Albania Winter 2000

February 5

    Today our translators and farmer team were on a mountain road that took no prisoners. Everyone was cautious from the start. We packed both vans so that our weight was equalized between the two vehicles. We left this morning under the protection of prayer and a FM radio call that assured us our road was passable. An hour and a half into our trip, five miles onto the one-lane, mountain hugging road, we were faced with a dangerous situation. We had come to a section of a northern exposed segment where the sun has never shone and the ice and the snow had accumulated into a three inch slick platelet producing an un-travelable surface. 
    After stopping the vans, we all walked this choice segment and were somewhat divided as to proceed or not. Besides the three inches of ice, the road was sloping away from the mountain veering down for 1/2 mile. Of course, there are no guard rails. So, we made a futile attempt with a heavy maul to break up the ice as you can see in the picture. We tried to break the cold crust of ice but quickly realized the situation was far too dangerous to travel on. You can see both vans and most of our personnel standing on the mountain curved road on a very bright chilly morning. We ended up having to back up 1/2 mile to the nearest wide point in the road to turn around. 

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