Excursion up to Stuckagain Heights

My daughter says I tried to kill her on Stuckagain Heights. Her nine-year-old self sat in the back seat with her friend, looking over our shoulders as the car sped backward. The top of the hill faded as the car rolled back up the undeveloped 10-15% incline. Then, as she turned around, she saw boulders, hemlock and alder trees, and the road's edge we were fast approaching. My boyfriend (my husband now) sat next to me in the front seat.  

We would hit the trees, then catapult over the cliff and fall 2,000 feet into the gully, a gully filled with bushes, trees, and rocks. Death was imminent. She was convinced she was about to die.

I heard screams. They heard maniacal laughter - from me.

I was divorced, and my clunker kept breaking down. I called in to work.

“I have no way of getting there, the car won’t start.”

“I need you here at work,” was my boss’ reply. “I will send a taxi.”

I thought, “Wow, that is nice of her.”

She paid the taxi driver cash, and once he left, she turned to me. “You can pay me back for the cab. It was $8.”

That hadn’t been part of the phone call when she said she was sending one. I was shocked. I didn’t make much money, lived in the worst part of town, and had to pay for childcare. I was barely getting by. $8 was a lot back then.

After the divorce, he left me with an old, rusted-out Jeep Gladiator truck, so hard to drive that I had to shift gears with both hands. The emergency brake didn’t hold the damned thing, and my parking space was on an incline. Neighbors told me several times it had rolled back into the street, so I had to put a rock under the wheel. Finally, I had it towed to my ex's office. Take that, thanks for giving me the junk car, EX! Then I bought a car from Rent-A-Wreck, and it was dependable - until it wasn't.

After the taxi incident with my boss, I realized I needed a reliable car. I can't break down with a little kid, take the bus in knee-high snow and below-freezing temps, or afford a taxi.

I called my parents, whom I had NEVER asked for help. I lived 4000 miles away, in the Arctic, in Anchorage, Alaska. I never wanted to involve them in my marital issues, stress them out, or ask them for help. I figured it out on my own, but this time I didn't have any extra cash for a down payment on a decent car. I swallowed my pride and called. I told my mom what was going on and that I was divorcing. I had a job, but I needed a down payment for a newer car. I asked her for $3000. 

Next, I asked one of the truck drivers I worked with to shop with me and help negotiate for a car. We selected Honda for its reliability and Front Wheel Drive for the weather. He nixed all the expensive options, and I was down to a 4-speed stick shift, 4-cylinder, roll-up windows, no air conditioning (who would need that in Anchorage), and no fancy trim. A 1984 hatchback Honda Civic. We made sure I could afford the payments before I put $3,000 down.

That car took me everywhere, even to a remote area, Chicken, Alaska. I paid my parents back in small monthly payments while making the car payment. It handled snow and ice in Anchorage, AK, and on longer drives in all weather and road conditions. Sometimes, I drove it like a race car, shifting right before redlining. The car was reliable.

I made monthly payments to my parents and to the car dealer.

Stuckagain Heights Road (also known as Basher Road) was famous for its humongous potholes. Thus the name. It had a steep incline and was unimproved. Near the top, one mansion-like building sat, large as a hotel, with a helicopter pad. None of us knew who owned it, but the drive up was always an adventurous excursion. From the top, you saw all of Anchorage and the valley; on a clear day, you might even see Mount Denali. The city didn’t maintain that road then; locals had to grade it themselves if they wanted it done. Access to that area has changed since my time, and now you reach it via a different road. Mansions dot the hillside, with expensive landscaping and reinforced drives and walls.

Back then, it was wilderness with a beautiful view of Anchorage, 1,704.7 square miles of it.

The car was climbing the steep incline, but my daughter was nervous as I shifted gears.

She disagrees: it was coming back down that scared her.

The Honda must have been in 2nd or 3rd gear to climb the steep grade to the top. I told her I would roll back a bit and turn around; we didn’t need to go all the way up. Instead of putting it in reverse, I put it in neutral. The vehicle rolled back on its own since the gears weren't engaged. It was out of control.

I planned to twist the wheel and turn around. The mistake was thinking neutral was safe.

Rolling back in neutral is never a good idea. On a very bad road, it’s even worse. A vehicle in neutral takes away the driver’s control.  

The car whipped back, its rear racing toward the cliff as it reversed out of control under gravity.

A stick-shift car. Bad idea. I shoved in the clutch, but I had to decide which gear to shift into. How would I stop the vehicle?

It stopped right before we went off the cliff. The rear tires were just below the lip, stopping the Honda.

The girls were screaming, but I was laughing. Partially nervous laughter, but mostly I found it uproariously funny.

"It's not funny, MOM! You are going to kill us!"

I covered up my mistake - acting as if I intended it - and said: “Oh, please, stop screaming. It’s all fine,” I said.

I shoved it into gear and drove down the hill.

My daughter's memory is very different.

She didn’t want to go up the steep, deeply rutted road. Her head kept bumping into the roof of the car, even when I rolled slowly through the ruts. She heard sticks and rocks clunking against the undercarriage. She saw a male moose with a huge rack of antlers eating the alders by the road. “Are there bears up here?” she asked. I laughed. “Of course, this is Alaska. Look around. It’s bear and moose country.” She was used to moose - they came to the school grounds in the winter to get out of deep snow.

I told her to stop worrying and complaining. We weren't walking; we were in a car, for crying out loud.

She claims rocks suddenly flew up as the tires hit them; the top of the hill rushed away from us, and the car veered toward the edge, rear end first. A car should go forward, not fly fast backward on a hill.

The road grader had pushed dirt to the side, creating a lip before the edge.

Everyone yelled STOP, STOP, STOP, and I laughed. Then the car quit rolling. It was fine.

To which she says, "Yeah, it stopped - JUST IN TIME."

The back end was perched on the lip, but not over it.

I drove down, and she claims she then asked to walk up the hill. I told her no; it was a dirt road with loose rocks and no sidewalks. Any vehicle could come shooting around a bend at any moment and hit her. Safer inside the Honda.

However, she reminds me, given the debacle of almost going over the lip and into the gulley, of me almost killing all of us, maybe it wasn’t safer in my Honda.

#stuckagainheights #basherroad #memories #family

           Copyright © 10/29/2026 by Andrea O. Corwin