What was your 1st mountain pass you drove on. Or the 1st that scared you!everybody

What scared me the most when i first started driving over in the good old USA was not the actual mountains but the fact that alot of times i noticed on the side of some roads there were no guard rails now thats bad news if you deviate off the road now ain't it. theres some big holes down the side of some roads!

 

US 60 out of Globe, Az ... traveling south back to Phoenix with a Cat 973 track loader on, and then later a D9 north by way of Show Low. Was using correct equipment for the job ... but, both ways raised my stress level quite a bit. Had been on the roads many times before, but not with that much weight.

 

You'll love this!
The first day I drove a truck trailer combo on the job OTR back in 1975 was from Atlanta to Cleveland, Ga to Helen Ga then up to Blairsville ,Ga to Murphy, NC and on into Marysville and Knoxville doing an LTL load. I drove those mountains for years before I really got on the road so to speak even though I was OTR but doing nothing but routes and being home on weekends.

The roads were up Ga Hwy 75, NOT I -75 but a 2 lane road full of twisty curvy mountain roads on up into far North Ga then over to Hwy 129 then into NC on this road. For those of you in the know, Hwy 129 is now called the "Tail of the Dragon"! It's favored by motorcycles and there are many youtubes about the "tail" even one with a Swift who managed to go on it after it was shut down to trucks and another of some yoyo who made it into a ditch with his trailer! I still have the last T shirt I bout at Deals gap back in I guess '95 or '6 with the 311 curves logo on it!

Yes, it was legal for trucks to be on it for many years as was 441 through Dollys part of the mountain of Pigeon Forge down through Raburn Gap and Tacooa where Duling Banjos was made and that whole country was all twisty and turny with maybe a 1/2 mile stretch of straight road to get the kinks out!

I didn't see a "real" as some of you want to call them grade till I did Black Mountain. BUT Black had it's own back road grade! The interstate version of Black was a joke to me and the rest of us back woods drivers! I had the same impression when I finally hit the Gold Coast and was on Donner wondering what the fuss was! Heck they had signs there telling you to "put you foot in it" or to slow down and then The Grapevine?? I almost fell out of my seat laughing so hard listening to those guys sweating a 3 lane easy down hill coast!

Interstate "steep grades" are a joke to those of us who did "real" mountain driving of those smokey mountain and NW Rockie Mountain back roads! Not to mention some of those around Colorado!

Interstate steep hills are all they are! A steep hill! I've done everyone of them!

Even Mount Eagle before it is what it is today! You should have seen the end of that runaway ramp before they rebuilt that hill! There were still pieces of truck at the bottom of the gourge that managed to make it through the gravel of the ramp and go airborne! I wonder how many died there?

 

Rt.60 thru WV. in a cabover road commode with a 270hp 6V92 Detroit and a 6spd transmission.No jake brake,at gross legal weight(73,280).Sometimes it looked like Snuffy Smith and Buster Brown trucks were strung out behind me for 2 miles.I would pull over as soon as I could and let them pass-which seemed to take 5 minutes or more...aahhhh the good old days!! lol

 

60 was a great road... didn't you love snaking thru Charleston's narrow streets?

I have run it a few times in recent years but there are now some restrictions on weight in some places IIRC.

 

Cabbage Hill my very first day driving,Elk Mountain the next day and Monteagle a few days later.
Then Elk Mountain and Cabbage again the other direction and Snoqualmie the same day as Cabbage.
All this in my first 14 days as a driver.

Within the first month I'd also done the Siskyous and Grapevine several times and chained up twice.
Running Western 11 I soon did the coast range in Oregon (Salem to Lincoln City) in snow and Ice,highway 89 in CA through Lassen Nat. Forest and Donner all in snow and ice.
I can't wait for spring lol!

 

I'm reasonably new and have only been over dozen or so passes(i.e vail, donner, snoqualmie, etc.) and the only one I REALLY didn't like was Black Bear(I think this is the name) thru Telluride...It was dark out with snow and ice covering the road and I was pretty much the only person I saw on it...I was very new at the time and absolutely could not wait to get over and thru it...IIRC, it was very twisty with very few straight segments AND to top it off, lots of wildlife, had to lock it up for a mule deer, thankfully I was going uphill at the time and managed to get my momentum again...

I still find myself going extra slow thru them all and have learned to ignore the people squawking for me to go faster while finding it funny how they never pass me when they can...I specifically remember one time when they couldn't pass someone asking "why aren't there ever passing lanes when you need one?". I responded, "to protect people from themselves?"...Got a couple of 'way to put it drivers' and knew I was doing the right speed!...NEVER let someone pressure you to go faster than you are comfortable with, leave lots of space between anyone in front of you and stay alert, doing those will help keep you from coming here and saying "this one scared me"...

DISCLAIMER: That is based on my very limited experience...

 

My first was I-70 west bound, just past Eisenhower tunnel ' Straight Creek Canyon ' no jake with 44,000 lbs of beer in wagon. Then Rabbit Ears Pass on U.S. 40 going into Steam Boat Springs again no jake loaded with beer.

 

I've seen and drove many mountains since I started this career but my beginning was Black Mountain in NC.I was born in TN and never been much out of the Rhea Couny area,so first day of getting on this truck with my husband driving for Caliber out of NC. Load delivered to Detroit and my beloved husband decided I need the experience of driving what I considered a huge mountain,lets say truck driving school never mentioned this.I nearly decided that my nerves weren't going to last as long as my first trip,so how I managed it,and then it got easier until I hit the Rocky MTs. and then I knew I had really seen a mountain.

 

Grapevine. When I started climbing I was like wow this is steep and a bit nervous, by the time we were going down I was passing slower trucks. Steepest was that hill coming from San Diego to AZ on I-8, holy crap.

Was that salt river canyon? That place is so awesome on a bike.