A Trip to Canyon Mountain

by Richard Cusic

I had numerous adventures with John Patton while visiting KSOR translator sites. One trip to Canyon Mountain might have been my last.

The summit of Canyon Mountain has a very crooked access road – actually, most translators are located on mountains with crooked roads. Now understand that these are dirt roads, and when you are lucky, there may be some gravel to smooth the road and provide better traction. Also, since Oregon is sometimes known for it's rain, rain and a dirt road make a muddy road. In the Winter, the mountains of Oregon receive snow. In the Fall and Spring you have steep, narrow, muddy roads, and in the Winter you have steep, narrow, slick roads. It's all good, because in the Summer you have steep, narrow, rutted roads; the ruts are the result of spinning your wheels when the roads were muddy or snowy. When things warm up, the mud dries and leaves permanent ruts.

One must also understand that the roads up the various mountains are cut into the side of the mountain. And depending on the steepness of the particular mountain, it usually means that the road is very narrow (one lane). Also due to the steepness of the mountain, the side of the road next to the mountain goes straight up, and the outward side of the road goes straight down, often several thousand feet.

And so, after servicing the translator facility, we were on our way back down the mountain in the old Dodge Power Wagon, and we were possibly in too much of a hurry to get home. We came upon a tight turn not too far from the top of the mountain, where the wheels of the pickup on the inside of the road started up the side of the road cut. It was almost like the Auto Daredevils who run the wheels on one side of a car up a ramp to get it to balance on two wheels.

Well, we were on two wheels, and I was in the passenger seat on the outside where there is a view straight down several thousand feet. Woof. John managed to keep the pickup from rolling over, but the drivers side wheels slammed back down with a big bounce and we continued on. If there was any place where you don't want to loose control of a vehicle, it's when you are on a very narrow road with several thousand feet down just off the edge of the road.

That bounce came close to causing a laundry problem, and I didn't have any spares with me – ha. The rest of the trip down the mountain and back to Medford was mercifully uneventful.