Blue Mountain Vortex

If you are driving along I-84 toward eastern Oregon, you have to drive through the Blue Mountains.  The Blue Mountains are a small little mountain chain in between Pendleton and LaGrande and they top out around 4,000 feet or so at the highest point on the freeway.

Every time we drive through the Blue Mountains, we experience a serious weather phenomenon. Two years ago, on our way back from rock climbing in Utah, we drove through hail about an inch thick.  Later that same fall, on the way back from Thanksgiving at the cabin, it was a snowstorm where we crawled along with the 20 m.p.h. traffic.  This past summer, as we drove back from ABQ, there wasn't any precipitation, but it was a blazing hot inferno.  But, that had nothing on this year's experience.

We're talking about driving up a 6% grade with guardrails on both sides into fog where you could only about 50 feet in front of you.  Seriously, 50 feet.  Cars would pass us and then disappear.

Into the Blue Mountains, never to return!