The Hill

When I was in high school the really cool thing was I owned a big, old Chrysler with a 383. I had bought it with money I had earned helping out in my dad's machine shop. One summer, a friend of mine and I decided we'd go on a road trip. His parents had a cabin up in Willams Lake, 550 Km (340 mi) from our home in Vancouver.

When we got to his parent's cabin, he asked me if I wanted to drive out to Bella Coola. Bella Coola's on the coast about 450 km (280 mi) west of Williams Lake. I said sure. Before starting out, we stopped by the liquor store and talked someone into buying us a jug of wine and a couple of cases of beer.

We had a blast driving across the Chilcotin, drinking and looking at amazing scenery. The rolling grasslands and distant mountain ranges made us think we were traveling in Africa. We played with the electric windows and laughed and sang. We saw almost no one except an old guy with Fedora in a black Cadillac. He looked like "The Godfather" of the wilderness. We laughed a lot about that.

But we hadn’t counted on "The Hill." Where the Chilcotin plateau ends and the Coast Mountains begin, the road goes from three lanes of gravel down to one. It snakes through mountain passes and plunges from its height at 5000 feet down to sea level. Some cat–skinners built it on their own because the government said it couldn't be done. They put up signs telling drivers not to get out of their cars.

The other thing we didn't count on was the effect of two hundred miles of steady drinking. At the beginning it was all laughing and singing, but when we hit "The Hill" we were getting... emotional. I was driving and crying and slugging my buddy over stuff going on in high school, and he was slugging me.

After a mile or so, we realized how horribly we would die if I drove us off the road. We forgot about high school. The only thing we talked about was getting down "The Hill." I eased off the gas, and took the switch–back turns like I was threading the Chrysler through a needle. By the time we reached the bottom of "The Hill" we were acting sober, even if we weren't.

We pulled into Bella Coola and stopped at the cafe for pie and coffee. When we came out, I noticed all the Chrysler's tires were flat. I didn't care much, I was just glad to be alive.

I didn't drink behind the wheel after that.