Who's The Worst Of Them ALL to work for?

Big trucks should be more or less forced to use I-84 in my opinion. Climbing Parley's is hard on an engine, especially in the summer heat. Coming down Parley's is hard on brakes. Eliminate these problems by driving I-84. It's pretty much a flat drive going into or out of Ogden. I ran up Parley's only once in all the days I drove. The engine got hot (but didn't quite overheat), and I said that was enough. I did I-84 after that on every run, coming in or going out. Lots of times I've driven my car through Parley's and have seen rigs sitting on the side of the road with steam boiling out of their radiators.

I can't believe people will climb Parley's mountain fully loaded when there is a flat road about 20 miles to the north, a road you will run into anyway at Echo Junction if you climb up Parley's like a snail. Those guys who laid the UP tracks laid them where they did for a reason.

 

I read a report on earthquakes and their potential damage in various western state locations. This was as part of my research into where I wanted to move to once I get my @%$ together and bug out..

An earthquake of magnitude larger than 6.5r on the Wasatch Front would have disastrous results for the Salt Lake and Utah Valleys. Both of these are giant "bowls" sitting in mountains, SL more so than UT. That, coupled with the sandy soul, would result in not only a wave (or waves) of earth "ripples" through the valleys from the earthquakes, but also a reverberating return wave(s) as these earth ripples bounce off the mountains at the opposite end of the valley (in this case the Ochres). Sort of like when you put your foot into the bathtub and the waves from that bounce off the sides of the tub and go back towards the center.

Fun fun.

There is a similar setup for the LA Valley in California, though the Ocean itself acts as one "side" of this bowl and would actually absorb a lot of the energy rather than returning it. Much to the chagrin of Hawaii, I would imagine. The biggest difference here, though, being that the San Andreas fault tends to go off a few times a year, relieving pressure. The Wasatch fault in Utah, however, hasn't made much of a tremor in decades.

 

I ran down parlys one late Dec day in 04 and go hit by a young girl in her brand new jeep cherokee almost nocked me off the freeway but due to the terrific driving of some of the truckers behind us (crowded freway no one hit us) it ended up well for me but not so well for the 22 year old that hit me in the drives with her pretty lil car. She got ran over by my trailer and rolled into the ditch. Thank god she was ok (just a few bruses) and said "it was my fault I lost control" when the ambulance driver pulled her out of the mangled mess. Someone was watchin over me that day!

 

I had a dummy come down Cabbage; into the Arrow Head Truck stop and onto the diesel island with his breaks hotter than fire crackers.

I hung up the hose and climbed back in my truck and went down the road to fuel up. It is amazing they don't have someone out there watching some of these clowns.

Saw a driver come off Grape Vine twenty years ago with no breaks. He lost it about a quarter way down and hit the sand just past half way. The truck was going to fast it topped the pit and smashed into the rocks. He never made it.

Seen some other bad ones over the years and all of them could have been avoided by slowing down and checking equipment before descending.

 

When I was a young lad traveling with my parents, brothers and sister, we stopped for a break in Yellowstone, then proceeded south through the Tetons and Jackson Hole. The next day, we heard on the radio a major quake had occurred in Yellowstone and the park where we stopped was buried along with many campers. 1959.

California use to rock me to sleep at night with the tremors. It is an amazing world we live in. Wasatch 1974, if I remember. I was stationed there. Epicenter was up north of Ogden.

 

It pains me deeply to watch crud immigrating from the cancerous cesspools of the NYC, Detroit, L.A., etc. areas spread their immoral values to the SLC, Butte, Mt., Minneapolis areas, etc.

WE gave vermon our great old cities and they turned them into uninhabitable ghettoes, forever spreading to outlying areas and destroying them.

Is this a figment of my prejudiced imagination....or is it a fact ????

Now they want to spread their crud to mid-America.

For chrissake, stay out of Utah, and let those people be !!!!!....instead of bitcxin about them....you have 49 other states to suck up with one another !!!!

 

Parley's isn't that bad. It's no worse than Cajone in California or Cabbage in Oregon. I routinely go up and down Parley's and do it without getting close to a boil over or smoking the brakes (or even touching them, most of the time).

The trick to going down Parley's that most drivers ignore is to crest the hill slow and to not start shifting up. If you hit the top of the hill at 30mph (you'll usually be between 20-30), don't shift and let your engine brakes carry you, you get all the way down, shifting up one or two gears as you go, and not be going faster than 60mph when the road levels off. The problem with this (and most hills) is that most drivers aren't really taught how to go down a hill and so they tend to do it too fast and use their brakes to make up the difference.

To take I84 is easier as far as hills go, yes, but it's over 30 miles out of the way and puts you into the worst of Ogden-area traffic trying to come back down to where the I80 is when going through towards Nevada. Right now, the I84/I80 interchange in Ogden is right smack in the middle of construction, too.

If you want a rough hill, try UT20 down south of Beaver connecting US89 with I15.. 8%+ grades.

 

The construction is still going on there? I went through there in 2002 and they were working on that road. I guess it never stops.

I remember UT 20 vividly, especially going east from I-15. Dodging the cattle was fun. There's a pretty good little pizza place in Panguitch near the Texaco truck stop. I used to stop in there to reward myself after getting down 20 to 89 without hitting any cows.

Another great stretch is 191 coming down out of Rock Springs/Green River area to Flaming Gorge dam. That's a nice drive, but with some steep grades and switchbacks galore.

 

Funny, I was just on 191 last week. lol That's a nice drive scenery-wise. They've got large portions of it around the Idaho border that are one lane right now, though. Construction. One of our drivers tailgated a paint truck for several miles and got yellow paint all down the left side of his rig. Duh

US50 in Colorado is probably the worst "regular truck route" road I've been on in my career, I think. In the winter, it can be a sphincter-cramping experience. We do potato runs down to Alamosa once in a while using that route.

There are a lot of runs trough central Oregon that are nice to look at this time of year. I'm hoping to see at least one of them tomorrow as I'll be heading towards Salem with a couple of stops beforehand. Too bad Oregon is full of anti-truck Nazis.