2011 Crow Mountain Hill Climb

2011 Crow Mountain Hill Climb

This weekend was I worked the seventh running of the Crow Mountain Hill Climb. I worked as I always have as Course Marshal. The race is held near Hollywood Alabama on a crooked section of County road 33.

My job is to make sure the course is staffed and ready to run. I also respond to any incidents and help clear any damaged cars from the course.

This year, I loaded up my fire extinguishers, tools and tow straps. I mounted my flashing light and siren on the roof of my Jeep.

We camped in the big hay field at the base of the mountain. It got unexpectedly cold during the night. I have always brought my Carhart coat in the past but I completely forgot to pack it this year. I was really missing it about 1am on Saturday.

did take a walk in the field however and enjoy the beautiful array of stars. Being well away from city lights the stars seemed much brighter than at home. The milky way looked like a huge cloud in the sky.

At 6:30 am I gathered up some pylons from the equipment trailer and carried my road closed sign to the top of the hill. I made it back down in time for the workers meeting which was more about putting people into their correct positions that training this year.

It seemed to take longer than usual tot get every body in place and all the equipment distributed around to the various corners. Janice and Jennifer ended up monitoring start and traffic in and out of side road 111.

I made sure the road was secured at the top with a Jackson County Deputy monitoring it and took up a position just past the finish. I could see turns 11 and twelve from there.

I had relatively little to do. I just monitored the radio net and confirmed that the road was in fact still secure between each set of runs. There were only a couple of red flag incidents neither of which required me to respond. And we have no unexpected visitors coming in from the woods this year either.

Saturday was a long day with racing continuing right up to the 5 pm closing time. The races seemed to be enjoying the hill and getting plenty of runs. The local FM radio broadcast was missing this year so I did not keep up with times.

The organizers had a nice pizza dinner and I won a nice shirt in the worker prize drawing. I lay down in the tent intending to get up and join the bon fire. However, I fell asleep and stayed that way until morning.

Sunday morning was just as cool. I think it was 39 degrees. We got the workers in place much quicker and had the course ready to race before eight. However, the Fire Trucks and Wreckers decided to wait to come based on their experience from the day before. So we all waited on them to show up.

I got to make a fun run up the hill as the big trucks were getting into place. Unfortunately I was past the timing lights when I started so I did not get a time. It was still fun to run the Jeep up the mountain knowing the road was closed and I could use all of it.

Again the day ran without incident. The drivers got as many runs as they wanted. In fact they were all out of tires fuel or energy by 2:30pm. We shut down early due to lack of cars wanting to run.

We cleaned up the course quickly and headed down the mountain. We gathered up the tent and camping supplies and said our goodbyes It was good to see folks that I see only once a year.