The Snow Bound Rescue of the GMC Pickup
The first winter that Sonlight Camp had a new shop was a very deep snow year. It was nice to keep the 1965 GMC truck with our 8 foot snow plow inside the building, facing out and ready to go plow the parking lots and Sonlight Place.
It was mid-week and we had no ski group coming in until Friday. As we woke up in the morning, we noticed that the overnight snow amount was much deeper than the forecast. There must have been 4 feet of heavy wet snow on our deck. WOW ! Just to shovel a path between our house and the shop (200’ away) took us hours. Finally, at the shop, I opened the big door, started the truck and let it warm up. We kept the plow ready to go, fueled up and with all four tire chains on. It is one strong snow plow vehicle. But, this was deep and heavy snow to move. As I drove out of the shop I made it about 30 feet pushing a huge amount of snow before I became completely stuck. I could not back up and I could not go forward. Time to get the shovel. I dug a path to get the truck back towards the shop. I tried a second time to move the snow. Stuck again, I was. Bummer. What to do?
In those years, after a really heavy snow, the county road maintainer would sometimes come into camp and knock the banks back for us. Today was one of those days. I heard the big machine coming up Sonlight Place. But, we still had to clear our parking lots. A big thanks to Charlie, the county maintainer operator.
Our retired friend Gearld, had a bull dozer. He lived about 6 miles away, towards town. He agreed to walk his dozer up the county road and come rescue us. He came up the plowed county road in his pickup truck and I walked out to meet him. He and I took turns driving the bull dozer and the truck from his house to camp. It was very cold on the dozer with no cab or heater. Six miles is a long way in a bull dozer. As Gerald came to our snowed in parking lot with our GMC back in the shop and out of the way, he baled off the plowed road and into the deep heavy snow pushing it with no problem. After several hours, he had both parking lots cleared with very high banks of heavy wet snow. Thanks to Gerald, we were able to get our youth group in for another fine ski retreat at Sonlight.
Several days later, he and I slowly walked the dozer back to his house. Thanks to Gerald and all our good neighbors, Sonlight continues to serve kids even in the challenging moments.