Does any one have any good (bad) stories to share about about outrageous driving conditions or directions that you survived?

My drive from Hell happened last year, when a friend of mine and I decided to go to Aspen in early February. We had thought of landing at Aspen directly, but then I checked the rating for Aspen airport and found that almost ALL the flights there are delayed for one reason or another.

So we then rented a Subaru Outback and upon arriving at Denver, started on the way to Summit County, only to be greeted by a massive snowstorm. Our route was to go on I-70 to Frisco, then down through Breckenridge to Leadville, and then take the local road (or so we thought) to Aspen... Hahahahaha. There were no warnings or anything on the map...

By the time we got to Frisco there were easily eight or more inches of snow on the ground. We then started the one-hour trek to Leadville and then another half an hour to Aspen (or so we thought) Hahahahahaha

We did notice that the road traffic was nonextistent once passed Breck, and we attributed it to the storm. Two hours later we arrived at Leadville and stopped to get gas at a lonely gas station, where the attendant asked us... What the hell are you doing here? We did explain our plan, only to be answered with loud laughter and a "well, there goes another tourist caught in the trap... The road to Leadville is closed for the winter and you have to go back to Frisco, head West on I-70 to Glenwood Springs, then head South again to Aspen".... He added that the authorities know that people would consider this the quickest map route, but that the Colorado Dept of Transport gets a kick of people getting lost... We were about the tenth car doing the same thing...

So we had to go back, even though Aspen was just on the other side of the range, perhaps 10 nautical miles or so... in the middle of a storm. There was about a foot-and-a-half of snow by then. Not a plow in sight.

Took us another four hours to get to Glenwood Springs in the storm, arriving at Aspen at 1:00 AM after landing in Denver at 5:00 PM the previous day. By then, we had about two feet of snow on the ground and the Outback was proving itself as even SUVs were off the road.

The silver lining was the next day, when virtually everyone else in our group who were flying directly into Aspen, got stranded due to the airport closure because of the storm and had to land at Grand Junction and be bussed to Aspen the next day after an all-nighter wait and a loooong bus ride.

This year, and perhaps forever, I'll go to Switzerland instead. They can keep Colorado.

Normally, I go skiing with friends so that if I ever end up finishing my final run on a ski patrol sled, I would have a way home. Well, one sunday last year, I decided to shoot on up to Whitetail for a 4 hr flex and no one else wanted to go. We were due for a snow that afternoon. the slopes were great and the flakes started to fall and sure enough, so did I, badly pulling a groin muscle while skiing "far side". I made my way back to the main lodge and started to pack up to leave, and by this time, the snow was really falling.
I limp out to the car and then it hits me... I have a standard transmission!The snow was falling heavily now, so I figured the faster I could get home (harpers Ferry, about 45min away) the better. well, about 2 hours later I made it as far as Martinsburg, and stopped at the wal mart for windshild washer fluid, linament, and tire chains for my car.
When I came out there was 9" of snow that was packed down on all the roads. it took me ANOTHER 2 hours to get the twenty miles to my house, where I ended up snowed in for 2 days with too much snow in driveway to shovel with said groin pull.