this was taken shortly before...
this was taken during (guess I was going to take some or another picture but things went screwy)...
and this was taken after. The roll over. Of the blazer. Of our ride home.
So... inquiring minds have been wonder just what the heck happened (if you didn't get the link to the slide show of the Death of a K5, let me know).
We were out on one of our fairly regular expeditions this summer featuring the blazer. Bryan just can't get enough of that 4 wheeling! We drove to the Hiel Ranch above Boulder to try a little mountain biking. We're hoping to rebuild Ave's courage on her bike after the chin splitting wreck in Moab, and thought this trail would be good. It wasn't. Still too steep for a nervous child. We went oh about 1/4 mile and turned around. Since we'd come all that way, Bryan decided to try a few 4 wheel trails he'd been reading about in his guide books. A few miles up the canyon (paved to this point), and what turned out to be about 1/2 mile up a dirt road. Past what may be the only legal place in Boulder County to discharge firearms outdoors. Boulder is not a hot spot for the NRA.
Anyway, we got to a hill called Big Mama. Which was big, and steep, and long. Unbeknownst to any of us, the brake line had at this point started leaking. I saw the evidence of this on the first of many walks up and down the hill, but that's later. The kids decided to walk the hill - they've inherited my fearfulness of big steep hills. I surprisingly wasn't thinking I needed to walk this one. Yes, it was steep. But it wasn't particularly exposed. But the kids kept asking why isn't Mommy walking? So I got out and walked with them. It allowed me the opportunity to take photos, so walking was fine. About 3/4 of the way up, Bryan stopped, to get a photo of the articulation (he really loves to take photos of the articulation). Then, he got stu... I mean... uh, no...I mean stupid. He decided to back the vehicle up a little to restart the final climb from lower down.
But! No more brakes. He could not stop the vehicle's decent... backwards, down a long steep hill. The blazer rolled backwards fairly straight until the road curved a little, turning the vehicle with it. Which caused it to roll, what with it being steep and rolling uncontrolled backwards and all. The blazer did one complete roll, landing on its wheels and smacked into a tree - squarely in the middle of the driver side door. Bryan popped up out of the foot well a moment later and cheerfully declared "I'm okay."
I ran down the hill (no easy feat - it was that steep) fearing I'd have to go get medical help. Ave was screaming hysterically, and Max had a kind of deer in the headlights look. Once I determined that Bryan did not need immediate medical help, I ran back up to Ave to comfort her and assure her daddy was okay. After maybe an hour of trying to figure out what to do about the blazer - it ran fine but was completely wedged (and had no brakes), I called my mom. She was able to drive up to the start of the dirt road, and I hike down the dirt road with the kids and met her there. She took the kids to her house, and we decided to have them spend the night with her. That got them safely tucked away while Bryan and I dealt with the blazer.
Meanwhile, Bryan had tried unsuccessfully to free the blazer, and was thinking we'd have to leave her there. Uncle Jeff drove me back up to the dirt road, and I hiked up to get whatever could be packed out in the camelbacks (not much) and get our bikes off the hill. I rode back down the hill with Bryan's computer on my bike and sent those items home with Jeff, and I hiked back up the hill. By this time it was getting dark. A fellow on a motor bike was coming down out of the hills and asked if I was ok. Yes, just hiking back to my husbands car. Ok, well, be noisy, it's mountain lion time. THANKS! I really needed that compounding my exhaustion and general nervousness. So I tried to sing as I huffed and puffed up the hill. The only song I could think of the words to Re: Your Brains by Jonathon Coultan. Goes something like this:
All we want to do is eat your brains
we're not unreasonable
I mean no one is going to eat your eyes
all we want to do is eat your brains
we're at an impasse, maybe we can compromise.
open up the door, we'll all come inside and eat your brains
it's a silly zombie song that the kids and I like. I guess Bryan could hear me coming, and the mountian lions found my singing too scary, 'cause we didn't see any.
By this time, Bryan had figured out a way to extricate the blazer, and had done so, and was cable length by cable length lowering it down the hill. The goal was just to park it on level ground off to the side so it wasn't blocking the road. A few hair raising moments and some grueling minutes later, it was parked, and we stuffed what we could into the packs and rolled Bryan's bike down. We left the kids bikes - figured if they got stolen, they were only walmart bikes anyway, and getting them down was too difficult. Jeff met us again at the bottom of the hill, and drove us all the way home to Littleton.
Next day, Bryan went back to the scene of the disaster and repaired the brake line, and got the blazer down off the mountain. We picked up the kids at Grandma's, and he followed me home to Littleton. The blazer is currently parked in front of the house, looking kind of crumpled and sad. But hey! Bryan has a new automotive project - resuscitating the blazer.
