western route

long and boring. make sure you gets plenty of sleep cuz there's not a lot of parking for long stretches.

 

lots of hill and lots of wind. your fuel mileage will suffer a bit but u will be fine

 

Go thru Moab. Better views, more fun, and shorter(miles)

 

I usually go through Billings, Limon, Dumas, to avoid Oregon road tax. A few miles further but a savings IMO. Lots of wind either way.

 

If this is going to be a regular run through the winter months you will likely need to change your route depending on weather and road conditions. Normally I'd run through Pendleton down to Ogden, take the I-84 bypass to I-80, then catch I-25 and select your best route from there (depending on which area of Texas you are going). Moab (as noted above) may be better if the eastern slopes of the Rockies are getting hammered, running down to catch the I-40. I ran the I-40 LA to Amarillo all last winter and only dealt with snow once.

Wind will be the ongoing factor that will make or break your profits running any of those routes. During winter I frequently consult the wind map at weather.com if I have a decision regarding routing or timing of a run that might be impacted by current wind conditions.

 

Barring isolated weather systems, I too would go through Price, Moab and Albuquerque unless I had to go through Denver. I can't see that there would be a nickles worth of difference either way as far as elevation rises but you could look at Google Earth to run an elevation analysis on the routes.

 

as long as he stayed off the 70 going into denver. should he decide that route for whatever reason. them 2 passes are 10,500 and 11,000 feet. and a lot of curves. one of the suckiest stretches of highway in america to be on.

 

I ran the NW out of Amarillo for 10+ years. I-90 is definitely the way to go if you're going non-stop. And if you need to go south, then Moab, Farmington, and 550 over to Albuquerque rather than down thru Gallup.