by Cavan Pasek
Parking at Ouray School is a constant source of amusement - and an intermittent source of stress. Numerous students own rear wheel drive cars, which makes backing out of parking spots during winter much more difficult. Sloped parking, snow banks, and shadows casted over parking spaces make parking at the school challenging. Students are left with the limited upward parking across 5th street from the gym.
Downward sloped parking can make spaces unusable as even a thin layer of packed snow can beach a car. One morning last month, junior Caleb Crandall parked in a spot with some hidden ice under the snow. He shifted his car into reverse and quickly realized he was not getting out without help.
Four of the people he was with, including myself, pushed his truck out of its state of immobility. Junior Landen Hill remarked, “He was spraying rocks everywhere and I got hit in the face with one.” His advice? “He needs to get better tires,” said Landen. “There’s a thing called money, Landen?” shot back junior Roman Sackman. Many students can not afford to splurge on four wheel drive cars or great tires.
The spaces on 5th Street next to the gym are unpopular in the winter because the gym’s shadows create a sheet of ice over parking spaces. “We lose half a parking lot because there’s an entire ice sheet because it’s North facing and in the shadow of the building,” said junior Ethan Wood.
Snow banks constrict the area of parking spaces even more. Plows use street corners to push snow into areas which overlap with the parking across the street East of the gym, reducing available parking by at least two spaces.
There are other challenges, too. “Every morning, we have a police officer who parks and watches as people drive through,” continued Ethan. “They tend to block one of the spots a student may need.”
The tension of limited parking can even cause accidents. Ethan said that he “was actually in one where I backed out of a spot and into the middle of the road and was shifting my car when another student backed out and hit the back of my car.” Luckily, he said, “There wasn’t a ton of damage between either car and it was resolved quickly.”
Principal Mr. Nelson remarked, “You guys park really close to one another over there for it being so slick and snowy.” However, at the very least, the parking situations students find themselves in provide some comical stories.