2003 x5 4.4 - Suddenly Burning Oil After 80 Mile Trip - Then self resolved!?

[ArNarX5]

Hey guys..
Something strange happened.. Drove my 4.4 up to lake arrowhead, CA which is high elevation in the mountains. Car has never had any issues burning oil, has always been well taken care of and maintained. It drove great and strong up the mountain and then out of no where it started blowing white smoke from both left and right exhaust pipes. I mean the smoke was non-stop, so bad that it looked so white behind me that I could not see through the smoke. Let it cool off, turned it on, etc and the smoke was still there.

Being now dark and having to get back down the hill somehow, I took a chance and slowly drove it back... then I noticed the check engine blinking while the car started to mis-fire and could barely drive up the hills... I gently went up whatever hills I needed to and then let the car roll down all the way approx. 30 miles. All of a sudden, the check engine stopped blinking and the engine started to run normally again. I am confused....I'm happy it didn't need to be towed, but what the heck was that and why / how did it fix itself??

I'm going to hook up the scanner to it tomorrow to see if there are any codes, but what would cause this type of behavior, mechanically speaking?

The only logical thing that comes to mind is the severe change in elevation and low, close to freezing temperatures...

Scrathing my head... any thoughts would be appreciated!