The show went really well. The audience was mostly young, tanned faced, wispy-haired snowboarders--typical of these sorts of places. They were a little slow to get into things, but by the end of the night most of them were tanked, singing along, taking off their clothing and dancing on the tables--the frequent way some of these high altitude crowds are if they don't know who you are. Either they sit back totally uninterested wishing you were a blues funk jam band, or they go beserk for you. And fortunately tonight we had the latter.
Sometime after the gig around closing time, still basking in the achievement of a ripper of a show, I'm standing at the bar overhearing a couple of other patrons talking about how great the mountain will be tomorrow with all the fresh snow. I turn around to look out the window and somewhere along the line while we were on stage playing, that light snow that had been falling when we arrived a few hours earlier, has now turned into a torrent of huge flakes and the skies have dumped two feet of snow. Along with a fairly roaring wind, billowing the flakes around that to me looking out that window looked like lottery balls wildly bouncing around in a glass case.
Sure enough as the mountain was blanketed with two feet of fresh downy flake so was was the parking lot outside, and our little car-- trapping our planned mode of transport to get off the mountain, much less back to the cabin for the night. Normally we would have just left it and worried about it in the morning. But with no particular place to put our equpiment, not to mention the fact that we had been told by other bar goers with much sturdier cars than our own, that the local police would tow vehicles left overnight without fail. We figure we have to get the car out.
Initially this didn't seem like a big deal. I think there was a general enthusiastic team cheer of "no probs!" And despite our lack of a shovel to dig us out--Dave, Duane and I successfully push and kick most of the snow off and under the car and out of the way. Most of which ends up creating a circular bunker of snow surrounding the vehicle that those aforementioned bald tires try--but can't negotiate over.
Both Duane and Dave each take a turn at the wheel to steer us out while I and the one Keogh not in the drivers push from behind. We spend about ten minutes struggling, huffing and puffing in the cold to move the car, whilst all the other four by four all terrain cars in the lot dash off through the snow like vehicular Steve Podborski's into the night. And pretty soon, we are the only ones left in the parking lot. All the while the snow continues to fall without relent, and the wind gets colder.
Things seem to be go from bad to worse. The weather hadn't looked so bad from inside the warm cozy bar minutes earlier but now it was getting very cold and we now very much realize we had planned and dressed--without toques and gloves dressed--for a drive back to our cabin.