The snow has become more serious, and is causing problems on the road. At first it was only flurries, not sticking, not even all that cold. Now it is cold and there is a lot of it. It freezes everywhere someone isn’t driving, and freezes quickly.

The plows in cases like this sometimes make it worse. They take a couple of inches of loose snow and turn it into a single inch of well-packed snow. But it’s the well-packed snow that makes ice, that makes a normal car go careening off a mountainside.

They’re very careful to close the roads if there is too much of that kind of danger. But often you don’t see the danger until it’s too late. The general wisdom is, drive slowly, consistently, don’t use the brake, just get where you’re going, keep going forward. I sat here in my chair, wondering about my wife; she was out there in it, and I could picture every inch of that windy mountain road that she might be stuck on.

The first part of it rises straight out of Alamogordo and goes sixteen miles, straight up, to Cloudcroft. While Alamogordo is at about 3300 feet, Cloudcroft is at 8700, at least where the road levels out and goes straight through the town. 5400 feet in about thirteen miles makes it one of the steeper roads in the country, but the scary part is the steep dropoffs at the side of the road where, if you miss, or slow down, or get to sliding back down the hill, you could so easily go right off the edge. It’s all National Forest there. People are used to the windy, icy nature of the road and that still doesn’t make it easier. There’s a tunnel about halfway up; at that point, the drop-off is so steep that there would be no recovery. There are tiny guardrails, though. Trucks are known to hurtle to their death, but my wife, in her Subaru, would probably be ok.

The next part would be from Cloudcroft to our house. I am not so confident about that part either. I was in Cloudcroft earlier today, with three teenagers, when the flurries started. We got supplies and started on our way. The road winds down through the mountains, from 8700 to about 7300, when then it turns left to climb a ridge. That ridge takes it back up to about 8200 or more, and has its own snow systems. So, there are times when that ridge is much slicker and more dangerous than anything else in the area. And, it has less traffic. More likelihood of getting stuck, or being in some kind of trouble, up there.

The locals are used to it, and careful to stay off the ridge in weather like this. Most of them have 4-wheel-drive, and aren’t especially concerned. I’m mostly concerned, because of my wife’s general fear of the conditions.

Tonight she is taking the back road, since the main hill highway is closed. The back road winds around treacherously, and actually crosses a river twice. But this isn’t rain, so that river is not going to have much more than a trickle in it. Nevertheless, the winding curves of that road might be trouble, especially if anything gets frozen. I’m almost more worried about her on that back road, than on the main highway, where at least, when you get stranded, somebody will come by to help you out.

I have a feeling it could be a long night.