A Game of High Mountain Chicken
It was 10 o’clock pitch black on a moonless night and we had a problem. There was a truck in the oncoming lane as big as the bus. It had stopped in front of us coming down the mountains, and there wasn’t room for both of us to pass on the road. It wasn’t like we could back up to a wider spot down the road, or they could back up to a wider spot up the road; the road was all the same width everywhere. If you drive up into the San Bernardino Mountains on a two lane road, there are turnouts every so often for people to pull over and allow other vehicles to pass, this type of arrangement just sort of makes sense doesn’t it? I mean I never thought of the narrow winding parts of Route 330 going up into the San Bernardino Mountains as being a high-quality road. But they actually are pretty high quality compared to the high mountain roads that wrap through the Himalayan Mountains. The Himalayan road we traveled on was narrow, shoulderless, had no guardrails, and was literally up against the cut bank on one side and against the cliff precipice on the other. Both vehicles had come to a stop in their respective lanes facing each other diagonally on the road. The bus driver and the truck driver both got out of their vehicles and began to talk. They were joined by the bus driver mechanic and the truck driver mechanic. They did not appear to be arguing: there was no gesticulating or pointing to indicatie who should back up and where they should go. Instead I could see that this was just another in a long line of discussions entitled “So How Do We Deal with This One” which up until this point had been the mantra of our trip – I think it’s the mantra of all of India.
The drivers talked for a while and then got back in their vehicles apparently coming to some agreement on a plan or scheme to approach the problem. The truck driver backed up and as he did he inched his vehicle over against the side of the road cut as close as he could get to the mountainside. Then the bus driver pulled forward towards him and inched his vehicle closer to the edge of the road. At about this moment I began to realize who would be the winner and who would be the loser if this little scheme didn’t work, and I didn’t much like being on the losing team. Somehow I felt like we were playing an off-center game of high mountain chicken in really slow motion. I could see out of the front window of the bus from the headlights that we were now off the road on the passenger side and on the narrow little shoulder that adjoined the precipice. The shoulder was only about 6 or 8 inches and it looked like we were taking up all of it which would have placed our outside tires literally on the edge. I knew from an entire day’s worth of uncomfortable experiences what was beyond the edge of that road – several thousand feet of high angle grassy slopes. I crossed the aisle to an empty seat on the outside edge of the bus and peered down through the window trying to see the edge of the road, but all I could see was deep shadowed blackness dropping down into thin air. I stood up and put my head as high on the window as possible with my eye against the glass, but still no slope. I knew our tires had to be right on the edge.
The truck driver had begun to pull forward and was inching his way down the lane trying to pass us on the inside. The cabs of the vehicles began to pass each other, and the cargo areas of the vehicles drew closer. As the vehicles were coming together, there was another burst of discussion and both vehicles stopped. The bus driver got out while the mechanic opened up a tool chest. Then they both began to work on disassembling the mirror on the driver’s side of the bus – the vehicles were already literally within inches and there was no room for the mirror as the cargo areas approached each other. The truck driver had already removed his mirror and now it was our turn. I shifted seats and went back over to the truck side of the bus. I figured since I couldn’t see anything below us on the other side of the bus, I’d know soon enough if the edge of the shoulder crumpled under the weight of the tires. The bus driver got back in the bus and the truck driver got in the truck, and we started inching together again. The mechanics stayed out watching the tires, the spacing, and giving directions to the mutual drivers. The vehicles began inching past each other again – and I mean inch by inch. The truck would go a couple of inches and stop. Then the bus would go a couple of inches and stop. The cargo area of the truck was one to two inches away from the windows of the bus, and that distance varied between one and two inches the entire time – never more.
Somewhere in the middle of the process when the bus and the truck were so close that they both had come to a stop…
Next Week: What do you do when you run out of room?