Pat Milbery felt his tires tip off the precipitous Red Mountain Pass in a snowstorm. So he dropped in.
The Colorado snowboarder and renowned artist turned into his plummet off Red Mountain Pass. “When you hesitate in life, life serves you.”
Colorado Sun Follow
Pat Milbery/Courtesy photo
The hurricane-like gust blinded Pat Milbery. He couldn’t see anything out the windshield of his Toyota.
Then he felt his tires slip off the pavement. He was crawling, maybe only 7 mph, but suddenly “both of my driver’s-side tires are off the road and I’m, like, teetering on the edge of the road,” said the pro snowboarder turned artist.
Milbery was not on a road for teetering. U.S. 550 between Ouray and Silverton is the sketchiest stretch of pavement in Colorado. It was dark and blizzarding on Jan. 13. The canyon below the road is an abyss, plummeting hundreds of feet.
He was about to roll his rig into that canyon. Few survive that. Cars that leave the so-called Million Dollar Highway often roll for hundreds of feet.
Milbery knew all this. The Eagle River Valley native has driven the pass many times over the past few decades. As the truck tipped, he said, “my instinct as a snowboarder kicked in.” He knew he shouldn’t hesitate and fight to get the truck back on the road. That would likely roll the 2006 4Runner and once that started, his chance for survival would drop significantly.
Support Local Journalism
Read more from Jason Blevins at ColoradoSun.com
The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported news organization dedicated to covering the people, places and policies that matter in Colorado. Read more, sign up for free newsletters and subscribe at coloradosun.com.
