The Portland, OR metro-area got its first significant snow fall of the year today (OK, yesterday by the time I’m actually writing this).  I had the pleasure of heading home while everyone else was trying to get home to beat the snow.  My commute was about double its usual duration.  Thankfully, it wasn’t the longest snow-related commute I’ve had.

Cornelius Pass was particularly bad in places.  I thought I’d share some photos I took while waiting patiently to make it around the difficult hair pin turn.

The red car that is about to pass me turned out to be interesting because just after I snapped the picture with my iPhone, the driver started to lose control of the car.  She wasn’t the only one; there were at least five other vehicles within sight that had lost control to one degree or another.  As the red car struggled to get up the hill and slid all over the place I noticed that the driver was spinning the steering wheel like crazy to regain control with one hand while holding and talking on her cell phone with the other.  Unfortunately, I didn’t notice it soon enough to snap another picture.  And I was able to resume moving down hill at then anyway, so I had to set my phone down.

But I didn’t move more than a couple of feet before I had to stop again for the two vehicles dancing up the hill.  That provided another opportunity for a picture.

This next picture is totally crazy.  It is the actual sharp part of the turn.  There are actually more vehicles than are apparent from the shot.  I never did figure out exactly what was going on here.  I just carefully picked my way down where I knew the road was.  I didn’t slide at all, which was more than I could say about the truck in front of me.  He proceeded to drive the rest of the way to Highway 30 at 5 mph or less.