We shut down due to snow and ice. It was about 3 am and it started snowing, so much, so fast, that we could not see the road at all and not very far in front of us either. I saw some trucks parked at what I assume was a truck stop and got off onto the off ramp very, very slow… we really couldn’t tell where the road to that truck stop was, but there was a truck on the return on ramp and he was comfortably on the shoulder with clear tire tracks behind him and we didn’t hesitate to take the spot behind him. Perfect.

I planned to wait til the sun rose (in about four hours) and let the snow plow heroes make stuff happen. The sun came up and I counted 3 big badass snow plows go by, it was no longer snowing, and my internet app indicated the road was open. “Let’s do this!”, I thought. And slowly made my way back on the interstate.

The road was good enough to go 45 mph and so that’s what I did. I guess I went about 30 miles, or so, and the road was all of a sudden caked with ice and snow. Everybody was slow rolling then. I looked in my mirror and a cattle hauler is behind me- I can assure you that’s a really good indication of how bad it was. All I’ve ever seen of a cattle hauler is the side when it went by, and the rear for a few minutes.

We started up a hill and a truck hauling double trailers zooms by at 60-70 mph I’d guess. He made it to the top like a champion, Thelma and Louise would have been proud. I am behind a step deck flat bed and when he got to the top of the hill, brake lights, hazards, shoulder. I had plenty of time to follow suit because I was in the right lane with everybody else who likes breathing and stuff doing 25 mph. When I got to the top our doubles hauling hero has hit the concrete divider that divides the east/west lanes, knocking a fairly natural looking notch out, and jackknifed through the right guard rail. He fully remodeled the guard rail and his work on the center divider had a nice section sitting in the fast lane of the opposite oncoming traffic. His front trailer blocked the right lane and his rear trailer blocked the left lane.

So now we are on the top of a hill, on a road so icy you can’t even walk on it. Halfway down the hill is a semi jackknifed sideways blocking both lanes. I look in my mirror and the cattle hauler is out of his truck waving his cowboy hat trying to get oncoming traffic stopped. I jump out- slide 5 or 6 feet (which is how I determined it’s too icy to even walk on) and join him by waving my arms. This actually worked well and in short order, there were two neat lines of traffic lined up. I walked/ slid all the way down to our creatively parked hero, and he was ok. Couple of scratches on his nose and, as I don’t speak Russian, I don’t know much else about what the hell he was thinking.

Walked ,slipped, and cussed my way back to my truck where it’s warm and settled in for who the hell knows how long this was going to take. I did notice somebody put flares in the road in front of the concrete in the opposite fast lane, which was good fast thinking, bravo to whoever did that.

There were two snow plows up towards the front coincidently, a convenient fact that will help in a minute. Two highway patrol units show up and weave their way down to the incident. A little while after that a man walks up sort of looking at my truck and asks how much weight do I have on my trailer. I say “23k it’s light. Why?”

He says, “follow me down here.”

I say, “ummm…. no.”

He says,” I’m in the flat bed in front of you we are going to pull his rear trailer out of the way. It’s going to be forever before a tow truck gets here. I weigh 80k.”

I see one of the snowplows has made its way down there and is scraping the area in front of the incident. I tell my new flatbed buddy that I will grab whatever equipment he doesn’t have and throw it on his truck and even come down and help, but my truck isn’t going anywhere near this situation. This is acceptable to him and he has chains so I didn’t have to contribute any equipment. He slowly drives down, I do my awkward slip side down there again and we tie a chain to the trailers DOT bumper and to the flatbed dudes front axle. The highway patrol granted permission for this stunt, Inform us the rear trailer weighs 14k as well, and I look over at them and wonder if they are taking over-under bets with each other on what’s fixing to happen. I stand next to the drivers side and guide him slowly back till the chains are tight and ask him to let me get a good ways away before he gets the show started. He slowly gets it as tight as possible and then digs it in. That trailer slid perfectly around and stopped at a perfect 90 degree angle out of the left lane. There was like 3 seconds of stunned silence and then one of the patrol guys exclaimed, “holy shit! that worked!”

High fives all around and traffic was moving again one lane behind the snowplows. This took about an hour and a half from beginning to end. I looked at the driver (who just wrecked) just sort of standing off to the side looking a bit sad. I’m glad he was alright but driving as fast as he was displays an absolute disregard for everyone else on the highway and without everything happening just the way it did, a pileup with hurt people and dead people was a very real possibility.

To the hat waving cowboy in the cattle hauler, and the flatbed who took a big risk clearing the road, I say, good job gentlemen, good job. I joined them both, but they are the ones who knew what needed to be done.