Keeping RPM's down on downgrade

Is there a general rule of thumb for picking a gear/speed? I know there is that saying use the same gear you used going up the hill and if so is that accurate or just a saying?

 

If the pass is icy, it may be a good idea to park it until it has been cleared. Ice doesn't care how slow you go. If no ice, the key here is slow. If the Jake brake can't regulate your speed in the gear you are in then you need to choose a lower gear. If I have to take a pass that is say 6 or 7 miles of 7% then I keep it down to 25mph or less. At 20 - 25 with constant light braking only, you aren't going fast enough to burn your brakes up. And more importantly, don't worry about how fast the other trucks are going. They may be loaded lighter or simply haven't learned the hard way yet. You new drivers are so lucky to have these modern day resources to gain all this knowledge. Starting in 1980, I had to learn all this stuff myself through trial and error because nobody taught me. I could tell you some crazy stories about how I smoked the hell out my brakes and still had 2 or 3 miles to go. It will make a believer out of you for sure!
The best thing I can say about those early days is that I survived it!

 

Lol you should see the unpaved side of it. No guard rails, close to 400' sheer cliff, tight switch backs, and 8% to 12% grade all the way to the top. You learn how to drive in the mountains quick around here or you don't drive. My training day consisted of having the boss drive us up cottonwood dugway, and I drove us back down. They water the hill in the summer to keep traction and to keep the road. If the didn't it would be a ##### to climb. That said, my decent was right after they had watered it, before the water had been absorbed completely. I came down in 3rd and under at 10 mph, the first time my jake locked my rear wheels, I almost had a heart attack. My boss told me to use my trailer brakes slightly and drop another gear. By the time we reached the bottom I had all but jumped out and made him drive. He laughed and told me that I'd be just fine. After my first winter running up and down it and other dugways, I became comfortable in the bush. It takes time and a little patience to teach someone how it's supposed be done.

 

That's a beautiful stretch of highway. But it can eat your lunch if you don't find the right gear at the top.

 

I think it's fairly accurate. With my set up, I usually go a half a gear lower than whatever gear I climbed it in. If in doubt and loaded heavy start out a gear lower than what you climbed in. You can always up shift, but you'll have to get in your brakes hard enough to get them hot as #### to downshift. My rule that I tell our drivers is that if your brakes are there for emergency situations only, and that the engine brake is for maintaining speed. If you hit your brakes more than twice to maintain speed, you're running a gear to high. When road testing potential new hires, after establishing that they can drive, I take them up the mountain and let them show me if they can drive in the hills or not. Most of them can not. I'm glad your asking questions. It only makes you a better driver.

 

6% grades @ 78K pounds I can put the Jake on in 7th gear and it will slow the truck down with 0 brakes applied. All the way down the most daunting of grades.

If I'm somewhere like the town of Boulder and it's no Jake time ( 6-6 ) the key is starting down slow in 7th or even 6th and just going down slow.
I just stab once in awhile but the engine holds it back pretty well. I usually stab at about 1600 to 1800 and bring it down, all the way down.
I use my Jake in the rain though. I use it in the snow.
Now if your going over the Divide or something and it's fully iced, your a ####ing idiot, and I will comfort your wife or girl at the funeral after they fetch your carcass out of the ravine.

There is a giant speed recommended sign when you come down the hill on I-5 in Oregon. They went to a lot of trouble and expense to erect those signs.

Once 2 super truckers and a Swift all went by me on that grade like I was tied to a tree. I thought "yee ha", and kept mosying down. Bear had all three at the bottom, I couldn't stop laughing for several hundred miles.

 

^^^^^^^....trying to put the picture of east bound I-90 Snoqualmie....and the post together!

What am I missing?