Johnny Del Fuego and I went on a snowy, frozen Diry South ride yesterday. We met at Meade's Quarry parking lot and rode all the new Ga Marble stuff. Snow and sleet was falling and it was really quite beautiful. The new trails were frozen solid and the traction was absolutely perfect.
After a trip thru GA Marble we cut through the Forks to BHanns. BHann and Southside Randy cut a new connector trail this week and it is nice. It cuts out a creek crossing that we could not keep in good shape. BHann used the Alpine Magnum and cut a nice benched trail. A couple of hours on the trail with good company followed by...
The ride home on frozen roads. I know I shouldn't have tried but I went up Hillside. As I was headed up following a small pickup a car came sliding down the hill sideways and t-boned the truck. I stopped to see if everyone was OK. The kid driving the truck stumbled out. It was obvious he had hit his head. He was stumbling around in the road. Before I could get up to him a van came sliding and slipping down the hill. It looked like it was headed straight towards the van, the kid and me. I'm not sure how the guy did it but he missed everything.
It was pretty obvious to me that I needed to position myself at the top to keep someone from getting killed. I stopped several cars including one kid that was hauling ass. The 2nd or 3rd car by had an off duty sherriff's deputy. He called to hurry up an ambulance. After 25 or 30 minutes an ambulance showed up. 15 minutes later a city cop and two fire trucks showed up. The patrolman parked his blue lights at the top of the hill to block traffic. The fire trucks came up from the bottom parking behind me about halfway up the hill. It took another hour or so to get two people hauled off to the hospital.
When we finally got the wreck victims cleared out the fire trucks backed down the hill. It was frozed solid. Each time the truck eased down the hill he slid sideways towards the ditch. Finally the firemen called for the salt truck. 20 minutes later the salt truck showed up and salted behind the last fire truck. They eased down the hill. The salt truck then backed up the hill to where I was parked spreading salt the whole way. They pulled back down to the bottom and backed up again to make sure they covered the street.
About 2 1/2 hours after I started home I was able to head to the house. It took me longer to get home that we did an entire Dirty South loop in.
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