Guess who made Santa's shit list.

By SANDRA CAMPERO
      SOLNEWS STAFF WRITER

This past February the weather was fierce, leaving California with lots of rainfall and snow. So my friend Lynda thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of the situation and head to Big Bear to take in some skiing. My sister Claudia and I decided to join her on her trip. On the day we were supposed to leave, we found out that a big snowstorm was going to hit the mountain areas, so we decided to get an early start the next day.

Everything was going according to plan. I decided I would be smart and bought chains in LA to avoid the high prices in Big Bear. We didn’t think we would need them since we would be at the Lodge way before the storm hit, but we wanted to play it safe. We went to a few stores, but the chains for a Ford Explorer were sold out everywhere. It was getting late so we left LA and drove to Fullerton to pick up Lynda. Traffic was at a standstill. An hour later… we’re still in traffic. We finally made it to Fullerton, where we luckily came across the damn chains we needed. At half the price! We’re ready to head out. It’s now 7pm. We get on the road, and an hour into our trip we figure out that we’re on our way to San Diego. I don’t know how that happened. We turn around. It's now 8pm, and we’re still no closer to getting to Big Bear.

The traffic was still really heavy, and the rain was coming down hard. We slowly made our way up the windy road, and a third of the way up it starts to snow. We pull over at about 3,000 feet to ask a sheriff if chains are necessary. He was so annoyed that he threatened to ticket us for not having them on already! We struggled with the desperately with the fuckin' chains, finally getting them on after an hour. At this point, I was really tired and cold, plus I really had to pee. It was so cold I thought my kitty-cat (enter your own pet name here) was frozen! We get in the car and drove for about half a mile when all of a sudden this horrible pounding sound begins. The chains popped off. After struggling with them for another 30 minutes, we get them back on and drive off. A few minutes later it happens again. Now it’s a lot darker, the snow is blasting us, and we can hear the man-eating coyotes howling in the background. We pull over again and ask a plow guy if he would help us secure the chains. He seemed annoyed, but he helped us out and even gave us some of his chain tighteners (rubber bands with chain links used to secure the chains on the tire). Thank God he wasn’t a serial killer! Now we felt safe enough to continue up the mountain.

Left to themselves, things go from bad to worse…

Now that the chains were secure we were anxious to be on our way, unaware that we were about to embark on the most horrible trip of our lives. By this time we were smack in the middle of a snowstorm. Visibility was at a minimum, the roads were narrow, and there were no snowplows in sight. As we approached what the locals refer to as the “arctic circle” things got worse. The car suddenly started spinning out of control. There was no way to control the steering, but when I pumped the brakes the car finally stopped. Now the problem was getting the car back in the right lane and facing the right direction. We were stuck. I don’t know how we did it, but we were able to get back on track. When it happened again a few minutes later, we stopped right at the edge of a cliff. The only barrier keeping us from sliding over the side was a pile of snow that the plow had pushed. We were scared out of our minds, but we remained calm. Let me tell you, I've never prayed with so much faith and conviction until that night! There were still ten miles to go…it was the longest drive. When we finally made it to the lodge, all I could do was cry my fuckin' eyes out. We carried all of our things up to our room at about 11pm. The next morning we were in better spirits and turned on the TV at about 10am to hear the weather report.

“Heavy Snow Storms are expected to hit the Big Bear area at elevations above 5,000 feet between 12pm and 3pm - schools and some businesses will be closed…”