Stranger on the Switchbacks

by Kai Hovden (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find USA

"We're not gonna make it, Kai -- we're going over the edge." Those are the words I heard as I inched our rental car to the very outer edge of the loose gravel road and engaged the emergency brake. Several pebbles were all that separated our passenger-side tires from a sheer cliffside plunging down several hundred feet to the sparkling Westfjords sea. Moments prior, a semi-truck had appeared from over the crest of the mountain, and it was now barreling towards us, slaloming the hairpin turns with harrowing speed. Having traded the megabus-filled Highway 1 along Iceland’s Southern coast for the more remote Northwest region, it had been hours since seeing another car. The oncoming truck seemed to arrive at the worst possible moment. Rocks that had once formed the road were sent ricocheting over the cliff by the churning wheels of the advancing truck. I was sure we were about to suffer a similar fate. If previous roads had felt uncomfortably narrow, this one was downright hostile. It hardly seemed wide enough to allow two mountain-bikers to pass without brushing elbows, let alone a sedan and a semi. It simply was not wide enough to avoid a collision. I thought of times we recently allowed an approaching car to traverse a one-lane bridge before taking our turn. We exchanged joyful looks with our fellow travelers, no doubt born of the majesty of our shared location. But those passings were easy; polite. “No, after you. I insist.” The one about to happen, in contrast, appeared impossible; maybe deadly. As between our Toyota Yaris-eco and the imposing mass of gravity-accelerated metal racing in our direction, there would only be one winner. Trying not to let my face reflect my panic, I scrambled for ideas. Shifting into reverse to attempt a mission-impossible-esque backwards descent seemed unrealistic. Moving forward would only hasten the crash. That left us with only one play: leaving as much space for the opposing driver to thread the needle. We came to halt midway through the ascent, equidistant from both the "dangerous incline" sign below and the peak above. The semi maneuvered the last 160-degree turn separating it from our precarious perch. It picked up speed on the straightaway. Even a pedal-to-floor brake would not stop it now. I glanced at my wife, Ashton, in the passenger seat. I gripped our seatbelts to brace for the collision. What’s the crash safety rating on a Yaris? At the last moment, I peaked over the console. The middle-aged Icelander behind the wheel looked down and gave a friendly, nonchalant tip of his head as he sailed past us with aplomb. Our car rocked from the force of the semi careening past us. Pebbles knocked against our door. Unscathed, I looked back to see the truck level out onto the flat road tracing the edge of the fjord, rust-colored dirt flying up into the brilliant June sky in its wake. “Well THAT was terrifying,” my heart still pounding from the rush of endorphins. Looking back, though, it wasn’t. The driver’s expression told me all I needed to know. His face was calm, almost sleepy. He had probably navigated those switchbacks hundreds of times. This was easy for him, especially on a cloudless summer day. I pictured him conquering the same course at night, or in the rain, or during winter. His slight smile was probably his amusement at our duck-and-cover fire drill as he passed. His look said, “It’s all good. I’ve got this.” And he did. I now feel a twinge of embarrassment for even thinking the semi-driver would send us over the edge. Of course he knew what he was doing. My embarrassment is internal dissonance for not trusting him; for assuming something would go wrong because it was outside of my control. But all travel has an element of trust. Trust in others, trust in yourself, trust in the approaching Icelandic stranger not to knock you off the cliff.