell, improv had done us wrong.

We keep going up, not able to see anything around us, passing a few sporadic cars and SKI resorts. Virtually no one around. Then the temperature starts really dropping. Finally at a temp of 34 degrees it begins to snow and now we realize we are at the top, or at least we have to be close. I look down, we have less then 1/4 tank of gas left. Oh hell.

Thank god for the radio station out of Worland, otherwise we would be faced to listen to more of my horrific mixed CDs. Pink never sounded so good on the radio.

The windshield wipers are only subpar so this makes things more complicated then they already are. Only 30 miles to go. Now I am beginning to plan for the worst.  I make a mental note that  I have my green hunter boots in the back, two ski jackets, my red leather gloves and wool hat somewhere. If something goes wrong, I am going to look like a fool to passersby.  Just what I need.

Finally, after an excruciating hour of not knowing when we would decent to the hotel and soft pillows, the snow stopped and the temp started to rise to a comfortable 40. Our white knuckles started to have some blood flow and headaches slightly diminished  However, this is the slowest decent we have ever driven.  I advise Katy to coast the way down the mountain, we're now nearly on empty.

Buffalo couldn't have come any sooner on our 7.5% grade drop in the last few miles back down to 4500 ft. (come to find out some parts of the pass are over 9000ft).

We did this all for Hilton points. That's love.

(in the pics are Katy and I smiling little did we know what was in store & a view of the range from Buffalo the next morning- satisfaction)