IRRIGON — Martin Montes De Oca and his family are like so many across the country.

With the coronavirus prompting social distancing to become the norm, Martin, his wife, Celia, and son, Kristian, were looking to get outside last Saturday and enjoy some fresh air and perhaps find a morel mushroom or two when they took off for a drive up in the Blue Mountains.

The family left their home in Irrigon and took a path they knew well through Heppner and near the Cutsforth Park area, where they saw snow on the ground for the first time.

Martin pressed forward in the family’s Toyota all-wheel drive vehicle and began to climb.

“We were 2 miles past the snow line and going up the last uphill before going downhill into the Ukiah Valley,” he said. “We had used the road before during the summer, but we had to try to avoid these 20- or 30-foot-long ruts that would have high-centered us.”

As Montes De Oca’s car tried to navigate nearly 4 feet of snow, it began to get stuck and spin out on the warming snow that was turning to slush. Celia and Kristian tried pushing the car as Martin drove, but it proved to be a Sisyphean task.

The Montes De Ocas were stuck.

“It was about 10:45 a.m. and fortunately we had packed some food and water,” Martin said. “We ate and said some prayers and my wife finally said, ‘We need to leave because no one is coming through here.’”

Martin looked out the window and saw no other tracks, realizing it was time to take off with their energy at its peak. The family walked for an hour in knee-high snow that challenged Martin’s left leg and the replaced knee in it.

“We walked and walked and walked and I fell a few times, but my wife and son helped me up,” he said.

As they walked toward Ukiah and nearly reached the snow line, they saw a pickup that Kristian was able to flag down. The driver picked them up and drove them to a gas station in Ukiah.

With tow trucks more than an hour away, Martin enlisted the help of Ukiah resident Ronald Eakin to try to get his car free from the deep snow.

“He went and got his friend who had a four-wheel drive diesel pickup with mountain tires,” Martin said. “We got a couple hundred yards into the snow line and his pickup wouldn’t go any farther. They wondered how we ever made it as far as we did without four-wheel drive.”

Eakin and his friend, Kenneth Cowger, were not satisfied just trying their best. The two took Martin back to the gas station to get his family before making them dinner. They even offered the Montes De Ocas a place to stay for the night.

“I called my son, Ivan, who lives in Hermiston, to come pick us up,” Martin said, “I just want people to know there are still really good people out there.”

Eakin said helping motorists dig themselves out of the snow is a fairly common occurrence in Ukiah.

“This is the third one in less than a month,” he said.

The Montes De Ocas are now home safe and sound. As for the car, it has to wait until the snow melts, something Eakin said could be fairly soon.

“If we get the rain like we’re supposed to, probably in the next three or four days,” he said. “If not, maybe another week or week and a half.”

Eakin is making the drive from Ukiah to check on the vehicle as often as he can.

“There’s a lot of good people around Ukiah that will watch out for it,” he said.