The McCouns from South Carolina will be telling a story for years to come, of how they got stranded during a ski trip in a blizzard, and a ski shop opened its doors offering them a warm place to stay the night.
Jake McCoun, 37, his wife, and their three children are from Greenville but his parents own a cabin in the mountains in North Carolina. The plan was to hit the slopes on Beech Mountain all day, over Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. Their youngest would stay at grandma’s. Then they would drive home that evening.
It snowed all the way to Beech Mountain. Whiteout conditions on the ski hill made it hard to see but seldom was the skiing so good in the southeastern Appalachians. The family had a blast.
Then, as evening fell, the weather took a turn for the worse. “We started seeing weather reports that the roadsides were getting bad,” Mr. McCoun told The Epoch Times.
They piled into the car. But with standstill traffic, it took over three hours just for the family to exit the parking lot onto the main road.
Dozens of accidents along a five-mile stretch on the road made for slow going, as first responders and tow trucks handled cars that had slid into each other or into guardrails. But at least they were moving.
“[Our] car started sliding, and so we turned around and said, ‘Let’s try the other direction,’” Mr. McCoun said. As the car kept sliding, the McCouns decided it wasn’t worth the risk to continue. Scared kids and one anxious driver led to raised voices.
After executing an eight-point turn worthy of Austin Powers, they started scouring for a place to park and spend the night.
Pulling into a parking lot below the resort, where many cars had taken refuge, they saw a little shop with the lights on, Alpine Ski Center. It was about 10 p.m. They saw a dad with two kids heading inside.
“Are you guys in the same boat?” Mr. McCoun asked the dad.
“Yes, but this shop is allowing people to crash here for the night as a kind of emergency shelter,” the dad said.
Mr. McCoun told his wife and kids to wait in the car while he spoke to the ski shop manager. His name was Kevin.
“Sir, I understand you’re letting people stay here,” Mr. McCoun said.
“Absolutely,” Kevin, around 60, replied. “You guys are welcome to stay the night.”
Fresh out of options, the McCouns accepted Kevin’s gracious offer. Twenty-seven others inside the ski shop had done likewise, and Mr. McCoun chatted with several of them.
Some were young couples, some were children, and some were college students. They were all cold and worried.
“We ended up sleeping underneath the mittens and gloves in the shop,” Mr. McCoun said.
It wasn’t comfortable. The man beside them snored. Sleeping on the concrete floor made Mr. McCoun’s hip hurt. All were free to use the employee-only bathroom—which wasn’t soundproof. And the security lights stayed partially on all night.
But they were safe. They were warm. And the fear their kids had experienced on seeing the lost looks in their parents’ faces had abated. And it was all thanks to Kevin.
Almost. The ski shop owner had given him some vital instructions too.
“[Kevin] had worked a full day of work in the ski shop when the owner of the company said that night, ‘Do whatever you can to take care of people,’” Mr. McCoun said. “For him, that meant, ‘I’m gonna stay open and stay with these people all night and give them a place to stay.’”
Everyone was overwhelmed with gratitude. “I did reach out the next day and called the shop to thank them for their graciousness to us and the other families,” Mr. McCoun said.
The dad also posted the story on LinkedIn, and people across the Internet warmed to Kevin’s gesture.
“I would say 99.9% of the people love the story,” Mr. McCoun said. “We had the occasional trolls that said, ‘What kind of preparation do you guys make? You didn’t plan ahead that you may get stuck up there!’”
Mr. McCoun witnessed none of the stranded skiers buying anything at Alpine Ski Center. But on hearing his story, many online announced that they will call if they need ski gear, to repay them for their kindness. The father said he will be a lifelong customer.
For Mr. McCoun, the episode had some notable silver linings:
Firstly, a lesson. “Be willing to accept someone extending a hand to you,” he said. “A part of me wanted to say, ‘We’ll figure it out on our own.’”
He said, “We don’t want to be absolutely dependent on people, but we want to be thankful when people are willing to extend a hand.”
And secondly—not least of all—the stories. “For the next 30 years, we'll get to tell the story about the time we spent the night in this ski shop.”
