It was late spring and my junior year of high school was finally coming to a conclusion.  We could not wait to get off road and see what mother nature could throw at us. The Aspen Mountain Ski Area had closed only 2 weeks earlier and by all accounts the snow was gone and it was time to get muddy. 

Every spring Jesse Caparella, Aspen Mountain Maintenance director would change the gate code and my dad would once again figure out what it was or simply ask him for it.  He and Jessie grew up together and Jesse was not very creative with his annual gate codes… a 4 digit code was pretty easy to decode if you knew anything about Jesse…  family member birthdays or his home phone number was usually the order of the day.

Forget the fact that the road up Aspen mountain was really a public road but only if you were willing to take Jesse on with that fact, but few were willing.

On this day, with code in hand, Dean Stapleton, David Leddingham and myself, as well as some other willing participants, headed up Aspen Mountain.  Little did we expect our first challenge to be but a mile up the road.  Sure it was muddy and sure there were a few places where snow blocked our way, but I was blindly leading the pack on this outing.  I was driving a 1948 Willys Jeep and it could go anywhere, or so I thought.

As we passed under lift 1A we faced our first real challenge.  The road was blocked with 3 to 4 feet of snow 14 feet long and as of yet, no one before us had dared take it on.  But I was driving a world war 2 jeep! If it could survive Normandy it could survive Aspen Mountain snow. Or so I thought…

Feeling invincible like many soon to be high school seniors, I jumped out, locked in the front wheel hubs and prepared to prove a point.  If my dad could drive a 1958 Corvette 20 years earlier down Aspen Mountain then my Jeep was more than up for the task.  Or so I thought…

I headed across the snow field with all the confidence of General Patton at the Battle of the Bulge but a decisive victory was not a certainty for me.  About 3 feet into the 14 foot journey the Jeep began to lurch sideways, slipping and sliding down the steep slope to my right. Further in I realized my jeep was now skimming across snow, traction had left us a few feet to our rear… feeling impending doom, all of my passengers jumped out like rats off a sinking ship. I was in this battle alone.

My first thought, although slightly inappropriate, was to be sure to break up with my girlfriend, who had just abandoned me, if I survived this predicament.

As the rear of my Jeep began to face downhill, one of my tires made contact with terra firma and my situation changed from bad to slightly better.  Seconds later I cleared the obstacle.

I was a survivor but the fate of my former friends was still up for debate, I was pissed they had abandoned me and slightly relieved as well.  I had blazed a trail that allowed the rest of the convoy to join me on the far side of hell, or at least a perilous journey across the only obstacle keeping us from making it to the top of Aspen that Spring day in 1978.

Prom was only as few weeks away so I graciously allowed my girlfriend to stay in my life, at least that is how I remember it…