6 tips for driving Canada’s ‘Highway thru Hell’ | escape.com.au
When a flight is cancelled, with no hope of a replacement for at least a week, we choose to drive. How hard could it be?
Flight cancelled. No one wants to see that ominous red lettering on the departures board. We certainly didn’t want to see it, having just landed in Vancouver[1], with the whole family excited to get to the ski resort for nine days of fun, laughs and heaven-sent powder snow.
A call to the airline reveals that there are no seats for at least a week, so we decide to stay at an airport hotel for the night and in the meantime, scour Google to find a shuttle van to drive us to the mountain first thing in the morning. It has been snowing since the plane landed, so we know we are in for a great week on the slopes.
Driver Tom arrives on time, and I diligently check that the van has winter tires before the five of us pile in along with a small mountain of baggage. He chirpily reports that we will be there in four and a half hours.
We make our way out of Vancouver on Trans-Canada Hwy 1, the first hint of trouble coming a mere 10 minutes later when we drive past a car in a ditch. Then another one. And another. In the first 40 minutes we see 20 cars and a couple of trucks that had gone slip, slidin’ away off the slick surface. Then, two cars in front of us pirouetted off the road in what felt like slow motion. We narrowly miss them, Steve Bradbury style. When the police come, they tell us the road is like a skating rink. No shit, Sherlock.
By now we are all nervous wrecks, and I am imploring the driver to slow down to something akin to sloth speed. Further out of Vancouver conditions improve as the black ice melts, but then we are stuck for three hours in the middle of nowhere with a jack-knifed truck and its load blocking the road. We get out and chat to other drivers – one recommends a Facebook group that gives all the updates on the highway and to be extremely careful on the ‘Coq’ – the Coquihalla Highway (Coke-a-halla), he clarifies. ‘They’ve made a TV show about it called the ‘Highway Thru Hell[2]’ you know’, he added helpfully. Gulp. I have seen that show but wish I hadn’t.
When we start moving, we are all in desperate need of a bathroom. We find one in Hope – an apt name – as from here we are on Highway Five. The Coq.
Oh joy. It starts to snow and by the time we start driving up the Coquihalla Pass (it goes up to 1200 metres) the road is a slush pit, visibility is shocking and we can only see one lane on what is supposed to be a multi-lane road. Poor Tom is back at a snail’s pace at our behest and the van is deathly quiet.
We get up and over the top, then things improve until the car in front does a 360 and our van follows. Tom manages to stop without hitting anything. Then we have another hair-raising drive up to the resort on a snow-covered and now dark road with a car full of frazzled people… including the driver.
We finally make it – the 4.5-hour trip taking 10 angst-filled hours. Would we do it again? No – we would have waited in Vancouver for another day or so until the storm passed, and conditions improved.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Read related topics:Travel Advice[3]
References
- ^ Vancouver (www.escape.com.au)
- ^ Highway Thru Hell (binge.com.au)
- ^ Travel Advice (www.escape.com.au)