Welcome back. The previous forum was corrupted somehow -- my apologies. If you had an "urgent" post, then please try and re-post again.<p>Jason

BTW - I'd be flattered it someone sneaked up and took some pictures of my car cause they thought it was a cool ride :) But you should ask anyhow...especially if his plates are visible in the pic. Could you get one from the side dead on...and a 3/4 front and rear...thanks man I really appreciate it.

nt<br>

Had an incredible A4Q experience this past weekend in the middle of a raging Oregon storm. No, despite Steve Mac's rusings : )<br>, I made it up and down Mt. Bachelor just fine, in linear fashion, (even skied well despite the 112mph winds on the whited-out<br>closed lifts) and survived the snow 'n ice covered roads down to Crater Lake country. This adds about a dozen times that quatto<br>and the Nokian Hak 1's have saved my life to the already large toll.<p>So, the attached (hopefully) pic shows how things started to look WAY BEFORE it got bad. This is the *state highway* leading up<br>to Crater Lake NP from the south. Good thing I stopped to take this pic, 'cause a little bit later I wouldn't have been able to. The<br>"highway" was down to a 4-5 feet wide single track, itself with a foot of snow, because of powder banks--still 20 feet high--that had<br>collapsed onto the road. <p>It was a complete white out. I knew it was bad when the snow started coming over the front and roof of my A4. When I stopped to<br>figure out exactly in which direction I was submarining, briefly getting stuck, I was unable to open any of my doors due to the<br>window-high snow banks on both sides of the car. Of course, there was no way of turning around.<p>There didn't appear to be any other nuts on this road, or any hope of seeing a rational human being anytime soon, so unhappily<br>taking stock of my dwindling supply of cookies, I was pretty happy to find that quattro with the Nokians pulled me through this stuff<br>on a heroic scale. Still, it wasn't a time to feast on my remaining stock of cookies, because it was still coming down so hard that<br>one could barely see (4-5 feet here in 3 days), and stopping to take a better look or have second thoughts was a perilous option<br>(oh, the drama..) <p>Anyway, I figured the park couldn't be far up ahead (see pic#2), so I kept charging through the snow. Eventually, I came to a jumbo<br>4x4 that was stuck, and was pretty relieved to see another human, even one that was blocking my path. He'd been there for over<br>an hour, but unlike me at least had the sense to have a radio on board (smart when you drive these mountain roads in the winter..)<br>After we dug him out, I continued to plow ahead, but all the signs were buried in the 20ft. banks, and I really couldn't tell where<br>(what looked like) roads were leading.<p>So I ended up at the historic Crater Lake Lodge/visitor center (pic 2) which of course was completely unrecognizable from a<br>previous summertime visit. The two remaining park staff there were sorta shocked to see me. I was the first, and only visitor to<br>Crater Lake that day. They had just finished unburying themselves from the visitor center, as the front door had been snowed shut.<p>Finally got onto a road that headed down, and found that it was blocked by pines that had fallen across the road in the high winds!<br>Luckily, since the A4 is not a big fat sport futility veehicle, I just had to break off the top parts of the trees to squeeze by.<p>You should have seen the look on the ranger's face when I came busting out of this road (that they'd closed) in my (deceptively)<br>diminuitive A4Q..astonished, he said that I may want to try to visit the lake in 3-4 days when they had the road open again!<p>This was an incredible ride even though I never got to the lake, but not one that I'd recommend repeating without a 2 way radio,<br>and certainly not alone. I'm glad I didn't get to test the airbags by running into an oncoming plow. Still, I think it would have made an<br>excellent quattro commercial, and I hope it allays all fears of getting the SPORT package for use in the snow (with snow tires!).<p>Rich<br>'98 2.8Q sport

<br>nt

(nt)

Sorry, but I didn't get a picture today. As my 90Q broke down tonight (story on General Audi Forum), I may be a little distracted, but not too much to try again tomorrow. It's too bad, because today was actually a decent day here in Seattle. Would have been good for taking a picture. By the way, as I mentioned in my break down post, my 16" R-28's are scheduled to be here tomorrow for the 90Q. Too bad the car was towed to the mechanic and won't be here for the wheel arrival! :-( I have this feeling my repair bill is going to make me wish I hadn't ordered those wheels! Oh well. So what if I don't have enough money to pay my taxes this year? I'll talk to you guys later, and will hopefully have pictures. Take care!<p>Charles<br>

I got permission today, and took the pictures. They didn't turn out all that great, but aren't bad. It was something I did quickly. unfortunatly, the pictures don't do the reality justice. Oh well!<p>

pic.1<br>

pic.1

pic.2

pic. 3

pic.3

It was starting to get dark when this was taken, but atleast the car was clean! :-)<p>Charles<br>