Mt St Helens (54) to Cannon Beach (57)

I took this on our way up a small mountain
thinking it was Mt St Helens. I was wrong,
Mt St Helens is to the left, about the same
distance away but it was a nice view anyway

If Homer had made mistakes previously, they were misdemeanours and a section of this journey could be classified as a felony!

The road to 101 should have been quite straight forward, however, Homer likes to take short cuts. And so it was today. We were travelling along highway 30 and for some unknown (to me) reason, he deemed it necessary to turn off. I foolishly followed instructions.

The road started off without a problem and led us through a small village with shops on either side. Soon after however, the road became narrower to a point that it resembled a very narrow country road, room enough for one car to drive and a car in the opposite direction to pull over to the side and wait.

Following another turn, the width reduced to even more. “This is not good” I kept repeating, firstly to myself then out loud. Homer was showing we only had another 5 km or so and then we needed to turn right, somewhere. If things weren’t bad enough, the bitumen road became gravel and the edges had been softened by all the recent rain.

There was now no possibility for two cars to pass – we were taking up the entire road. Gravel was turning to a combination of mud and gravel and I was now in “extreme” stress mode as was Grace. We came to a narrow drive way leading up to a rifle range in which a small 4-wheel drive car had reversed to get out of the way of the mammoth coming towards them.

As we neared, the driver got out of his car to talk to us. “Hope you’re not considering going any further in that” he stated. I weakly tried to explain it wasn’t my decision where to go, I was following the Tom Tom. Turns out that they had taken their 4-wheel drive down the road where we were headed and had just reversed almost one mile to use this narrow drive-way to make a U turn. The goat track we were now on became impassable further on as rocks and trees blocked the way entirely.

What to do?? With their assistance in guiding I tried to back the Sierra into the drive, but the edge on the bank opposite was very soft and fell away about 30 feet into a creek bed. There was simply no room to get around, despite about 30 minutes or so of trying and many attempts with various angles. Often, the back of the Sierra had been forced up against a bank – I even tried to get it at about 90° to the road and was going to unhitch, drive around it somehow and pull from the other side.

One of the people in the 4-wheel drive had walked up to the rifle range to see whether or not there was any room at the top. He returned to tell us there was a small car park and he thought it would be worth a try. The problem I had was to get it up the wet, steep and narrow dirt road – time to engage the 4-wheel drive for the first time. I reversed far enough down the goat track to attempt to climb up. The Sierra's wheels were on the edge of both sides of the driveway and as we rounded a bend, the wheels drove up the embankment for more than a foot. Many times all four of the Chev's wheels were slipping as they attempted to get traction.

This is about the width of the
muddy section of road with a
30' drop to the creek and soft
edges in which we were trying
to do a U turn with an almost
 19 metre long rig!

Needless to say, we got to the top and after about a 20-point turn managed to get the rig turned around. I thanked the men profoundly for their help and guidance and set off back down the drive. I have no idea of how many wheels were locked up as we slowly slid back down the drive, but I could sure see the creek in front of us and was trying to seek out the largest tree which, if needed would break our fall.

We successfully made it to the goat track and gingerly made our way back to the highway. Homer tried to divert us to another of his “specials” but I have lost of huge amount of confidence in his ability, not in the city but certainly on country roads. It’s a pity that no-one got a photo of our predicament, but we did get a couple of photos of a wider section of the narrow road on the way out.

When we finally arrived at the campground in Cannon Beach and were setting up, Meryla called out to say the electric motor that wound down the Sierra’s rear stabilisers wouldn’t work. I probably knocked it earlier I replied and went back to have a look. No motor – it had broken off completely and left only the casting to show me where it once was!

I suppose we were luck really, no other damage and although the U turn and diversion caused us to add more than 1 ½ hours to our trip, heaps of experience was gained. As much as I would like to think this episode or one similar will not occur again, the lessons learnt may come in handy further on in our travels.
Homer’s guidance has now caused me to refer to a printed map and seek out for myself whether or not to listen to his short-cuts or ignore them.

Onwards, south down 101 for the next few days.