Into the Gates of Hell

Into the belly of the beast

I’ve been through the Gates of Hell.

Not the famous Rodin sculpture, which I like very much, but literally to, and perhaps though, the gates.

I’ve been inside a thunderstorm.

Not under a thunderstorm, mind you, where I’m sure you’ve often been, but INSIDE one, without protection of any kind. 

Let me tell you about a trip INTO Hell.

Background

Before we begin, it’s important to know my extended family in Maine are hardcore ATV riders with the largest and latest toys, and all of us have been riding since childhood. We take several multiday trips per year, and while there may be harder-core folks around, I’ve never met any. We take riding seriously, in all weather, on all terrain.

The Ride

So one fine day up in northern Maine the family went for a ride from our base camp in a valley. We took along my wife’s mother who was on her first trip to the USA from China, and certainly on her first ATV ride. We unwittingly gave her a ride she’ll never forget.

Initially, the ride was uneventful. We went through the woods and swamps, up 1000 vertical feet of steep mountain road, and eventually into a plateau of pretty mountain meadows that stretched for miles under a bright blue sky. Through the fields was a nice, well-defined trail for us to follow.

The Clouds

As we rode along the trail, we saw a 500-foot-tall hill at the far end of our pretty plateau. Behind the hill were very dark clouds, of the type you never want to see while out in the mountains. A thunderstorm. And we were riding toward it. And it toward us.

In theory, we could have turned back, but we lacked enough fuel to go all the way back the long route we had come, and it’s best not to be caught out in the open during a thunderstorm. So we continued on, as we knew the trail turned into the woods up ahead and thus hoped we could reach it before the storm reached us.

So we rode on for a while, watching the sky ahead grow darker and more ominous. What started as a few dark clouds behind the hill some miles away eventually spread across a wide swath of the horizon and deepened to a blue-black hue. And much closer.

Indeed, we arrived at the turn a while later ahead of the storm, and as expected, the ATV trail left the field and entered the woods. The sky above had started to darken and as the front edge of the clouds crept above us, we could feel the coming rain.  

Of course, we came prepared with the rain gear we always carried, so we stopped to put on our rain plastic ponchos and hats. The sky grew darker still.

As we were stopped, one of the guys in our group jokingly asked my wife and mother-in-law if they were ready to enter the gates of hell. He was kidding, as he presumed the storm would just pelt us with some rain. He presumed it was not a big deal.

It turned out he was wrong.

The Entry

We entered the forest, with me driving the lead ATV and my wife and mother-in-law beside me on a Polaris Ranger side-by-side ATV (see a good picture). It started to rain a bit. Then more than a bit. Then a lot. Then a whole lot.  

In fact, it rained so hard I could barely see the ground in front of the ATV. It was as dark as nighttime. At 3 p.m. on a mid-summer’s day. In the pouring rain.

This was all less than ideal for me, as I was the lead driver on a trail none of us had been on before, which invokes the danger of hitting something unexpected, like rocks or fallen trees, or worse, driving off a cliff, into a stream, or getting stuck in a tight corner. 

This trail was not well marked, and as the rains came, water rushed down and under our wheels. I just hoped we wouldn’t blunder into any flash floods or sudden streams.

Generally, as lead ATV, I rarely drive slowly, and I felt that the faster we moved through this storm, the sooner we’d get out from under it and into the clear. So I led the group along at a fast jogging pace in the pitch dark pouring rain through an unknown wood.

Then the thunder and lightning arrived. In force and for real.

In Hell

We were in hell. Or what I might imagine hell to be like.

We were literally inside a dark and angry thundercloud, with lightning striking everywhere around us. And I mean everywhere, hitting the trees and ground on both sides, ahead, and behind us — though probably never closer than a hundred yards. But who knows, as lightning lit up the woods continually and with loud cracks — the air was literally electric.

As a kid, do you remember timing the thunderclap after seeing a lightning bolt in the sky?  The number of seconds between lightning and thunder was supposed to indicate how many miles away the lightning had struck. Well, at a range of a few hundred feet, the thunder comes instantaneously and loud. And from all directions at the same time.

This went on for what felt like a long time, as we wove our way through the dark forest, lightning cracking all around and thunder louder than any fireworks show. There was nothing to do but keep going - since as Winston Churchill said:

When you’re going through hell, keep going …

It was actually remarkably unscary, however, as the real danger of being injured was not as high as one might think. As long as we could avoid being struck by lightning or falling trees, we were theoretically safe. Really just a walk in the park; if your park is in the midst of a dark, lightning-streaked apocalypse.

Falling trees and lightning strikes were definitely on my mind, however, as was staying dry and not driving off a cliff. I had no idea how the other ATVs were doing, but they were following along.

This ATV trip was, literally, a ride through hell.

The Exit

Eventually, probably 30 minutes later, the storm blew over just as we emerged from the forest into another big field and into bright sunshine with a pretty blue sky. The storm was finished with us, and we with it, and we returned to having a lovely summer afternoon in the mountains.

Hell was but a memory.

The Aftermath

We vowed not to ignore dark, ominous clouds again, and have managed to avoid hellacious thunderstorms in subsequent years. However, my family and I will be riding ATVs in the area again this year, so who knows what the thunder gods will bring us.

Author on a family ATV

If you liked this article and are not already a subscriber, please subscribe:

---

Questions:

• Have you been in Hell?

• Do you like to ride ATVs?

Resources:

• Thunderstorm Safety from the Red Cross - Funny, it doesn’t mention avoiding ATV rides inside the clouds, so I guess we were okay.