Bleary eyed, I rolled over in bed and looked at my phone. 47 new group chat messages. “We’re stuck. Snow. County Durham. Can anyone help?” It seemed my friends from Scotland had had an eventful night.
Not wanting to miss out on the excitement, I put the van in warp mode, told them I’d be there in two hours and left Manchester.
We’d all been planning to go on a kayaking weekend in Teesdale but the Scottish advance convoy had run into some deep snow on the final approach and after some fruitless self-rescue attempts, had snuggled up in an uninsulated van to wait til morning.
I arrived driving over the hill that had defeated their car the night before. On trying to reverse in retreat, their car had slid backwards off the road and into a handy snowdrift. I looked at the situation, and wondered how to do to use mechanical advantage and a 3.5tonne van to fix the problem.
At that moment, a tractor appeared and slowed when it saw what must have looked like our rescue committee deciding its group slogan. “Could you help pull the car out of the ditch?”
“I don’t have a rope” the farmer replied
I have something we can use as a rope I sighed.
I got my 20m length of climbing tape. It was supposed to be used to replace the tape on some of my climbing gear, but it now was destined for a higher purpose and rapid retirement. “How strong is this?” the farmer asked me, sceptical but friendly
“About 2 tonnes” I replied, confident in my answer
“double it up, whack it through his front wheel spokes and let’s give it a go”
So we did.
Bit by bit, the stricken car edged forward, being towed by the powerful tractor onto the grippy road of relief.
After we said our thanks, the farmer said one last thing to us: “Don’t go over that road – there’s too much snow. Drive round the long way in the valley”. If only we’d listened to him… but that’s tomorrow’s story.
Originally posted on this post on Instagram
