At age 79, former logger and outdoorsman Gary Hess has negotiated some pretty dicey and dangerous tracks across Southeast Alaska, but few have compared to the multi-vehicle pileup he was a part of Saturday near the intersection of Third Avenue and Mud Bay Road.

Hess calls it his great ice adventure.

Just after noon, Hess was driving his ¾-ton, four-wheel-drive pickup truck up Third Avenue near the Haines Police station when he spotted a small white car that had skidded off the road while coming down the hill in the opposite direction.

“I stopped and asked her if she had a wrecker on the way and the moment she started talking my truck started sliding backwards down the hill,” he said by phone Saturday.

Hess said there wasn’t much he could do.

“I stepped on the gas, spinning my wheels to get control,” he said. “Well, I spun around and slid off the road. I’m lucky I came to rest against a good-sized berm or I would have flipped my truck.”

But the action was just getting started.

As Hess tells it, a smaller red car coming down the hill on Third Avenue lost control and slid into the white car. Then along came Fred Gray in his Delta Western oil truck and hit both stopped vehicles, driving the red car farther into the white car.

“When I saw Fred coming and realized he wasn’t going to stop, I ran across the road to get out of the way,” Hess said.

Connie Staska was driving home from the recycling center and was on top of the hill when she saw people waving her off. “I saw a pileup of cars,” she said. “I saw chaos.”

Then her car began to slide and ended up in a snowbank not far from the other vehicles.

“Around here, we’re all aware of how quickly road conditions can change,” she said.

That’s when resident Jack Smith saved the day.

Smith, who goes by the nickname Big Jack, said he was on his route, plowing local driveways, when he happened upon the ice fiasco.

“I just pulled a couple of cars out of the ditch and sent them on their way,” he said. “It was just another day in the village. By chance I was there when they needed me.”

Smith said it was fortunate that the motorists involved stayed in their vehicles. “It could have been much worse,” he said. “If the roads are slick and people get out of their cars, then they’re unprotected. Then you have real issues.”

Hess, who has lived in Haines on and off since 1965, said he eventually got back into his truck and skedaddled home.

But not before one more embarrassing mishap. For a while, he stood on the road waving away other vehicles from the ice-slicked hill. Walking back to his truck, his feet splayed out in front of him.

“I fell flat on my butt,” he said.

Hess said such conditions are common here.

“We had this real cold spell and then I noticed that it was 37 degrees downtown today,” he said. “Those conditions are the perfect storm for icy roads.”

Hess said the Third Avenue hill out of town is traditionally treacherous after a snowfall.

“I don’t know why the city didn’t put salt down on that stretch of road,” he said. “Every year, as soon as it gets slick and icy, there’s going to be somebody who buys the farm out on that very hill.”

Smith said at least one motorist involved offered to pay him for the road rescue.

“I’m not sending a bill to anyone,” he said. “I might get stuck one day – that’s how it goes around here with the first real snow.”

Then Big Jack Smith laughed.

“Maybe this way, people won’t just flip me the bird,” he said. “They’ll stop and help.”